Queen :: Charts & Sales History

[slightlymad]

Queen on Spotify - Updated 01/01/2023

TOP SPOTIFY TRACKS OF 70s:

1 (1) QUEEN – Bohemian Rhapsody – 2132.3M
2 (2) QUEEN – Don’t Stop Me Now – 1599.3M
3 (3) THE EAGLES – Hotel California – 1361.7M
4 (4) EARTH, WIND & FIRE – September – 1300.3M
5 (6) FLEETWOOD MAC – Dreams – 1156.7M
6 (5) AC/DC – Highway To Hell – 1149.7M
7 (7) LYNYRD SKYNYRD – Sweet Home Alabama – 1042.1M
8 (8) QUEEN – We Will Rock You – 1028.5M
9 (-) GLORIA GAYNOR – I Will Survive – 954.7M (as of 2/1/23)
10 (9) CREEDENCE CLEARWATER REVIVAL – Have You Ever Seen the Rain – 953.0M
11 (10) DIRE STRAITS – Sultans of Swing – 907.3M
12 (12) BEE GEES – Stayin’ Alive – 889.9M
13 (16) ABBA – Dancing Queen – 861.9M (as of 2/1/23)
14 (11) BOB MARLEY – Is This Love – 847.1M
15 (13) ELTON JOHN – Rocket Man – 822.7M (as of 2/1/23)
16 (17) FLEETWOOD MAC – The Chain – 803.4M
17 (14) LED ZEPPELIN – Stairway to Heaven – 800.8M
18 (18) ELO – Mr. Blue Sky – 778.9M (as of 2/1/23)
19 (15) QUEEN – Somebody To Love – 768.7M
20 (-) AEROSMITH – Dream On – 762.1M

TOP SPOTIFY TRACKS OF 80s:

1 (1) JOURNEY – Don’t Stop Believin’ – 1461.5M
2 (2) QUEEN – Another One Bites the Dust – 1448.0M
3 (3) AHA – Take On Me – 1445.0M
4 (5) GUNS N ROSES – Sweet Child O Mine – 1385.1M
5 (6) THE POLICE – Every Breath You Take – 1384.8M
6 (4) TOTO – Africa – 1343.4M
7 (8) MICHAEL JACKSON – Billie Jean – 1290.2M
8 (7) QUEEN/BOWIE – Under Pressure – 1255.1M
9 (9) AC/DC – Back In Black – 1189.6M
10 (10) WHAM – Last Christmas – 1141.9M
11 (11) BON JOVI – Livin’ On A Prayer – 1123.8M
12 (12) EURYTHMICS – Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) – 1021.2M
13 (18) TEARS FOR FEARS – Everybody Wants to Rule the World – 983.0M (as of 2/1/23)
14 (13) SURVIVOR – Eye of the Tiger – 976.1M
15 (16) BRYAN ADAMS – Summer of ’69 – 913.7M
16 (14) WHITNEY HOUSTON – I Wanna Dance With Somebody – 906.1M
17 (15) QUEEN – I Want to Break Free – 893.4M
18 (17) GUNS N ROSES – Welcome To the Jungle – 884.7M
19 (-) KATE BUSH – Running Up That Hill – 858.9M (as of 2/1/23)
20 (19) GUNS N ROSES – Paradise City – 838.9M

[Braca3]

Chart Date: 01/06/2023 (WEEK ENDING: 01/05/2023)

LW

TW

ARTIST | TITLE | LABEL

TOTAL

CHANGE

ALBUMS

TEA

SEA

28 QUEEN | GREATEST HITS 1 HOLLYWOOD (UMG)

15,723

--

3,159

342

12,221

[Rockintunesbaby]

Can we get a list of the most popular 90s songs?

[jimmypages59]

Yeah, you can go to the Chartmasters site where the above lists were lifted from.

[Rockintunesbaby]

Yeah, you can go to the Chartmasters site where the above lists were lifted from.

Yes I look at Chartmasters quite a lot but can’t find anything that specifically details streams per decade. Lots of info on most streamed artists etc though.

[jimmypages59]

https://chartmasters.org/2019/12/spo...#comment-48768

It's not an article, it's in the comments section. Check for comments from Thomas Christiansen, who is (or was) called Dane on here.

