Queen :: Charts & Sales History

[HUR]

"The very best of Freddie Mercury" debuted at number 6 in the album charts. It´s more than I expected. And the DVD "Lover of life singer of songs" peaked at number one in its first week.

[HUR]

Thank you, Bracca, great information. I always wanted to see it, but I couldn´t. It´s incredible how Queen bacame massive with "A night at the opera" and "Bohemian rhapsody", but their other albums in the 70´ weren´t that big. And it was the same in some other countries.

But it look like from Greatest hits 1 to 1995, Queen was really successful: three number one albums, and several top ten.

[braca]

Chart NEW Zealand and certification info (as provided by RIANZ)

The chart information regarding Night at the Opera is as follows. The date indicates when this title first charted, the 1(5) indicates that this title achieved No 1 spot, five times!. 51 means it charted for 51 weeks. The (+9) indicates that over that 51 weeks, there wasn't a chart compiled for 9 weeks - probably over Easter and Christmas.

20/02/1976 1(5) 51 (+9) 1. Night At The Opera

QUEEN
SINGLES:
17/05/1974 Coming Up 1. Seven Seas Of Rhye
31/01/1975 3(1) 14 2. Killer Queen
20/02/1976 1(2) 28 (+1) 3. Bohemian Rhapsody
03/02/1978 8 10 (+1) 4. We Are The Champions
08/12/1978 20 8 (+4) 5. Bicycle Race/Fat Bottomed Girls
18/01/1980 2(3) 18 (+1) 6. Crazy Little Thing Called Love
03/10/1980 2(1) 16 (+3) 7. Another One Bites The Dust
22/05/1981 32 6 8. Flash’s Theme
13/11/1981 6 13 (+3) 9. Under Pressure (with David Bowie)
14/05/1982 19 8 10. Body Language
10/02/1984 4 11 (+1) 11. Radio GaGa
18/05/1984 6 19 12. I Want To Break Free
31/08/1984 30 4 13. It’s A Hard Life
25/04/1986 23 17 14. A Kind Of Magic
01/08/1986 50 1 15. Friends Will Be Friends
09/06/1989 3(1) 10 16. I Want It All
18/08/1989 45 1 17. Break Thru
13/10/1989 15 9 (+3) 18. Invisible Man
08/03/1991 10 8 (+1) 19. Innuendo
06/12/1991 20 5 (+3) 20. Show Must Go On
17/01/1992 16 17 21. Bohemian Rhapsody (Re-issue)
14/05/1993 8 9 22. Somebody To Love (with George Michael)
24/11/1995 25 5 (+2) 23. Heaven For Everyone
11/12/1998 9 10 (+1) 24. Another One Bites The Dust (with Wyclef Jean)
01/09/2000 29 5 25. We Will Rock You (with Five)

ALBUMS:
20/02/1976 1(5) 51 (+9) 1. Night At The Opera
11/02/1977 11 9 (+1) 2. Day At The Races
09/12/1977 15 13 (+6) 3. News Of The World
15/12/1978 20 5 (+4) 4. Jazz
06/07/1979 21 6 5. Live Killers
11/07/1980 11 31 (+3) 6. Game
06/11/1981 1(5) 101(+10) 7. Greatest Hits
21/05/1982 5 8 8. Hot Space
23/03/1984 9 26 (+1) 9. Works
19/04/1985 19 4 10. Live
27/06/1986 7 21 11. Kind Of Magic
19/12/1986 36 9 (+3) 12. Live Magic
30/06/1989 2(1) 25 (+3) 13. Miracle
19/04/1991 6 11 14. Innuendo
22/11/1991 1(4) 73 (+6) 15. Greatest Hits 2
03/07/1992 3(2) 18 16. Live At Wembley
21/05/1993 9 8 17. Five Live (with George Michael)
25/11/1994 2(2) 17 (+2) 18. Greatest Hits 1&2
17/11/1995 1(3) 13 (+2) 19. Made In Heaven
12/12/1997 32 2 (+3) 20. Queen Rocks
26/11/1999 24 5 (+2) 21. Greatest Hits 3
12/07/2002 23 8 22. Platinum Collection (Greatest Hits 1,2&3)

