In the second episode of Agatha All Along, we meet Alice Wu-Gulliver (Ali Ahn), the daughter of deceased rock star Lorna Wu. And as we discover pretty quickly, Lorna Wu sold 40 million copies of her cover of “Ballad of the Witches’ Road.” This sounds like a lot of copies, but is actually an insane amount of copies, as that would make it one of the best-selling songs in history — more than Elton John’s “Candle in the Wind” and Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You.”
To take a quick step back, in the episode, we discover that Alice’s mom was part of a band called Lorna Wu and the Coral Shore. Lorna recorded a cover of “Ballad of the Witches’ Road,” the song witches sing to enter the Witches’ Road and begin their trials (aka, the plot of the series). We also find out that Lorna was a witch, and died either on tour or immediately after she was on tour. Tracking down Alice, Teen (Joe Locke) and Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn) get her fired from her mall security job. As they follow her, trying to convince her to travel the Witches’ Road with them, she fires back, “You groupies don’t get it. It’s just a stupid song.” To which Teen replies, “Um, forty million copies worldwide beg to differ.”
There’s more to the scene, and the episode, but what I want to focus on is the 40 million copies.
Forty? Million? Copies???
That would make it not just a best-selling album, but one of the best-selling albums of all time. To give you a sense of scale here, the best-selling album ever is Thriller by Michael Jackson, with a reported 70 million copies sold. There’s another aspect to this, which is that record companies report their own sales, and then there’s music recording certification, i.e. verifiable sales. In this case, Thriller has 51.2 million certified sales.
To make this easier, though, let’s assume Teen isn’t being didactic, and focus on the general sales numbers. 40 million albums would put it below The Eagles Hotel California (which sold 42 million albums), and on par with Shania Twain’s Come On Over, Fleetwood Mac’s Rumors, and The Bee Gees’ Saturday Night Fever. All three of those albums sold 40 million copies — and chances are writer Jac Schaeffer saw Fleetwood Mac and glomphed (technical term) that number over to Lorna Wu and the Coral Shore.
Adding fuel to that particular fire, Agatha is not-so-subtly dressed like Fleetwood Mac singer Stevie Nicks in that scene, presumably to try and convince Alice to come with them by reminding her of her mother.
This raises a host of other questions, though. If Lorna Wu and the Coral Shore is analogous to Fleetwood Mac in the MCU, did Fleetwood Mac exist? Was there enough room for two best-selling pop-rock groups at around the same time, with potentially the same witchy vibe?
There’s another possibility, though, which is that Teen is referring to the single for “Ballad of the Witches’ Road” and not an album. If that’s true, though, it would be the second best-selling single of all time, right under Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas.” The number three in this case would be Elton John’s “Candle in the Wind 1997” with 33 million singles sold. It’s also more than Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You,” Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On,” and even Mariah Frickin’ Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You.”
I’d still assume Teen was referring to the album, not the single. But you’d have to imagine “Ballad of the Witches’ Road” was released as a single as well, so who knows how many copies that sold. A billion???
It also raises questions about why we’ve never heard of them before. Captain America (Chris Evans) didn’t add Lorna Wu and the Coral Shore to his list of things to catch up on in Captain America and the Winter Soldier. And more damningly, Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) didn’t have them on any of his mixtapes in the Guardians of the Galaxy movies. You know what he did have, though? “The Chain” by Fleetwood Mac. So make that make sense, Marvel!
Perhaps the answer here is simple, though. Yes, Lorna Wu sold 40 million albums. And yes, her band is similar to Fleetwood Mac. How did she do it? Magic, of course.
Where To Watch Agatha All Along:
Agatha All Along Premiere Dates And Episode Guide:
The first two episodes of Agatha All Along premiere September 18 at 6 pm PT / 9 pm ET on Disney+. It will stream weekly episodes after that, leading up to the two-episode finale on October 30. There are nine episodes, in total.
Here’s the full list of episodes in Agatha All Along, with premiere dates:
- Wednesday, September 18, 2024: Agatha All Along, Episode 1: “Seekest Thou The Road”
- Wednesday, September 18, 2024: Agatha All Along, Episode 2: “Circle Sewn With Fate Unlock They Hidden Gate”
- Wednesday, September 25, 2024: Agatha All Along, Episode 3
- Wednesday, October 2, 2024: Agatha All Along, Episode 4
- Wednesday, October 9, 2024: Agatha All Along, Episode 5
- Wednesday, October 16, 2024: Agatha All Along, Episode 6
- Wednesday, October 23, 2024: Agatha All Along, Episode 7
- Wednesday, October 30, 2024: Agatha All Along, Episode 8
- Wednesday, October 30, 2024: Agatha All Along, Episode 9