[slightlymad]

Ireland iTunes Album Chart - 09-01-2023

01 +48 Queen - Greatest HIts
02 +66 Whitney Houston - The Ultimate Collection
03 New Various Artists - 100 Classical Hits
04 -2 Taylor Swift - Midnights
05 New Various Artists - Sing (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

[Lawyeris]

Surely you cannot be serious. Surely you can't expect The Miracle to rival Revolver. Revolver is one of the supposed greatest albums of all time, lauded and nominated by some, as the greatest and most influential ever. The other is not even a favourite amongst Queen fans.

Just looking at a few things, should tell you it's naive to think The Miracle should be rivalling Revolvers chart performance and sales. Such as, their overall Spotify streams, Revolver: 917m, The Miracle: 340m. I know these are worldwide but still the gap should indicate each albums general popularity. Their UK shipments, Revolver shipped 552k between July 1992 and Dec 2006, The Miracle shipped only 71k, in the same time period. Their Physical UK sales, Revolver is probably around 2m, The Miracle I'd say 550k-600k. Add all that to the critical acclaim and praise Revolver receives and The Miracle doesn't and it's clear to see "Why not The Miracle the same???"

Your arguments are fake/false and objectively don't belong to this situation. If follow to your logic of your arguments, M. Jackson's "Thriller 40" had to hit No 1 spot, stay TOP 10 lets say at least for 5 weeks and still be in TOP 50 by this day. But it didn't happen. Actually it did even worse than Queen's Miracle Boxset, which (actually Disc 2) did big justice to this album, how raw, lively, much stronger it could be, with some extra songs as well.
So, your arguments dont explain anything, sorry.

[jimmypages59]

Of course they don't explain anything to you, you have a long history of illogical, selective and subjective reasoning on most subjects related to Queen. Youre overly biased when it comes to Queen, always have been and always will be. You really are not worth wasting time communicating with, such are your strange and illogocal views and beliefs about all things Queen, which are also far too tempered by emotion.

Disc2 did big justice to this album for you but most couldn't care less about the album, let alone its extra disc. As I said it's not even a favourite amongst Queen fans, let alone the general public but if you want to believe that it has the same standing and stature and is as loved as Revolver (especially in the UK) then go ahead.

[Lawyeris]

Could someone tell me, where I could find the lyrics of Miracle Box CD 2 songs, especialy Miracle? Thanx

[jimmypages59]

https://genius.com/albums/Queen/The-...ectors-edition

[Lawyeris]

Yeah, I found this site, but it misses some lyrics of the songs from the 2nd disc of the Box, including Miracle, I want it all and, actually, Party.

[rocker99]

Mediatraffic Global World Chart
Last update: January 2023
Top-100 - All time Album Chart
#21. Queen - Greatest Hits (Elektra / EMI - 1981). Total all time sales: 29 million
#47. Queen - Greatest Hits II (Capitol / Parlophone - 1991). Total all time sales: 24 million
http://www.mediatraffic.de/alltime-album-chart.htm

[Lawyeris]

Of course they don't explain anything to you, you have a long history of illogical, selective and subjective reasoning on most subjects related to Queen. Youre overly biased when it comes to Queen, always have been and always will be. You really are not worth wasting time communicating with, such are your strange and illogocal views and beliefs about all things Queen, which are also far too tempered by emotion.

Disc2 did big justice to this album for you but most couldn't care less about the album, let alone its extra disc. As I said it's not even a favourite amongst Queen fans, let alone the general public but if you want to believe that it has the same standing and stature and is as loved as Revolver (especially in the UK) then go ahead.

Oh, what an angry, rude, venomous and resentful comment, trying to insult me and understate the magical supergroup Queen, their power and influence....
For efforts - 10/10, for the result of that - 1/10, because I'm not taking it personal, but I'm very sad for trying to understate Queen, especially on this thread. I didn't expect that.