Their DBASE now also shows:
ALBUMS
Queen Rocks Gold

DVD
Greatest Video Hits 1 Platinum
Greatest Video Hits 2 Platinum
On Fire at the Bowl Platinum
Live @ Wembley Platinum 2x

In addition, they have been able to trcae that The game and Crazy Little Thing Called Love were/are both certified GOLD

ANATO One would think that charting for 51 weeks and reaching the #1 spot five times there should be a gold / platinum certification. However, RIANZ is
unable to confirm this. ANATO (as GH) 5 weeks no 1 and nearly 1 year in the charts (top 40 only)& spend half the time in the charts as GH (which is 9P - I believe anato should be 4/5 times platinum.

Bohemian Rhapsody. Again, one would think they should have received certification, but unfortunately as above, RIANZ does not have any records to prove this. so...2P maybe?


Criteria
In 1978 New Zealand gave accreditations for Gold and Platinum sales, which at the time were 10,000 and 20,000 respectively for both Singles and Albums.
The next big change on the charts came around 1987 when Silver was introduced on the singles chart to represent 5,000 sales, this was abolished not long afterwards, and the sales figures for Gold and Platinum were reduced to 5,000 and 10,000 respectively.
In 1992, the sales figures for Albums to reach Gold and Platinum were reduced to 7,500 and 15,000 respectively.
The next big change came in October 1999 when the first Multi-Platinum accreditations were given on the charts, Double platinum being twice the sales for platinum, Triple platinum, three times the sales, etc.

[MJDangerous]

Wonderful work that you are doing with these individual acts sales threads, Basil!!!
I'm enjoying each one of them!

One question about this one: are you sure that SS sales of A Kind of Magic are 582,000?
It's seems a bit too high when compared with the other Queen albums of the 80's. Can you check it?

My sugestion for the next threads of this kind:

ABBA
Bruce Springsteen
Frank Sinatra
Bob Dylan
Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, Starr
and
Elvis Presley

Would it be possible to update the The Beatles one?
I would do some of the above if i had access to the sales data

Thank you for all your work!

About Bob Dylan, in Australia :
Born Robert Allen Zimmerman, Bob Dylan borrowed his last name from Dylan Thomas, a poet he admired growing up. In high school he formed his first band called the Golden Chords. It wasn't until the 1960s that Dylan launched his solo career and became a pioneer for folk-rock music. His first #1 album, John Wesley Harding, hit the peak position 38 years ago. Other #1 albums include Desire (Jan. '76) and Slow Train Coming (Sep. '79). Dylan has influenced many musicians today with his style of country-rock.

This was only to keep the info somewhere in the board waiting to a thread of him

[braca]

emimusic Denmark reported in Apr 2004 that their dbase showed the following:
Platinum Collection 1x Platinum
The Works ( LP) 1x Gold
Queen Rock's vol 1 1xGold
Greatest Hits vol 3 1 x platinum
Made In heaven 2 X Platinum
The Miracle 1x Platinum
Greatest Hits Vol 1 - 2 X platinum (so 100K)
Greatest Hits vol 2 - 5 x Platinum (so 250K)
incomplete but it is something! In many cases emi sales data does not go back that far (electronically that is - as in the netherlands and spain etc). so sales of GH 1 may very well be higher than 100K.

emimusic belgium has reported in 2004:
'unfortunatly our available data regarding total sales on the catalogue started early 90ies, when all repoting systems switched. We can only be sure about sales of recent re-issues and the latest Platinum Collection. This one has Platinum status in Belgium and soled about 60000u so far. I've no doubt that most of the catalogue albums reached throughout the years platinum status and the greatest hits 1 & 2 even double platinum with more than 100K, but correct figures are not available as our computersystems changed different times in last decennia!'

