VISUALIZATION

I created a circle packing data visualization on RAWGraphs in hopes of showcasing the hierarchy of albums based on their overall popularity. Each black ringed circle (containing the variety of colored circles) represents a different album—the bigger the circle, the more popular the album on Spotify. As expected, Rumours was the most popular studio album released by the band, and therefore holds the largest cluster of circles. Some album circles, on the other hand, are comparatively much smaller, such as Penguin or Bare Trees. These albums lack in popularity, hence their smaller size. The literal circles aren’t configured in any specific order, though each is appropriately labeled with the album it corresponds to. Within each ‘album circle’ contains a cluster of colored circles, each representing a different song on the album it comes from. Each circle ranges in size—the size being determined by total Spotify streams (the larger the circle, the more times said song was streamed on Spotify). For example, in the Rumours circle, there are 11 circles, representing the 11 songs on the album. The largest pink circle represents “Dreams,” the most streamed song released by Fleetwood Mac. It’s important to note that the Rumours is divided into two circles because the data I found was for the Super Deluxe album, therefore I divided it based on Side A and B. 

​

The colors were selected purposefully. As displayed to the right of the data visualization is a key, explaining that each color corresponds to a different band member. As I’ve mentioned before, many members came and left the band, and by creating this visualization I hoped to show the contribution they were able to make during their duration in the band. Therefore, the colors represent which member wrote what song on each album. The largest circles are pink, navy blue, green, and mustard yellow. As seen under the key, pink indicates that Stevie Nicks wrote the song, navy blue Christine McVie, green Lindsey Buckingham, and mustard yellow means that more than two band members collaborated to write the song. While the key only covers the most frequent songwriters in the band, if you were to zoom in on album circles like Time or Behind the Mask you’d find new colors, each representing a different, lesser known band member. For example, the lime green seen under Time and Behind the Mask indicates that Billy Burnette (in the band from 1988 to 1992) wrote the song. Considering Fleetwood Mac's complex and intense history, I chose to only include the most popular songwriters under the key to make the data visualization more digestible.