Tuesday, October 13, 2020

Fleetwood Mac's 'Rumours' and 'Dreams' explode on the Billboard Charts!

  

Fleetwood Mac's 'Rumours' is the "greatest gainer" this week on the Billboard Top 200 albums chart as it explodes in sales and jumps up the Top 200 albums chart to #13 from #27 last week as a result of Nathan Apodaca’s viral TikTok video featuring 'Dreams'.  I believe the last time the album was this high on the charts was back in May, 2011 when the entire 'Rumours' album was featured in the Glee episode and it reached #11.

The 1988 Greatest Hits release also sees a major boost on the chart, jumping up to #61 this week from #103 last week.

DREAMS ROCKETS UP THE BILLBOARD HOT 100

'Dreams' re-enters the Billboard Top 100 singles chart at #21 this week based on sales, streams and radio play. The song took off following Nathan Apodaca’s viral TikTok video flying up the iTunes and Spotify song charts. The song is currently No.1 on iTunes in the US and has been for a number of days.  This is the first time the song has been on the Hot 100 since August, 1977!



Sunday, October 11, 2020

LIMITED EDITION GREEN VINYL OF MICK FLEETWOOD AND FRIENDS "THE GREEN MANALISHI" OUT NOV 27

Mick Fleetwood And Friends are excited to be releasing a limited edition, green vinyl 12” of ‘The Green Manalishi (With The Two-Prong Crown)’ live from The London Palladium as part of Black Friday on 27th Nov to support independent record stores. This was recorded at the all-star, one-of-a-kind concert honouring the early years of Fleetwood Mac and its founder Peter Green and features Billy Gibbons and Kirk Hammett.

Find a participating record store




FLEETWOOD MAC AND DREAMS ON THE CHARTS

Huge impact on Fleetwood Mac's music particularly in the US but also in other countries (UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada) where "Dreams" is having an impact as a result of the viral video featuring the track.


   

USA

Rumours moves up 20 spots on the Billboard Top 200 albums chart to #27 from #47 last week. Greatest Hits released in 1988 moves up to #103 from #169 last week. The Alternate Rumours limited edition vinyl album released for Record Store Day on September 26th enters the Billboard Top 200 at #164 on sales of 7,000 unit.

Elsewhere on the Billboard Charts:

Billboard Global 200 (popular songs [streams and downloads] on the planet)

#51 Dreams (new)

Billboard Global 200 Excl. US (outside the US, streams and downloads)

#161 Dreams (new)

STREAMING SONGS TOP 50

#36 Dreams (new)

DIGITAL TOP 50 SONG SALES

#9 Dreams (new)

TOP 25 ROCK DIGITAL SONG SALES

#1   Dreams (up from #19 last week)
#10 The Chain (re-entry)
#23 Go Your Own Way (re-entry)
#25 Gypsy (new)

TOP 100 ALBUM SALES

#12 The Alternate Rumours (new)
#29 Rumours
#46 Greatest Hits

TOP 100 CURRENT ALBUM SALES

#9 The Alternate Rumours (new)

TOP 50 CATALOG ALBUMS

#3   Rumours
#19 Greatest Hits

TOP 25 VINYL ALBUMS

#6  The Alternate Rumours (new)
#24 Rumours

TOP 15 BLUES ALBUMS

#9 Fleetwood Mac 1969-1974 Boxed Set

HOT 100 RECURRENTS

#6  Dreams (re-entry)

TASTEMAKER TOP 25 ALBUMS

#6  The Alternate Rumours

BILLBOARD TOP 100 CANADIAN ALBUMS

#19 Rumours (up from #55 last week)

TOP 50 CANADIAN DIGITAL SONG SALES

#11 Dreams (re-entry)

TOP 50 HOT ROCK & ALTERNATIVE SONGS

#8   Dreams (re-entry)
#23 The Chain (re-entry)

TOP 50 TOP ROCK ALBUMS

#3   Rumours
#13 Greatest Hits
#25 The Alternate Rumours

INTERVIEW Stevie Nicks Releases Powerful "Show Them The Way" with Dave Grohl and Dave Stewart

Stevie Nicks on Her Hopeful New Single ‘Show Them the Way’ and Her Fears for the Next Four Years. 


