Queen :: Charts & Sales History

[loris39]

Most listened studio album:
A Night At The Opera: 157,919,452

But this album includes Bohemian Rhapsody with a count of almost 114m plays. But Bohemian Rhapsody is also included in various Compilation and Live albums so there is no way of knowing exactly how many plays came from just A Night At The Opera. It might only contribute 20m plays. This methodology leads to double counting. The same would be true for all artists obviously.

The 114,000,000 figure is the total tally of the song, independently from where you listen to it (Greatest Hits, Platinum Collection, A Night At The Opera).
As I said before, there's not a count for studio albums. The 157,919,452 figure I mentioned was the total sum of the songs which compose the A Night At The Opera album, which can obviously be listened through the album or through the compilations. But this doesn't lead to a double counting. When I put the total of more than 1,000,000,000 for Queen, I didn't cleraly count the compilations, but I did count the figures through the studio albums. The only exception were Who Wants To Live Forever and Hammer To Fall, that had two different countings between the studio album version and the compilation.
Obviously we can find Bohemian Rhapsody in several live albums too, where each live album has its independent count, for
example:
Bohemian Rhapsody in Hungarian Rhapsody: 984,752
Bohemian Rhapsody in Rock Montreal: 1,150,016
Bohemian Rhapsody in Live At Wembley: 1,450,587

[HUR]

With Spotify and streaming, the distinction between studio albums, compilation and hits songs isn't all that important anymore.

With this platform, you can do whatever you want: you can listen to a compilation, a studio album, cherry-pick some hit songs from the studio albums or just some albums cuts. You can do whatever you want as a user of that social service. You then add up all the streams and get result for each act in order to compare.

Some concepts by MJDangerous:

"Yes, I really enjoy Streaming figures. They are so much better than old "sales". No more availability issues, no more acts getting avantaged / disavantaged because they sell only singles, only albums or both, no more acts getting zillions of sales because they are presents favorites despite nobody listen to them, no more albums getting praise thanks to high peaks only because of fanbases, no more acts penalized because they are popular on poor areas that favorised piracy and had very low level of official sales, no more discrimination depending on the era the act was hot, no more figures ridiculously inflating the artist popularity because he has hundreds of albums, etc etc. With streamings all acts from everywhere around the world are on a par. All those issues I just mentioned distorting real popularity perception on Sales world are solved thanks to Streaming world."

According to some numbers from April 2015, this is what some catalogue bands had achieved by then on Spotify (not comprehensive):

Queen - 595 million
The Rolling Stones - 505m
U2 - 495m
Nirvana - 465m
Pink Floyd - 350m
Led Zeppelin - 200m
Abba - 200m

MJDangerous also added:

"Definitely, Queen results are pretty outstanding. Even crossing over to other acts rather than only rock bands, their plays totals impress. Another One Bites The Dust is the 10th biggest hit from the 80s, I'll let you judge how big that is by looking at the 9 tracks ahead: Don't Stop Believing / Billie Jean / Eye Of The Tiger / Africa / Man In The Mirror / Beat It / Sweet Child O' Mine / Livin' On A Prayer. Under Pressure is 13th of the decade which is incredible, ahead of Thriller (14th) and Smooth Criminal (16th). I Want To Break Free is 29th, two spots ahead of In The Air Tonight by Phil Collins. When we see how cult songs at the bottom of the Top 100 are (Kiss, Another Day In Paradise, Brothers In Arms, Karma Cameleon, Uptown Girl, Careless Whisper etc) this highlight how good it is to rank 3 songs in the Top 30."

And these are the biggest songs off the 70s available on Spotify, also from April 2015:

1 Queen Bohemian Rhapsody - 75m
2 Queen Don't Stop Me Now - 58,8m
3 Bob Marley No Woman, No Cry - 45,9m
4 Stevie Wonder Superstition - 45,5m
5 Creedence Clearwater Revival Have You Ever Seen The Rain - 43,2m

Queen top the Top 2 of the decade.

[brian05]

Obviously we can find Bohemian Rhapsody in several live albums too, where each live album has its independent count, for
example:
Bohemian Rhapsody in Hungarian Rhapsody: 984,752
Bohemian Rhapsody in Rock Montreal: 1,150,016
Bohemian Rhapsody in Live At Wembley: 1,450,587

So are you saying the count for a studio album and a compilation will be the same (114m for Bohemian Rhapsody), but that live tracks are treated differently and have their separate count?