On the other hand, do we have the right to express our opinion? And even if I am mistaken and there is another opinion, it's not matter - I can express my point of view and arguments.
So, my point of view, why Queen's The Miracle Box set could do more in UK album chart than it actually did (similar to the Beatles Revolver re-release) (as I expected, believed, but it didnt happen, so I was very, very upset...):
1. Queen's fanbase in UK is huge. Maybe even a little bigger than the Beatles' (nowdays), maybe the same or a little less - no matter. It is huge (in my understanding).
2. If there was a boxset, which Queen fans waited the most and the longest - that was exactly The Miracle Boxset! And that is easy to explain, because just after Freddie's death that period, when The Miracle/Innuendo were recorded, acquired another meaning and understanding - these were the last Freddie's days, he already was pretty sick, nevertheless band's work was very productive, there were lots of songs that weren't included in the Miracle or Innuendo. And there were lots of speculations about all that unreleased material from the Miracle sessions, that fans wanted finally to hear and have.
3. When such iconic classic groups as Queen, The Beatles actually are dead for a long long time and obviously there will never be new albums, I objectively thought (and think) that every "new" release of unheard material (new finished songs, finished demos or takes, album sessions and etc) should gain new, additional interest, attention and excitement to hear this "something new", new alternate takes, how that album could sound differently, no matter if that album in old days was more popular or less. Of course, the more popular, more acclaimed album was, the more popular boxset could be, but that difference I think should be much less (not as a proportion of the ratio of albums sales).
4. Contrary to previous times, this time it's seems Queen's record company did real things to promote this boxset, and even released "new" single before it.
5. ..... (sorry, forgot the 5th point).

So, after evaluating the above, I expected The Miracle Boxset could hit TOP 3 in album charts, and seeing that Revolver (No 2) didn't disappear from the charts after the 1st week and stayed there for 9 weeks (till the very end of previous year), I hoped that The Miracle boxset also won't disappear from the charts after the first week, and could stay in charts for a longer time (let's say maybe for 4-5 weeks, even 3 weeks would be much much better), and sales could be around 20k, not 10k....

But the results were different - only No 6 and 1 pure week in the charts...so I was very very upset and disappointed by this.
Am I guilty that I expected more? I think no.

[Braca3]

Chart Date: 01/13/2023 (WEEK ENDING: 01/12/2023)

LW

TW

ARTIST | TITLE | LABEL

TOTAL

CHANGE

ALBUMS

TEA

SEA

28 39 QUEEN | GREATEST HITS 1 HOLLYWOOD (UMG)

14,442

-8%

2,316

321

11,805

YTD OVERALL ACTIVITY

RANK

ARTIST | TITLE | LABEL

YTD ACTIVITY

ALBUMS

SONGS

AOD STREAMS

VOD STREAMS

31 QUEEN | GREATEST HITS 1 HOLLYWOOD (UMG)

30,897

6,305

6,489

31,621,582

1,122,392

[jimmypages59]

Lawyeris, I stand by everything I said. There really is no need for statements like "trying to...understate the magical supergroup Queen, their power and influence" on here, we are not here to wax lyrical about our feelings about Queen as band, we are here to discuss sales and charts. It seems you can't separate your feelings about Queen from facts about Queen, whereas I can.

I'm not trying to understate Queen, I am being frank and honest about them, if anything, it is you that overstate. You see The Miracle as something great, when in the grand scheme of things, it is not that loved an album, even amongst Queen fans. On top of this, it is abundantly clear to most, that even their more respected and bigger albums like ANATO, NOTW or The Game just do not resonate with the general public in the way say Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin or Beatles albums do. Just look back to when Universal took over their catalogue and released remastered versions in 2011, they done pretty much nothing, people just didn't buy them in any great quantities. The majority of them didn't even chart in the UK and those that did spent a solitary week on chart in the lower reaches, hitting positions in the 80s and 90s.

[Braca3]

jimmypages59 Dear friend!
initially i wanted to stay out of this pissing contest! but
Ref that some of PF and LZ studio albums are more respected (not sure if that's the case? by whom music critics?) and bigger albums. i think some nuance is in order ...Queen GH packages took the wind out of the sails of their top studio albums. The combined GH packages of PF and LZ still fall nearly 40 million short of Queen GH packages according to ur chartmasters site. we will never really know how big org studio would have been if GH would not been introduced. The real comparison should be made based on the chartmaster CSPC concept.

The beatles is a different kettle of fish. Different time, first band to come up with "popular" music.

[jimmypages59]

Hi Braca mate. I'm not in a pissing contest, I'm just stating the truth. This debate has been going on for years and I understand that Queens Greatest Hits certainly took sales away from those albums but I feel too much is amde of this. I've always contested that Queen albums were not as appreciated as whole albums, it's always been the singles that people go for. This isn't so much the case with Floyd and Zep, whose albums are more appreciated across the board, with their deeper cuts adding more to their totals, than Queens.

IMO the CMs CSPC concept does not tell us how popular the actual albums are, it only tells us how popular it's tracks are, which are two separate things. Take Queens Hot Space or Jazz, on CMs it looks like these album were great success at 22mEAS each, the same as Houses of The Holy by Zeppelin, but if you delve deeper you see that the two Queen albums get there from the insane streaming power of Don't Stop Me Now and Under Pressure. A lot of the other tracks on both albums are not that listened to.

