A Meme Pushes Fleetwood Mac's 'Dreams' Onto Hot Rock Songs Chart
4/3/2018 by Kevin Rutherford
The 1977 Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 returns at No. 16 on Hot Rock Songs.
For the second week in a row, a meme helps an older song onto Billboard's Hot Rock Songs chart.
Fleetwood Mac's Rumours classic "Dreams" enters the tally (dated April 7) at No. 14 thanks to its usage in a meme showing people dancing to the song, which hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in June 1977.
A March 22 tweet from Twitter user @bottledfleet reads, "Fleetwood Mac's music is so boring, you can't even dance to it." It was followed by the counter argument, "Me, an intellectual:," featuring a 38-second clip of Alcorn State University's Golden Girls dance team boogying to "Dreams."
“Fleetwood Mac’s music is so boring, you can’t even dance to it”
— i m m i g r ❀ n t (@bottledfleet) March 22, 2018
Me, an intellectual: pic.twitter.com/2QmrFycHy2
The widespread sharing of the tweet -- which had earned over 100,000 retweets and 300,000 likes as of April 3 -- and other similar tweets referencing the meme helped spark the song's 36 percent surge in download sales in the latest tracking week (March 23-29) to 2,000, according to Nielsen Music. Additionally, the song racked up 1.9 million on-demand streams, a 24 percent gain.
Fleetwood Mac makes it second appearance on Hot Rock Songs, which began in 2009. Last May, fellow Rumours track "The Chain" hit No. 7 after its inclusion on the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 soundtrack.
The resurgence of "Dreams" also benefits Rumours on the Top Rock Albums chart, as the 1977 album jumps 21-13 with 7,000 equivalent album units, up 12 percent. (The set topped the Billboard 200 for 31 weeks beginning April 2, 1977, still the longest reign for an album by a group in the chart's history.)
"Dreams" isn't the only recent example of a mostly social media-based meme boosting a song on the charts. Last week, Blonde Redhead's "For the Damaged Coda" re-entered Hot Rock Songs at No. 16 after it was utilized in a Rick and Morty-adjacent meme that helped boost the song's sales and streams.