If so, then I understand your methodology.

[HUR]

Greatest Hits at number 49 on the last UK chart.

48 The Beatles (White Album) 3,553

Queen's Geatest Hits must have sold more than 3,000 units this past week. Maybe Loris can help us with its annual sales during 2015.

[loris39]

Obviously we can find Bohemian Rhapsody in several live albums too, where each live album has its independent count, for
example:
Bohemian Rhapsody in Hungarian Rhapsody: 984,752
Bohemian Rhapsody in Rock Montreal: 1,150,016
Bohemian Rhapsody in Live At Wembley: 1,450,587

So are you saying the count for a studio album and a compilation will be the same (114m for Bohemian Rhapsody), but that live tracks are treated differently and have their separate count?

If so, then I understand your methodology.

Exactly. The studio album version is just one, while the live album versions are counted for each live album.

Greatest Hits at number 49 on the last UK chart.

48 The Beatles (White Album) 3,553

Queen's Geatest Hits must have sold more than 3,000 units this past week. Maybe Loris can help us with its annual sales during 2015.

Queen have surely exceeded the 200,000 albums in UK. Just to make a summary, these are my estimations:


Greatest Hits: 75/80,000 copies
Greatest Hits II: +30,000 copies
Platinum Collection: around 25,000 copies, perhaps something more
Queen Forever: 40/45,000 copies
A Night At The Odeon: 12,000 copies
Rainbow/Hungarian Rhapsody: 10/12,000 copies, mainly thanks to the streaming market
Studio albums: 25/30,000 copies

What do you think?


At global level, if we take into consideration the non-British countries, in the USA, Queen albums have always been in Billboard top-200 except one week, with Greatest Hits "We Will Rock You" edition, Platinum Collection and Greatest Hits. My estimation (counting the streaming sales) for USA + UK + Italy (counting the sales from TV Sorrisi E Canzoni) brings a total of more than 1,000,000 units.

[thebigham]

http://hitsdailydouble.com/building_album_chart

BUILDING ALBUM SALES CHART

Chart Date: 01/01/2016

Status: Final

re-entry 49 QUEEN GREATEST HITS HOLLYWOOD 7,356

Crazy!

[HUR]

Thank you, Thebigham.

Queen have surely exceeded the 200,000 albums in UK. Just to make a summary, these are my estimations:

Greatest Hits: 75/80,000 copies
Greatest Hits II: +30,000 copies
Platinum Collection: around 25,000 copies, perhaps something more
Queen Forever: 40/45,000 copies
A Night At The Odeon: 12,000 copies
Rainbow/Hungarian Rhapsody: 10/12,000 copies, mainly thanks to the streaming market
Studio albums: 25/30,000 copies

What do you think?

At global level, if we take into consideration the non-British countries, in the USA, Queen albums have always been in Billboard top-200 except one week, with Greatest Hits "We Will Rock You" edition, Platinum Collection and Greatest Hits. My estimation (counting the streaming sales) for USA + UK + Italy (counting the sales from TV Sorrisi E Canzoni) brings a total of more than 1,000,000 units.

Thank you, Loris. Very interesting British figures, they look pretty accurate to me. Geatest Hits must have sold close to 350,000 copies since reissued in 2011, with both Greatest Hits II and Platinum Collection approaching 150,000 each. Whilst Forever seems to have done over 190,000.

As usual, the studio albums are the hardest ones to estimate. I tend to assume they are doing 25,000 to 50,000 each year, overall.

And I also agree with the final million figure combining UK, USA and Italy, where about 420,000 albums were sold thanks to the TV Sorrisi & Canzoni releases. Out of interest, I'm almost sure Platinum Collection will chart amongst the Top 100 albums of the year in Italy for 2015.

By the way, all the albums were also released by La Nación in Argentina during 2015: http://opcionales.lanacion.com.ar/opcio ... a-inmortal

This is similar to what they did in Spain and Poland some years ago. They put out 24 different CDs. No figures.