In a conversation with Variety, Nicks describes the new song as "nonpartisan" and "a prayer." But she has strong feelings about everything from Ruth Bader Ginsburg to wearing masks, and talks about her fantasy exit path if we get four more years of the same.

By Chris Willman - VARIETY

Stevie Nicks wrote the lyrics for her new single, “Show Them the Way,” exactly three election cycles ago. But in the Cameron Crowe-directed video for the song, when someone is pictured holding up a sign that says “November is coming,” it’s clear that it’s this year’s election that’s weighing heavy on her mind.

“I did hold it back since 2008, and I just knew that right now, with the presidential election and everything else that’s going on, that this was the time,” Nicks tells Variety. “I hope that this song and its words will be seen as a prayer — a prayer for our country, and a prayer for the world. It’s a pretty heavy song. And,” she says of the newly recorded version, with Greg Kurstin as producer and Dave Grohl on drums, “I think it’s just a spectacular song.”

Is it a political one? “I hope people understand that it’s nonpartisan — that it’s not for Republicans, it’s not for Democrats. It’s meant to be a moment of peace for everyone, and… you know the silly thing where people say ‘Can’t everybody just get along?’ It’s like, can we just figure a way out of this horrific thing that we have walked into? That’s why I released this now.”

But calling the song nonpartisan doesn’t mean she lacks strong opinions about the seismic changes affecting the country, and which way she hopes things swing in a month. Asked what she means by “this horrific thing that we have walked into,” Nicks answers, without ever naming any names: “I just mean what’s happened to the country. Racism in the last four years is so much worse than it was. I’m 72 years old. I lived through the ‘60s. I’ve seen all this. I fought for Roe vs. Wade; that was my generation’s fight. And I don’t want to live in a country that is so divisive. I go, like, well, if this starts over and there’s another four years of this, then I’m going — but we’re not welcome anywhere. So where can I go? And I’m thinking: Oh, space. Maybe I can talk Elon Musk into giving us a jet and letting me pick 50 people, and we’re like the arc, and someone can take us and let us live on another planet until the next four years are over.”

Nicks says she’s releasing two versions of the song. “There’s an acoustic piano version with me and Greg Kurstin, my amazing producer,” she says, referring to the two-time Grammy producer of the year winner famous for Adele’s “Hello.” “And then we did this rock ‘n’ roll version of it too, with Dave Grohl playing drums and Dave Stuart (of Eurythmics fame) playing lead guitar from the middle out. And. Greg is the most amazing keyboardist; I was so blown away.”

The lyrics are, by her account, essentially a transcription of a dream she had during the Democratic primaries leading up to the 2008 presidential election, when she was in the studio and would come home every night and watch news and historical political documentaries on television every night.

“One night I had a dream that was so real, I was pretty sure it had happened,” Nicks says. “It’s a cinematic story; it had a beginning, a middle and an end, and every detail, every color, every smile was there. And I wrote the story when I woke up. The dream was: I was invited to a party to play the piano and sing a few songs. And nobody’s ever really asked me to come and be the entertainment for anything by myself, because I don’t play that well — so that’s how you know this was a dream, right?” she laughs. “But I had done three benefits in the Hamptons before, so that was up there in my brain somewhere. There were all these political people there, in the dream. The next day I wrote down the words, and then I made it into a poem, then I wrote the music the next day. And since I never recorded it till now, I felt that now was its time, its reason. I understood what it meant then and what it means now.”

Nicks hopes that it is a balm amid one of the most turmoil-fueled times the nation has known — but admits she finds little reason for abject calm with the coronavirus still running rampant. “I would never have put this song out if I didn’t hope that it might put some hope out into the world,” she says. “Because I think that everybody is very afraid and nervous, and we’re all locked in and can’t go anywhere and can’t do anything. People aren’t paying attention with their masks, and other people are getting it. And this virus has never going to go away if the whole world doesn’t get in the game and start wearing their masks and start doing everything you have to do. It’s like a creeping fungus. And it’s going to keep us all locked in our houses and it’s not going to help the economy. Nobody’s ever going to be able to really go back to full-on work, and nothing’s ever going to be the same unless we can get ahold of this thing.”