BPI counterpart telepac.pt in Portugal reported
Greatest Hits II 1992 4Platinum (160k)
Greatest Hits I 1992 gold ( 20K)
Doubt if these are up to date but this is the certication level. GHII was certified in 92 so how about catalogue sales?
here is the complete list i received:
PLATINUM
DVD (x of times Pl and the year it i was certified)
LIVE AT WEMBLEY STADIUM EMI-VC VM 11X 2003
Greatest Video Hits Emi-VC VM 3X 2003
Greatest Video Hits 2 EMI-VC VM 2X 2003
QUEEN ON FIRE-LIVE AT THE BOWL EMI-VC VM 2X 2004

Albums
The Platinum Collection EMI - VC LP 1X 2002
Greatest Hits III Emi-VC LP 1X 1999
Greatest Hits I&II Emi-VC LP 1X 1998
Made In Heaven Emi-VC LP 3x 1996
Greatest Hits II Emi-VC LP 4x 1992
Live At Wembley '86 Polygram LP 2x 1992

GOLD
albums
Greatest Hits Emi-VC LP 1992
Innuendo Emi-VC LP 1991
The Miracle Emi-VC LP 1990
The Works Vecemi LP 1984
Queen Live Killers VC LP 1982

Video
At Wembley Emi-VC VM 1992

singles
I Want To Break Free Vecemi SP 1984

SILVER
albums
Queen Rocks Emi-VC LP 1997
A Kind Of Magic Emi-VC LP 1987
Live Magic Emi-VC LP 1987
News Of The World VC LP 1982

video
Greatest Flix II Emi-VC VM 1992

singles
Radio Gaga Vecemi SP 1984
Crazy Little Thing Called Love VC SP 1982

dvd certification
1000 silver
2000 gold
4000 platinum

cd certification
10000 silver
20000 gold
40000 platinum

I am sure it is not up-to-date but at least they are official certification levels as per telepac.pt
hope this was of some use for the number crunchers!!

[HUR]

A Netherland radio made a poll with the favourite songs of the 70´ as voted by the public. "Bohemian rhapsody was at number one.

Here are the Queen songs on the list:

001. Bohemian Rhapsody
018. We Will Rock You
055. Killer Queen
086. We Are The Champions
116. Somebody To Love
142. You're My Best Friend
167. Don't Stop Me Now
256. Tie Your Mother Down

Here is the link:

http://www.radioveronica.nl./

[Basil]

Wonderful work that you are doing with these individual acts sales threads, Basil!!!
I'm enjoying each one of them!

One question about this one: are you sure that SS sales of A Kind of Magic are 582,000?
It's seems a bit too high when compared with the other Queen albums of the 80's. Can you check it?

My sugestion for the next threads of this kind:

ABBA
Bruce Springsteen
Frank Sinatra
Bob Dylan
Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, Starr
and
Elvis Presley

Would it be possible to update the The Beatles one?
I would do some of the above if i had access to the sales data

Thank you for all your work!

Hi Edu, I will check the Queen figure.

Regarding other threads

A Bob Dylan one is nearly ready.

Solo Beatles - I've done Paul McCartney, it's currently on the first page of thread listings. The next nearest to completion is John Lennon.

Sinatra - I have the info but I need several hours to post it. My time on the internet is limited, otherwise I could post a lot more. It is on the way.

Abba - there have been several threads and I've posted on them. I would need to get the information correctly organised.

Elvis - well there is the Elvis thread but it has got a bit messy. I would like to do a much clearer one with his whole catalogue. The only thing that has prevented me is time. When I get some time off work I can post it and hopefully clarify his catalogue for everyone (like you did for Prince).

Bruce - I have all the information for that so will look into it.

I will update the Beatles one as soon as possible. Like Elvis I might attempt to re-start it so all the information is on one page.

In my next "time window" I have a major post coming up covering soul music.

The advantage of the single artist threads is that they can be a focus for everyone to contribute and that information is then easily found by forum members. Look at all the info on this Queen one.

[Basil]

Re: Queen Sales Thread

1975 2002 A Day At the Opera - 3,000,000 - 981,000

Night...

Oh man, that's one weird error

Will fix!

[Dane]

Re: Queen Sales Thread

1975 2002 A Day At the Opera - 3,000,000 - 981,000

Night...

[Edu]

Wonderful work that you are doing with these individual acts sales threads, Basil!!!
I'm enjoying each one of them!

One question about this one: are you sure that SS sales of A Kind of Magic are 582,000?
It's seems a bit too high when compared with the other Queen albums of the 80's. Can you check it?