[EdWood]

http://hitsdailydouble.com/building_album_chart

BUILDING ALBUM SALES CHART

Chart Date: 01/01/2016

Status: Final

re-entry 49 QUEEN GREATEST HITS HOLLYWOOD 7,356

Crazy!

I thought it would do well this week as its been high on US iTunes albums chart all last week - up to the top 30s.

Its also been doing well all over iTunes - it is currently the 9th top ranked album on there - charting high in the US, Canada, Mexico, the UK and all over Europe and the smaller territories.

It would be good for it to be re-certified in the US - surely it is nearly at or above diamond status?

[innocenteyes]

Greatest Hits has landed at #84 in the 2015 Australian Year End Chart

[Bemused]

Can someone tell me is the Queen Greatest Hits that is currently on the Billboard 200 chart the 1992 version without Bohemian Rhapsody or the 2004 'We will rock you' greatest hits?

[loris39]

Can someone tell me is the Queen Greatest Hits that is currently on the Billboard 200 chart the 1992 version without Bohemian Rhapsody or the 2004 'We will rock you' greatest hits?

The Greatest Hits that is now in the USA chartt is the 1992 version. Even if, on ITunes, in the USA, Greatest Hits is available in the European version. Both the We Will Rock You edition and the 1992 version are not available on ITunes at the moment.

[slightlymad]

Greatest Hits has landed at #84 in the 2015 Australian Year End Chart

Greatest Hits has landed at No77 in the 2015 UK Year End Chart

Not bad at all, I was quite surprised to see none of Queen's re-issued Vinyls make it onto the Top40 Year End Chart, does anybody have any sales info for the re-issues?

[HUR]

Thanks you both Innocenteyes and Slightlymad. Good news from UK and Australia.

In the UK, according to Paul H (Vidcapper) on Haven, Greatest Hits sold 86,000 copies to chart at number 78 on End of Year chart.

78 - 79 - 86,000 - 6,168,000 - Queen - Greatest Hits - 07/11/81 - 35

Maybe Loris knows better, but Greatest Hits has sold around 350,000 in the UK since reissued in 2011.

In Australia, sales must be 70,000 to 100,000 since 2011.

[thebigham]

1/16/16 Billboard 200

65 174 – 259 Greatest Hits, Queen

Exact album sales:

QUEEN|GREATEST HITS ( 75) 6,848 = 114 12 129 6594

[loris39]

Thanks you both Innocenteyes and Slightlymad. Good news from UK and Australia.

In the UK, according to Paul H (Vidcapper) on Haven, Greatest Hits sold 86,000 copies to chart at number 86 on End of Year chart.

78 - 79 - 86,000 - 6,168,000 - Queen - Greatest Hits - 07/11/81 - 35

Maybe Loris knows better, but Greatest Hits has sold around 350,000 in the UK since reissued in 2011.

In Australia, sales must be 70,000 to 100,000 since 2011.

Excellent numbers in Australia. I remember that, when it was certified Platinum for the 15th time, Greatest Hits spent several weeks in Top-50 and in 2015 he did well again. So I think it could have sold 100,000 copies since 2011.
In UK very good results. I like 6,168,000 . 350,000 copies for Greatest Hits and 150,000 both for Greatest Hits II and Platinum Collection can be reliable figures, to which we have to add the 190,000 copies for Queen Forever. They're good numbers.
In Italy, Platinum Collection isn't unfortunately in the year-end top-100. It did well though, reaching Platinum some weeks ago. I think it might be on the 9,000/10,000 copies in 2015.

1/16/16 Billboard 200

65 174 – 259 Greatest Hits, Queen

Exact album sales:

QUEEN|GREATEST HITS ( 75) 6,848 = 114 12 129 6594

Using the TEA & SEA system, at the place #71 there is "EP" by Daya. It has sold 12,000 units this week. "Greatest Hits" by Queen is at place #65, so this means it has sold at least 13,000 units. We are aware that the pure sales are just 6,848. To this figure we have to add the probable 1,000/1,200 units coming from the streaming market. Probably 4,500/5,000 units come from the digital tracks. If my estimations were correct, then as digital track, it could have sold around 45,000/50,000 units in the USA. I don't know if also Bohemian Rhapsody is counted too, I think it is.