To her, this is still nonpartisan talk, though it may not be taken as such by all. “The whole thing has become so political. It’s not political, everybody! It’s not. It’s a virus. It doesn’t care what side you’re on. It’s going to kill you. And I’ve said that if I get it it’ll kill me. I have compromised lungs. I was really sick last year. The night of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame [which she was inducted into in 2019 as a solo artist after previously being in as a member of Fleetwood Mac], I knew before I went on stage that something was off, so I had to really like pull it together. The next day I got really sick, and I ended up going into the hospital in Philadelphia for a week in ICU with double pneumonia and and asthma. And talk about your oxygen levels going down — my oxygen levels were hardly existing. If I was to go on a ventilator… My mom was on a ventilator for a month, and she was hoarse for the rest of her life. All the other side effects that come along with this virus… You may get over it and just be like, ‘Great, I’m good. It’s gone.’ It’s not gone. It comes back in little ways to attack you forever.

“So you don’t want to get it. It’s like I’ve built a thin shield of magical plastic around me, you know? Because I don’t want my career to be over. I don’t want to not pull on those leather boots again.”

The “Show Them the Way” video includes a brief glimpse of the Ruth Bader Ginsburg. To many of the rest of us, she may be “RBG” for short, but to Nicks, “I just call her Ruth. Ruth — oh my God, I was just so sorry she couldn’t have hung on for a couple more months. But God bless her. I think she had pancreatic cancer about five different times. It’s the worst cancer you can get, and how she did it, and worked out with her trainer every day — how in the world did that little lady do it? Because she knew how important it was that she stay on this earth as long as she could. And she did her best. She’s our little icon. We’ll never forget her.”

Nicks was speaking with Variety not just about her new studio single, but about her live concert film, “Stevie Nicks 24 Karat Gold The Concert,” which will be hitting theaters and drive-ins — the ones that are open, obviously — for a two-night engagement Oct. 21 and 25, to be followed by a live audio album of the same material Oct. 30. For an in-depth interview with Nicks about that project, look to Variety next week.

Stream | Download "Show Them The Way"

OFFICIAL VIDEO




Stevie Nicks has released the powerful rock ballad “Show Them the Way.”

Stevie Nicks Asks Spirits for Guidance on Powerful New Song ‘Show Them the Way’

Rock star’s ’24 Karat Gold’ concert film will screen in select cinemas and drive-ins for two nights later this month.

By BRITTANY SPANOS - Rollingstone

Stevie Nicks has released the powerful rock ballad “Show Them the Way.” This is Nicks’ first new solo song since releasing her 2014 LP 24 Karat Gold.

Greg Kurstin produced the anthemic new track. Two official versions have been released: an acoustic, piano-only take and a full-band recording that features Dave Stewart on guitar and Dave Grohl on drums. Citing Martin Luther King Jr., John Lewis and John F. Kennedy, Nicks looks for guidance from great leaders while looking to the future. The song is inspired by a real dream Nicks had where she was playing a benefit in the Hamptons, preparing herself to sing for the likes of MLK Jr., Lewis and the Kennedys. “Someone said, ‘Sing us a song, there’s a piano’/And handed me a drink/The room was full of hope/A song would set them free,” she delivers on the vivid tune.

In an interview arriving at a later date, Nicks revealed to Rolling Stone that she had originally penned the song in 2008. She was in St. Charles, Illinois editing a concert film at the time and returned to the house she was staying in to flip through the TV channels. Over the course of the two months that she lived there, she ended up watching several historical documentaries about the same figures that inspired “Show Them the Way.” 

“I watched it all,” she tells Rolling Stone. “Then, what happened was, one night I went to bed and I had this dream. I dream a lot, but I almost never remember the dreams. I’ll wake up and I’ll go, ‘I remember a train with some people smiling and waving at me that went by really fast,’ and that’s it. This dream was so really real that there was a little bit of me, for a minute, when I sat up was like, ‘Did that just really happen?’ So I wrote it down just in prose. I didn’t write it down in a seven verse poem. I wrote down what had happened.”

Towards the end of “Show Them the Way,” Nicks meets a shadow who represents her mom, who worked at a prisoner of war base outside of Phoenix. The figure reminds her: “Don’t forget what we were fighting for,” a quote the singer’s mother had repeated throughout her life. 