My sugestion for the next threads of this kind:

ABBA
Bruce Springsteen
Frank Sinatra
Bob Dylan
Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, Starr
and
Elvis Presley

Would it be possible to update the The Beatles one?
I would do some of the above if i had access to the sales data

Thank you for all your work!

[HUR]

Here a little work with some Queen number one DVD´s:

-"Freddie Mercury tribute concert": UK

-"Greatest video hits 1": UK, Germany, Spain.

-"Live at wembley": UK, Netherlands, Austria, Germany, Australia, Italy, spain, New Zealand.

-"Greatest video hits 2": UK.

-"Queen on fire": UK, Austria, Germany, Italia, Sweden, Belgium, Japan (on international charts).

-"Queen jewels": Japan.

-"We are the champipons": Japan (on international charts).

And "The return of the champions" was number one in UK and Japan (on international charts), but I don´t know if it counts as an official Queen release.

Does anybody have more information?. Thank you in advance.

[HUR]

Here are some Queen number one songles that I have collected. Please if someone wants to make corrections or has more information about it, post them here.

-"Bohemian rhapsody": UK (9 weeks), Netherlands (3 weeks), Ireland (6 weeks), australia (2 weeks), New Zealand, Canada (2 weeks), Belgium (3 weeks).

-"Somebody to love": Netherlands (3 weeks)

-"We are the champions" and "We will rock you": France.

-"Crazy little thing called love": Netherlands (3 weeks), USA (4 weeks), canada (2 weeks), Australia (7 weeks).

-"Another one bites the dust": USA (3 weeks), Canada (2 weeks), Spain (1 week), Argentina.

-"Flash": Austria (2 weeks).

-"Under pressure": UK (2 weeks), Netherlands (1 weeks).

-"Radio ga-ga": Netherlands (1 weeks), Belgium (3 weeks), Ireland (1 week), Sweden (4 weeks), Finland.

-"I want to break free": Netherlands (2 weeks), Belgium (3 weeks), South Africa (7 weeks), Austria (4 weeks).

-"Innuendo": UK (1 weeks).

-"Bohemian rhapsody" and "Thse are the days of our lives": UK (5 weeks), Irealand (5 weeks).

-"Five live ep": UK (3 weeks), Ireland (3 weeks), Spain (4 weeks).

-"We will rock you" (with five): UK (1 week).

-"I was born to love you": Japan (on international charts).

There has to remember that there some other Queen singles, wich were probably number one in some countries, like "A kind of magic, which was number one in 35 countries according to some sources, and "I want it all", "kiler queen", "the show must go on" or "Heaven for everyone", between others.

[HUR]

Good points there, Colin. About Queen, there has to say that they were changing during all their carrer, and combining differet styles to their music. They had an incredible versatility to go from a hard rock song to a pop ballad, without being in any of those musical genres.

And Freddie was the main "conductor", the leader, in such variety. He was not only able to make songs on a lot of styles, but even include different genres and formats in a single song. Freddie was a master in that. In which kind of style can we put "Bohemian rhapsody"?. It starts with quite sound at the beggining, like a pop ballad, but turns into an "oppereta" in the central section, to end up with a hard rock final. And that is not the only example: in "Innuedo", he composed some flamenco and orquestral arrangements for that song, combining them with a hard rock piece.

He had also some contacts with "classic music". At that respect, "Bohemian rhapsody" was a step, but he kept on working and learning, and was able to use those skills with more experience in some other songs of the band, like "Was it all worth it" (from the album "The miracle" in 1989), when he composed, arrenged and performed an orquetal interludes (using a Kong M1 keyboard), and some other things in songs like "The miracle" (from that same album), "Don´t try so hard", "Bijou", and some others.

And in general, all the members of the band knew how to combine styles, and makes songs from different genres. When Freddie wrote "Somebody to love" in 1976, Brian and Roger were able to emulate a gospel choir by multi-tracks, and perform those vocal arrangements. Freddie even composed a waltz for the album "A dat at the races" (in the song "The millionaire waltz), and Brian make his guitar sound like violin and created some great effects.

But well, in conclussion you can find a lot of different things on Queen back catalog, they worked very hard to creat and performe their great arrangements, and made songs from a lot of styles, like hard rock, pop, gospel, proggresive, art-rock, waltz, vaudeville, some folk, and even flamenco.