HOTH can in no way compete with either albums total streams, but if you look at it's breakdown it's clear to see that HOTH tracks are far more even across the board. In fact if you look at most of Queens albums it's clear to see that the public (in a lot of cases) do not appreciate the deeper cuts, in the same way they do on things like Dark Side, WYWH, The Wall or I, II or IV.

Add all this to the fact that the Bohemian Rhapsody film put Queens popularity into the stratosphere, it makes it even more noticeable that the public in general still do not really go for Queens album tracks. For the huge popularity of UP, DSMN or AOBTD, it's still not turning people on to the albums as a whole and tracks like Calling All Girls, Put Out The Fire, Action This Day, Fun It, Dead On Time, Leaving Home Ain't Easy, Rock It or Coming Soon.

[Rockintunesbaby]

I just want to say Queens streams were ahead of Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin before the movie, I’ve been checking the states for 10 years now. Also with streaming Queen have an equal number of songs with 10 million + streams as Pink Floyd. Led Zeppelin obviously much less as they only released 8 studio albums where as Queen and Pink Floyd have 15 each.

Queens music is much more popular amongst the general public than Pink Floyd or Led Zeppelin through their singles, it’s true. That is the nature of their music, their songs blow the others out of the water. That’s why those songs are used in adverts where as the others are not.

I love all those bands. You could say the same about Black Sabbaths Paranoid album, incredible streams through each song. Look at Pink Floyd’s early albums and the streams per song are quite low.

This isn’t black or white on either side.

[jimmypages59]

Rockin', you're completely missing my point and telling me stuff I am acutely aware of, having been a contributor to this thread since 2005 and a current member of the Chartmasters team. I even compiled the Streaming Masters article for Queen over on CMs.

My point is not about how well each album streams overall, I'd already said that Jazz & Hot Space blow Houses of the Holy out of the water, it's about the make up of streams on those albums and how just looking at overall streams, does not tell you how popular an album is. Hot Space has more streams than every Zeppelin album apart from IV and at face value it looks like Hot Space is a more popular album than I, II, III, Houses, Physical etc, when in fact, it is solely the huge popularity of Under Pressure that creates this illusion.]

Under Pressure	1,234,639,770		D'yer Mak'er	132,904,129
Cool Cat	62,929,331		Over the Hills and Far Away	87,437,376
Las Palabras De Amor	10,985,551		No Quarter	56,901,218
Body Language	9,989,519		The Rain Song	55,635,324
Back Chat	4,322,983		The Ocean	46,894,961
Staying Power	3,723,876		The Song Remains the Same	31,525,547
Life Is Real	3,374,468		Dancing Days	21,677,926
Dancer	3,056,636		The Crunge	10,855,577
Calling All Girls	2,689,203
Action This Day	2,647,072
Put Out The Fire	2,643,280

It's clear to me that people absolutely love UP and stream it like crazy but that doesn't translate into making HS a popular album, in fact most people probably just stream it from the GHs album. HOTH it's clear that people are interested in lot's of it's tracks and like to actually stream and digest the album.

[Rockintunesbaby]

No I didn’t miss your point.

[jimmypages59]

No I didn’t miss your point.

Then I don't really understand the point of your post, other than to defend Queen, which I find strange, as I am not attacking Queen, just highlighting something that I've thought and said for decades.

I know Queens streams were ahead before the movie but my point was, even with the huge popularity of the film and in turn the enormous upswing in popularity of their music on streaming platforms, people are still not really streaming their deeper album tracks. I feel this vindicated my thought that the general public do not really go for Queens albums as such (in the way they go for some Floyd, Zep and Beatles albums), much preferring to just dip their toes in water and listen to their Greatest Hits. I'm not meaning this in a derogatory way or having a go at them, I'm just stating the obvious in my eyes.

With regards to your advertising point, there is more to it than just that. Personally I think Queens songs just lend themselves better to being used in adverts, as their lyrics are more relatable to everyday life and the products being advertised. There is also the fact that Queen have always been a far more commercial group than Floyd and Zep, allowing their music to be used on Various Artist compilations, on TV adverts, in films, in musicals, releasing videos for almost every one of their singles etc. Floyd and Zep on the other hand have always pretty much eschewed these routes, not allowing their songs on VA comps, seldom releasing or promoting singles/videos (there are no contemporary videos from the 60s & 70s for a Zep song) or their songs to be used in adverts.