She considered putting “Show Them the Way” on her 2011 album In Your Dreams, but had presented it to her collaborators at the time too late. “I said, ‘OK, I totally get it, and it really doesn’t go with the rest of these songs, it would be an outlier on this,'” she explains, adding that she wanted it to feel like the right time for the song to be out in the world. “I think the world is calling for it right now.”

Later this month, Nicks’ 24 Karat Gold concert film will screen at select cinemas and drive-ins for two nights only.

Stream | Download the single 

Stevie Nicks may not be able to tour but she’s been working hard on a new TV miniseries.

Outtakes: Stevie Nicks on Petty, Prince, Beyoncé and Harry


By MESFIN FEKADU - Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Stevie Nicks — who is releasing a new song Friday and a concert film later this month — discusses the TV miniseries she’s working on as well as her relationships with Tom Petty, Prince, Beyoncé, Harry Styles and the members of Fleetwood Mac in outtakes from a recent 90-minute-plus interview with The Associated Press.

PETTY and PRINCE

When editing her concert film “Stevie Nicks 24 Karat Gold The Concert” — recorded over two nights during her 2016-17 tour — Nicks had a realization: “Tom was still alive when we did this, wasn’t he?”

“Honestly, as I was watching the show, for me, he was just alive again,” she continued. “I was like, ‘Oh my God, he didn’t die until after that.’”

Petty died in Oct. 2017. Just months before he passed, the pair got together at the British Summer Time at Hyde Park in London to perform their 1981 hit “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around.”

Fleetwood Mac’s recent tours wrap up with a cover of Petty’s “Free Fallin’” and Nicks said that was always hard to perform.

“It was between Michael (Campbell) and I — it was incredibly difficult for us to even look at each other. I would stand up next to him at the very beginning when it was starting and if I even put my hand on Michael’s back, it was like both of us just started to wither,” she said.

The late icon Prince also has a presence in Nicks’ concert film. She dedicates her performance of “Moonlight” to the Purple One and his photo is above her as she sings the classic “Edge of Seventeen.”

“He was inspired by ‘Edge of Seventeen’ to write ‘When Doves Cry.’ That’s really when he and I started to sort of be friends,” she said. “From that moment onward at the very end of ‘Edge of Seventeen’ I go, ‘I know what it sounds like, I know what it sounds like, I know what it sounds like when doves cry. It sounds like you.’”

BEYONCÉ and BOOTYLICIOUS

Speaking of “Edge of Seventeen,” Stevie Nicks let R&B girl group Destiny’s Child sample the song for their 2001 smash “Bootylicious.”

Nicks even appeared in the video, and remembers meeting Kelly Rowland, Michelle Williams and Beyoncé — who was just 19 at the time.

“I got to sit there with them and hang out with them all day long. ...Then I did my guitar playing part, which was totally fun and so when I left there, I felt like I knew them. I never really saw them again. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Beyoncé since. We had a great day,” Nicks said.

“Bootylicious” not only topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart, it was so popular that the word was added to the dictionary thanks to the song’s success.

“Without all the makeup and everything, they just looked like three really cute, little teenage girls. Then of course, they’re just like me, they put on those — whatever it is that makes them — them. Whether it’s your boots or your jacket or whatever, then they became Destiny’s Child, and I saw it. It was really a marvel to see,” Nicks said. “I always feel like I know them, even though I really don’t. I feel like I know Beyoncé even though I really don’t know her at all. I feel like I know her because I was with them for a long time that day. They gave me a chance to pretend like I was playing guitar. I don’t think anybody ever gave me that chance ever again.”

WOMEN WHO ROCK

Speaking of Beyoncé — who has a chance of matching Stevie Nicks by becoming a two-time member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame — Nicks says she’s sort of bummed she’s the only woman to achieve the feat.

Nicks was first inducted into the Rock Hall in 1998 as a member of Fleetwood Mac, and she made history when she became a member as a soloist last year. Twenty-two men have been inducted twice, including Michael Jackson, Paul Simon, Eric Clapton, Lou Reed and all four members of the Beatles.

“I hope that I will be the catalyst for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame allowing some other women to come in because they should. They absolutely should,” Nicks said. “We are just as good as they are... That’s why there should be more women in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame because we worked just as hard.”

