Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Dreams’ is back in the US charts thanks to a meme
41 years after it was first released as a single from their landmark album Rumours, Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Dreams’ is back on the US charts thanks to the runaway success of a Twitter meme.
As Billboard notes, ‘Dreams’ has entered the Billboard Hot Rock Songs chart at #14 thanks to a meme that was posted on Twitter on March 22nd.
The meme, which has been retweeted 131,546 times and liked 311,138 at the time of writing, consists of a 38-second video of a dance team moving to the tune. “Fleetwood Mac’s music is so boring, you can’t even dance to it,” the caption reads, accompanied by the counter argument, “Me, an intellectual.”
https://twitter.com/bottledfleet/status/976864863329931265
Billboard notes that the widespread popularity of the Tweet has seen ‘Dreams’ receive a 36% surge in download sales for the last week, while also picking up 1.9 million on-demand streams, which itself was an increase of 24%.
While ‘Dreams’ was indeed popular upon its release, reaching #19 in Australia on the old Kent Music Report in 1977, the single topped the charts in North America, reaching #1 in the USA and Canada. Meanwhile, Rumours topped the Billboard top 200 for 31 weeks, the longest-ever reign for an album by a group in the history of the chart.
Fleetwood Mac last appeared on the Hot Rock Songs chart, which started in 2009, last year after their song ‘The Chain’, also from Rumours, appeared on the Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 soundtrack, reaching #7.
Of course, this isn’t the first time that a meme has led to widespread success for an artist. Why, just cast your mind back to last year when Bag Raiders’ ‘Shooting Stars’ became a viral sensation, eight years after the track was first released.
Since then, the track appeared almost everywhere, popping up in Lady Gaga’s Super Bowl Halftime show and the video clip for Katy Perry’s ‘Swish Swish’. The success of the track also allowed ‘Shooting Stars’ to chart outside of its native Australia for the first time, with appearances on the Austrian, German, French, and Canadian charts, while it hit #9 on the Billboard Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart.
Needless to say, this is serving as sage advice for any artist: if your songs have that viral appeal, you can sit back and let that popularity come to you.
Check out Fleetwood Mac’s’ Dreams’:
This article originally appeared on The Industry Observer, which is now part of The Music Network.