I think it works both ways though, you say people use the Queen songs because they are so popular but I believe it goes hand in hand, the popularity of these songs is as much to do with the fact that they appear in adverts, in films, in musicals, have videos, are on VA comps etc, which I believe helps and aids their organic popularity. It actually surprises me how Floyd and Zeppelin are as popular as they are, considering how faceless and reticent they were as bands.

[Rockintunesbaby]

I understand your point and I don’t totally disagree. I do think some of it goes back to how the bands were originally promoted. Peter Grant for example made sure LZ were promoted as an albums band. Queen however released endless amounts of huge singles that overshadowed the albums I think.. similar to ABBA. Even The Rolling Stones never had any huge individual albums but sold a healthy amount of their catalogue and hits packages. The Beatles being the only band that really appealed to both markets in a big way.

So here in the UK radio stations rarely play Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd but play Queen a lot. All these bands have a massive fan base still today but are consumed in slightly different ways.

You’re right about the advertising, I don’t know the details around their contracts. I think Queen signed with Universal in 2011 and that may have changed a few things. Many of these large bands/artists are selling their catalogues these days for huge amounts of money giving away their rights for how the music is used. You’ll find as the years go by lots more of these bands will be used in adverts. There are negotiations underway over Pink Floyd’s catalogue but there appear to be problems between Waters and Gilmore, mainly because of exchange rate issues. In the future advertising will be number one for earnings growth and actual album sales will be steady but less important as a proportional value.

The business model is changing and unfortunately that is the bottom line.

[jimmypages59]

In a lot of cases there are actually two separate rights. There is the "Sound Recording" which is usually the property of the record or management company, as they paid for their recording and the "Musical Work", which is usually part owned by the songwriter and part owned by a publishing house. It's for this reason Taylor Swift recently re-recorded her back catalogue, as while the "Musical Works" are hers, she doesn't actually own her "Sound Recordings", they belong to her management company, I think.

Saying that, acts like Led Zeppelin recorded and paid for their own "Masters", so they own the "Sound Recording" and will have negotiated with Atlantic/Warners, as to what they can and can't do with them. This is why Atlantic/Warners couldn't just licence Zeppelins "Sound Recordings" for use in films, adverts and comps, without going through Page and Grant, who had ultimate say on their usage.

As owner of the "Musical Work" you automatically receive a royalty for all uses of the "Sound Recording" but you ultimately have no say about how the record company uses it, as it is their property. The owner of the "Musical Work" also has something called "Moral Rights" which means that they can object to anything they might see as a bastardisation of their work, i.e. someone could cover their track and add in homophobic or sexist lyrics but as the owner of the work, they could object to it's release.

[Braca3]

Wow u guys have been busy not read it yet ( sorry if some is covered already) but just finished my reply yo JP59

jimmypage59
i am not disagreeing that queen's bigger albums do not resonate as much as PF and LZ bigger albums. the point i was trying to make is that because of very successful GH packages the wind was taken out of it sails of Q bigger studio albums. As a result most of the lesser known tracks did not get as much attention (as with PF and LZ bigger studio albums as many people are buying the studio album rather than a GH package).
The focus has unfortunately been on GH packages. when media talks about queen biggest album they talk about GH1 not a studio album as with PF or LZ. The other tracks on those PF LZ studio albums (other than the ones known by the general public) also benefit from it. if u buy (or stream) a studio album you also listen to the other tracks.

ref "IMO the CMs CSPC concept does not tell us how popular the actual albums are, it only tells us how popular it's tracks are"
i understand your point but imo it is always about certain tracks. if the well known songs of those LZ and PF albums would not been on the albums no one (except the real die hard fan) would have bought these albums.
Record companies push a gh or studio album. We cannot acces how studio albums sales would have been today without those GH packages. as making a comparison between sales of the studio albums (sec) would distort the popularity of the album, the only fair comparison IMO (albeit not perfect) is the CSPC concept.

as I understand it CM relates every release (Dvd, live cd, stream etc) to the org studio album and credit it to the org studio album. this way you get an clear overview how poular the artist / band / and their original studio albums really are.

to the best of my knowledge ACDC never released a GH cd or release other that live stuff. That decision not to release a GH package has without a doubt had a positive effect on sales of their top studio album Back in Black. How would a release of a GH package have affected sales of BinB the way u approach it, it would have made BinB less popular / less big as an album