Artists can become eligible for induction 25 years after the release of their first record. Beyoncé will qualify for induction as a member in Destiny’s Child in 2023 and as a soloist in 2028.

Nicks’ advice to women to wanting to be inducted twice: “If they’re in a band, well, just make a quickie solo album somewhere in there. You never know. That’s the only way you’ll ever get into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice. Both careers have to exist for a really long time.”

One of her favorite moments during her second initiation last year? Harry Styles inducting her.

“I loved it and everything he said helped me with my speech, which went on way too long. Probably the longest acceptance speech ever at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,” she said.

WHEN HARRY MET STEVIE

Speaking of Harry Styles, Nicks has become close friends with the former One Direction member since he invited her to perform at one of his concerts in 2017.

Since, they’re performed several times together and Styles even previewed his latest album, “Fine Line,” for Nicks and some of her friends before it was released in December.

“He’s watching me to learn, just like I watched Jimi Hendrix to learn or I watched Janis Joplin or I watched Buffalo Springfield or I watched all the different bands that Lindsey and I opened for,” Nicks said of Styles.

Though they haven’t written or recorded together, Nicks admits “we will.”

Styles topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart this year with the sweet pop song “Watermelon Sugar” from his new album. But Nicks says she feels “so bad for him that this stupid pandemic had to happen right as ‘Fine Line’ was coming out.”

She gives Styles credit with warning her about the serious impact the pandemic would have on touring.

“This is before they locked us down, I said to him, ‘You know, it’s going to be a long time until we actually walk onstage again.’ ... In all of his 26-ness to a 72-year-old he said, ‘I don’t think that we’ll be back onstage until the end of 2021.’ This was February. I said, ‘Are you serious? Are you kidding? Really? That’s what you think?’ He goes, ‘That’s absolutely what I think.’”

“He became like this sage, man of wisdom, I was like, ‘Wow! I hope you’re wrong.’ But he’s absolutely right.”

CALL ME MAYBE

Speaking of friends Stevie Nicks have been in touch with — don’t count the members of Fleetwood Mac.

“I haven’t talked to anybody in Fleetwood Mac. I haven’t even talked to Mick. I’m really, really good friends with Mick,” she said. “Not only did I not call them, but they didn’t call me either. It seems like everybody is very much existing in their own bubble. It’s like there are people that I really need to call that are important to me that I have not called.”

Fleetwood Mac wrapped a yearlong tour in December, just months before the pandemic hit.

“Whenever I feel really guilty, then I say to myself, ‘Well they haven’t called you either.’ That’s your excuse out. Soon as somebody calls you, then you have to call them back,” Nicks continued. “It’s society of pandemic. We’re all going to be so excited when it’s over that we’re all going to be over-friendly and calling people all the time and people are going to be like, ‘Back off. Stop.’ I think that hopefully we’re all going to get through this and please God will show us the way and we’ll be OK.”

STEVIE TV

Speaking of the pandemic, Stevie Nicks may not be able to tour but she’s been working hard on a new TV miniseries.

The show is based off the Welsh goddess Rhiannon, which inspired Nicks to write the 1975 Fleetwood Mac hit of the same name. After learning more about Rhiannon, Nicks bought the rights from author Evangeline Walton’s adaptation of the ancient British Mabinogion, which includes the Rhiannon story.

“I was in meetings for that in January and February before this thing happened,” she said. “It’s one of the few kinds of work that actually can go on in a pandemic.”

Nicks has also been bingeing TV shows with her two goddaughters and assistant, naming favorites like “The Last Kingdom,” “Outlander,” “The Crown,” “Victoria,” “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” “Law & Order,” “Chicago P.D.” and “Chicago Med.”

“I think it’s creative for me to watch all that good TV because it is good and it’s fun. And it takes your mind off of everything that’s going on. We’re watching movies for ‘Rhiannon,’ we’re watching the old Excalibur movies and the King Arthur movies. All the medieval movies, even the really old ones. That’s really good too because that kind of keeps you in sort of that mindset also,” she said.

“We don’t seldom just sit around at night and talk, because there is nothing left to talk about. We’ve told every story that any of us have ever heard 50,000 times over the last 30 years. So, we’re done talking.”