The ones who love the pop music will like albums like "The game" or "A kind og magic". Those who prefer hard rock music, will like "Queen" and some things from "Sheer heart attack". And for prog. rock fans, "Queen 2" is the main option. And of course, Queen fans (like me) love all the albums.

[zeus555]

Hello,
Were Queen a ROCK group? It is just that my favourite kind of Music is Pop Music, (as in catchy sing-a-long stuff), & my favourite Group are ABBA.

However, I like Queen too, & always have. I find many of their songs to be as catchy - and well Produced - as ABBA stuff.

I like Meatloaf too - and he is regarded as 'Rock'. I find it a bit odd that very few people seem to discuss his forthcoming 'Bat Out Of Hell III' Album. After all, 'Bat Out Of Hell II', was the Best Selling UK Album of 1993, & it was Number 1 here for 11 Weeks. It is almost as if no one thinks the 3rd Album in the 'Series', will do much.

As far as I am concerned, I would not mind if Queen, Meatloaf, & ABBA, had more Number 1 Albums, as I think all 3 Acts are great.

We will see IF a NEW Queen Album appears before 2006 ends, (or in early 2007). I know that many Queen Fans will not see it as the 'real thing', because Freddie will not be singing on it. We will see how strong the Tracks on it are - if the Album is ever made. However, Freddie had one of the greatest voices in Rock/Pop History, and he cannot be replaced in Queen - ever.

Zeus555

[HUR]

Hello,
Brian May has said - officially - that in October, Queen go into the Studio to make a NEW Album. It will have the Ex-Free Singer on lead Vocals - Paul Rodgers. Roger Taylor will also be working on it.

It will be their first 100% new Album since 1991's 'Innuendo'.

This is reported in several parts of the Internet at the moment.

We will see if it actually happens.....

Zeus555

Thank you Colin. I had also read that news. Well, to be honest, I´m not happy with this, I don´t want them to realise a new album with name "Queen". I know that it´s debatable, but in my opinion, Queen is over since 1991.

This is what Brian wrote on his website:

"Yes, strangely enough I talked to Paul last night, the one and only Paul Rodgers, and confirmed that we will be heading into the studio in October .... at a secret location !

There was an intent there for a while, but we have all been busy picking up our lives in different ways. I was perhaps a little forward in announcing our plans in that message ... but now it really looks as if we are on.

First I must tell yo'all ....Paul will be here in the UK - ON TOUR ! So get your tickets now if you want to catch him at the Albert Hall, Sheffield City

Hall ...etc ... a date list is ... HERE !!

Roger and I will not be appearing with him on this trip, of course - he has his own band, which features an old friend, guitarist Howard Leese, from Heart, that excellent band from Seattle who did some dates with us in the UK all those years ago. It will be good to see the Paul Rodgers we all grew up with, doing his own material, from Free to Bad Company and the Firm, plus, I'm sure, a good helping of the pure blues material which is such a main artery of Paul's music.

But then we will be turning our heads towards the studio interaction which, just possibly, will bring us all to a new place. We will take it gently at first, the priority being to feel good, and put ourselves in the mood to create. Cheers
bri"

[HUR]

Thank you Jonh and Bracca, for your explanation about Australia and New Zealand.

About Finland, "A night at the opera", "The miracle", "Innuendo", Greatest hits 2 and "Made in heaven" reached number one in that country. Greatest hits 1 was number 3.

[braca]

certified albums and sales in Finland
This is listed on
http://www.ifpi.fi/tilastot/kultajaplatina.html
Queen Innuendo EMI 38221
Queen Greatest Hits EMI 39477
Queen Miracle EMI 43130
Queen Made In Heaven EMI 50134
Queen Greatest Hits 2 EMI 135413
Queen A Night at the Opera EMI 20000

Pls note sales are not up to date - they list Queen GHII at 135,413 However, QOL posted that EMI Finland had announced 150K were sold last year or so. (correction it was 2004)

also listed is:
Eri esittäjiä Queen Dance Traxx 1 EMI 20122 1997

[john2000]

Good point, John. There is no information available on line for the certifications back in the 80´, but it probably sold enough to be certified at least platinum in that time. I read that the platinum award was at that time 100 k, do you know if it is true?.