[Bemused]

Can someone tell me is the Queen Greatest Hits that is currently on the Billboard 200 chart the 1992 version without Bohemian Rhapsody or the 2004 'We will rock you' greatest hits?

The Greatest Hits that is now in the USA chartt is the 1992 version. Even if, on ITunes, in the USA, Greatest Hits is available in the European version. Both the We Will Rock You edition and the 1992 version are not available on ITunes at the moment.

Why are americans still buying GH without Queen's most famous song on it? Why don't they download the european version at least?

[HUR]

After David Bowie's sad passing, Under Pressure is having an obviously excellent performance in Itunes and Spotify.

Under Pressure

iTunes:
#14 Israel
#16 Czech Republic
#17 Brazil
#17 Colombia
#18 Luxembourg
#19 United States
#22 New Zealand
#23 Chile
#25 Portugal
#26 Singapore
#28 Peru
#29 Australia
#29 Canada
#31 Ireland
#35 United Kingdom
#35 Belgium
#38 Chile
#42 Norway
#44 Austria
#48 Italy
#48 Saint Kitts and Nevis
#50 United States
#50 Greece
#52 Spain
#53 Denmark
#54 France
#57 Switzerland
#61 Brazil
#62 Malaysia
#63 Mexico
#64 Canada
#65 United Arab Emirates
#69 Netherlands
#70 Luxembourg
#70 Philippines
#71 Spain
#72 Ireland
#73 Poland
#75 Bahrain
#78 Cayman Islands
#81 New Zealand
#82 France
#82 Italy
#83 Brazil
#88 United Kingdom
#92 Netherlands
#94 Barbados
#94 Israel
#102 France
#103 Australia
#103 Netherlands
#104 Portugal
#106 Germany
#111 Portugal
#113 South Africa
#115 Austria
#115 New Zealand
#117 Mexico
#124 United Kingdom
#128 Australia
#132 Denmark
#136 Belgium
#156 Germany
#156 Netherlands
#158 Sweden
#160 Italy
#173 El Salvador
#176 Israel
#190 France
#193 Belgium
#193 Switzerland
#196 Spain
Spotify:
#9 Portugal
#13 Belgium
#14 Ireland
#15 Italy
#17 United Kingdom
#18 Australia
#18 France
#19 Worldwide
#20 New Zealand
#21 United States
#26 Sweden
#29 Switzerland
#30 Canada
#31 Poland
#34 Austria
#40 Spain
#40 Turkey
#46 Mexico
#47 Chile
#48 Argentina
#48 Netherlands
#49 Germany
#52 Hong Kong
#55 Brazil
#55 Peru
#59 Norway
#61 Finland
#61 Singapore
#66 Taiwan
#67 Colombia
#67 Denmark
#75 Malaysia
#76 Costa Rica
#132 Philippines

[brian05]

According to some numbers from April 2015, this is what some catalogue bands had achieved by then on Spotify (not comprehensive):

Queen - 595 million
The Rolling Stones - 505m
U2 - 495m
Nirvana - 465m
Pink Floyd - 350m
Led Zeppelin - 200m
Abba - 200m

According to Universal the Beatles did 250m streams in 12 days (and 1m copies of the 1DVD globally up to Christmas).

[HUR]

According to some numbers from April 2015, this is what some catalogue bands had achieved by then on Spotify (not comprehensive):

Queen - 595 million
The Rolling Stones - 505m
U2 - 495m
Nirvana - 465m
Pink Floyd - 350m
Led Zeppelin - 200m
Abba - 200m

According to Universal the Beatles did 250m streams in 12 days (and 1m copies of the 1DVD globally up to Christmas).

Maybe The Beatles will soon top this list, which would make perfect sense. But the initial stream totals (which are huge) won't fairly represent their average level; they got such a big number due to the publicity surrounding their introduction to Spotify. But as the days and months go by, their monthly streaming total will be lower. We will have to wait.

That said, I'm not sure if 250 million is the right number. By January 8 (15 days after being available on Spotify), they had apparently reached 199 million: viewtopic.php?p=5910927#p5910927 Maybe 250 million in 12 days was inclusing some sort of "double counting" due to various songs available on multiple albums? Whatever the case, 199 million would still be an impressive result, albeit totally understandable given all the news and headlines about their catalogue being finally available to be listened to on Spotify, a promotion that none of the other acts achieved.