Yes 50K for gold, 100K for Platinum. You can find some in old billboard mags (each year there was a OZ-NZ Special survey)

[braca]

Ref break down about New Zealand real sales. One question: are those sales cd´s only?. Or do they include all formats like cassettes and vinyls?.

Hello HUR -- I really do not know this is all the info I received. I do not have any chart info On Ireland or Belgium - sorry!

[zeus555]

Hello,
Brian May has said - officially - that in October, Queen go into the Studio to make a NEW Album. It will have the Ex-Free Singer on lead Vocals - Paul Rodgers. Roger Taylor will also be working on it.

It will be their first 100% new Album since 1991's 'Innuendo'.

This is reported in several parts of the Internet at the moment.

We will see if it actually happens.....

Zeus555

[HUR]

Thank you Bracca, very good information and a interesting break down about New Zealand real sales. One question: are those sales cd´s only?. Or do they include all formats like cassettes and vinyls?. On the other hand, do you have peak positions for that country and some others?. I´m particullary interested in countries like Ireland and Belgium. Thank you in adavance.

[braca]

Hello hur -- well i copied and pasted the whole email i must admit i had to read it a few times myself and had to email him with more questions.
In short universal (Hollywood's rep in Canada) does not hold prior sales data at the same time they are not too bothered ref up to date certification as it costs money. The per March 2005 cert levels are WHILE 'with' Universal only! The album certification levels as listed on the CRIA site are from before that time so these 2 sets of data should be added (and then there is still sales data missing).

The EMI sales figure i received via a contact I have at RIANZ not sure if EMI has bothered to officially certify them.
EMI new Zealand had in December 2003 the following sales figures:
QUEEN - GOLD / PLATINUM SALES
December 2003

Greatest Hits 142,436 9 x Platinum

Greatest Hits 2 151,458 10 x Platinum

Greatest Hits 3 16,732 1 x Platinum

Greatest Hits 1 & 2 65,719 4 x Platinum

Platinum Collection 20,652 1 x Platinum

The Works 24,041 1 x Platinum

A Kind Of Magic 35,023 2 x Platinum

Live Magic 22,895 1 x Platinum

The Miracle 29,044 1 x Platinum

Made In Heaven 54,062 3 x Platinum

Innuendo 15,415 1 x Platinum

Live At Wembley 17,208 1 x Platinum

Info below i got from RIANZ
Queen Greatest Hits III - 5 weeks in chart, Peaked @ 24
Queen Rocks - 2 weeks in chart, Peaked @ 32 No Certification

GH 1 &II boxset did particulary well in NZ 4P

Hello John-I raised the issue at ARIA here is the reply
'As you know, the Queen discography dates back to the first half of the 1970s, but while they were awarded from a much earlier date, the information that we have on ARIA Accreditations is only reliable back to the end of the 1980s. This is due to a number of factors, but primarily relates to the fact that until the late 1980s accreditations were awarded and recorded (ie details noted) manually and no-one has been here at ARIA long enough to know where the original records are (but we're still looking!). The reason that the information has improved since the late 1980s is twofold. Firstly, accreditations are now stored electronically and also, since 1989 ARIA has recognised (unofficially) achievements of multiple platinum sales which has encouraged record companies to be active in more promptly applying for awards as product becomes eligible.'
Besides Elektra may not have bothered certifying it back then.

[HUR]

Good point, John. There is no information available on line for the certifications back in the 80´, but it probably sold enough to be certified at least platinum in that time. I read that the platinum award was at that time 100 k, do you know if it is true?.

[john2000]

It is strange that EMI has no idea of GH1 sales in Australia before 84. Even if they don't have real numbers yet, at least certifications existed at that time. Warner probably certified the album

[HUR]

Bracca, sorry, I didn´t understand well enough your information about Canada.

And about New Zealand, I had also read those numbers you posted in your message, but do you know if Queen was officially certified 10 pl. and 9pl. for those albums?.

And in Australia, there has to remeber that Greatest hits was number 2 in 1981, and charted between that year and 1982. So if the 910 k is for their sales since 1984, there is no doubt that it had very good sales with the first version in 1981.

Do you have more information about some other Queen albums?. Thank you in advance.