Anyway, the totals quoted above for the likes of Queen, The Rolling Stones and other acts are from April 2015 and a lot of things have happened since then, as Spotify is getting bigger and bigger.

For example, Queen were at 595 million by April 2015. But by December, they had sold already achieved over 1 billion and this is growing fastly, so well over 400 million in 8 months. The same for all the other groups.

[loris39]

Why are americans still buying GH without Queen's most famous song on it? Why don't they download the european version at least?

At the moment the biggest sales of Greatest Hits are given by the digital market and on ITunes Greatest Hits is actually in the European version.

In the last two weeks Greatest Hits in the USA has sold 19,914 units (counting Tea&Sea).
The digital tracks of Greatest Hits (I think the European version, even if I'm not 100% sure), in two weeks, have sold more than 70,000 downloads. This week singles have sold 29,295 for Greatest Hits

Under Pressure:

#20 France
#42 Australia
#43 UK
#49 Italy
#51 Ireland
#56 Sweden
#66 Netherlands
#71 Germany

On spotify, this week, Under Pressure has reached 4,656,871 plays, for a total of 70,080,204

[john2000]

certifications in Japan (some were missing on previous RIAJ webste)

Greatest hits Gold 100,000
Greatest Hits [2001] Gold 100,000
Greatest Hits 3 Gold 100,000
Made in Heaven Platinum 200,000
Queen in Vision Gold 100,000
Queen jewels Diamond 1,000,000
Queen jewels 2 Gold 100,000
Queen Rocks Gold 100,000

[thebigham]

1/23/16 Billboard 200

79 65 174 260 Greatest Hits, Queen 8xP

Exact album sales:

QUEEN|GREATEST HITS (115) 2,874 = 86 38 102 2644

and...

1/23/16 Billboard 200

59 79 65 261 Greatest Hits, Queen 8xP

Exact album sales:

QUEEN|GREATEST HITS ( 95) 3,135 = 90 7 110 2927

Up in sales a bit this week. Not too many physical copies are on the shelves in the USA.

[HUR]

Thank you for the update. There is also action in Canada at the moment:

Billboard Canadian Albums

59 69 – 39 Icon: Queen - Queen
99 84 43 3 Greatest Hits - Queen

Icon had sold around 110,000 copies by the end of 2014. More than a year after that, this must have done now 130,000-140,000 copies overall. Heading to double platinum probably this year or the next one if current trend continues.

Greataest Hits is long overdue a Diamond award. Absolute Greatest has sold around 125,000 copies there too.

Hot Canadian Digital Songs

30 New 1 Under Pressure - Queen & David Bowie

[slightlymad]

Queen on the Billboard Charts 30-01-2016

Billboard Top 200
59 - Queen Greatest Hits

Top Catalogue Albums
27 - Queen Greatest Hits

Music Video Sales
18 - Queen A Night At The Odeon

Hard Rock Songs
5 - Queen & David Bowie Under Pressure

Rock Digital Songs
4 - Queen & David Bowie Under Pressure
30 - Queen Bohemian Rhapsody

Hard Rock Digital Songs
1 - Queen & David Bowie Under Pressure
3 - Queen Bohemian Rhapsody
7 - Queen We Will Rock You
19 - Queen - Another One Bites The Dust
25 - Queen Somebody To Love

[loris39]

USA Hot Digital Tracks

#42 Under Pressure 23,186 (last week 1,791)
#95 Under Pressure 12,169 (last week 251)
#160 Bohemian Rhapsody 7,830 (last week 6,882)

USA Albums

#59 Greatest Hits 8,418 (included Tea Sea)

Greatest Hits' digital singles this week have sold 34,193 downloads, to which we have to add 35,355 for Under Pressure, for a total of 69,548.
In the first two weeks of 2016 Greatest Hits has sold 15,739, while the digital singles from Greatest Hits have sold 63,488 downloads, to which we have to add those from Under Pressure, that is to say 37,397. For a total of 100,885. Not a bad results for just two weeks. And the whole catalog of songs is not included.