Queen :: Charts & Sales History

[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!

[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.

[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./

[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!!

[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]

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.

[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.

[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.

[braca]

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.

Yes. Interesting is that a Kind Of Magic made it to no 7 and remained in the charts for 21 weeks and gone 2P with 35,023 sales by DEC 2003 and Live Magic made it to no 36 and remained in the chart for only 9 weeks but still has gone plat with 22,895 sales by Dec 2003.
based on Live M chart performance I would say that all the 70ties albums would still be plat (also considering that all would have some sort of back sales based in switching from Vinyl to CD alone.

[HUR]

Yes, and looking at the charts performance of their two first compilations (peaking at number one), and then the box set which contained both of them (released in 1994) was also number 2, it aesy to understand why the Platinium collections and Queen rocks weren´t that big.

Bracca, do you have news archives from Queenonline?. I remember that they used to give charts positions every week. I´m particularly interested in Live at wembley: do you remember how many weeks it spent at number one in 2003?. Thank you in advance.

[braca]

Yes, and looking at the charts performance of their two first compilations (peaking at number one), and then the box set which contained both of them (released in 1994) was also number 2, it aesy to understand why the Platinium collections and Queen rocks weren´t that big.

Bracca, do you have news archives from Queenonline?. I remember that they used to give charts positions every week. I´m particularly interested in Live at wembley: do you remember how many weeks it spent at number one in 2003?. Thank you in advance.

I have some not all - most of them can still be found on Brianmay.com as they have copied them all but watch for Official PRESS releases BM also lists a lot of unofficial news.

in the Uk I think it was a total of 17 weeks it may not all be in 2003.
FYI In Holland it was no 1 for a total of 13 weeks.

[HUR]

Thank you, if I remember well, the DVD was 11 weeks at number one in a row. In the following week, it went to number 2, and reached the top spot again. Do you have some more positions for Queen DVD´s?.

[braca]

Thank you, if I remember well, the DVD was 11 weeks at number one in a row. In the following week, it went to number 2, and reached the top spot again. Do you have some more positions for Queen DVD´s?.

I have some.
FM, tribute was no 1 in UK
and was the:
No 13 Music DVD in Argentina for 2003

GVH1 was no 1 in uk,
and was the
No 1 Music DVD in the UK for 2002
No 14 Music DVD in the UK for 2003
No 23 Music DVD in the Netherlands for 2003
No 8 Music DVD in Australia for 2003
No 18 Music DVD in Australia for 2004
No 5 Music DVD in Argentina for 2003
No 19 Music DVD in New Zealand for 2004

LAWS gone no 1 in Germany, The Netherlands, Australia, Austria, Spain Italy and NZ(99,9%) sure. Made no 4 in billboard music DVD chart
And was the
No 1 Music DVD in Germany for 2003
No 1 Music DVD in the Netherlands for 2003
No 10 Music DVD in the Netherlands for 2004
No 3 Music DVD in the UK for 2003
No 9 Music DVD in the UK for 2004
No 3 Music DVD in Austria for 2003
No 21 Music DVD in Australia for 2003
No 8 Music DVD in Italy for 2003 (DVD chart est. in Oct ‘03)
No 4 Music DVD in Argentina for 2003
No 12 Music DVD in Argentina for 2004
No 14 Music DVD in New Zealand for 2004

in addition:
Live At Wembley Stadium Wins 2003 European Music DVD Award in Berlin - DVD Award for Best Live DVD.
Live at Wembley Stadium DVD wins the BEST MUSIC DVD 2003 at DP Award in Korea.

GVH2
was the
No 5 Music DVD in the UK for 2003
No 18 Music DVD in the UK for 2004
No 54 Music DVD in the Netherlands for 2003


On fire Live at the Bowl
made
Arabia - #1 in the Music DVD chart.
Austria - #1 in the music DVD chart
Germany - #1 in the Music DVD chart
Holland - #3 in the Music DVD chart.
Italy - #1 in the music DVD charts.
Spain - #2 in the Music DVD charts
france - #5 in the Music DVD chart
UK - #1 at Music DVD charts
Norway - #4 in the music DVD chart
Australia #9 in the music DVD chart
New Zealand #4 in the music DVD chart
Greece #10 in the music DVD chart
Argentina #7 in the music DVD chart monthly chart
(these are the chart position I have some my actually gone higher later on.)

And was the
No 2 Music DVD in the UK for 2004
No 8 Music DVD in Italy for 2004
No 20 Music DVD in Germany for 2004
No 22 Music DVD in the Netherlands for 2004

[braca]

More question: what about the single sales?

AOBTD - 8,000,000

more?

Hello, well I don´t have too much information on singles sales, sorry. About "Another one bites the dust" it is said to be the best selling Queen single of all time, and their sales are ussually claimed on about 7 and 8 millions copies. In USA, it was at number one during 3 weeks in 1980, and received the platinum award for over 2 millions copies. Some sources say that it sold over 3,5 in this country. It was also number one in Canada, Spain, and other countries, bit I don´t have many information about it.

I have seen footage in which Roger Taylor makes reference to AOBTD selling some 4 million in the US alone. It was also reported that is was no 1 in Guatamala & Argentina and no 3 in SA

[HUR]

Thank you for the information on DVD charts. I have a few to add: "Queen on fire" was number one in Sweden, Belgium, and Japan on international charts; Greatest video hits 1 was number one in Spain, and number 2 in Sweden and Denmark.

[HUR]

Well, about New Zealand, "Queen on fire" went to number 4 in 2004, but it reached number 2 in 2005.

[EM64T]

What about the Freddie Mercury solo album sales?

[HUR]

"The Freddie Mercury album" was a massive seller in Europe:

-UK: 600 k
-Netherlands: 50 k
-Germany: 500 k
-Spain: 200 k
-Italy: number one durin 3 weeks, estimated 200 k
-France: 600 k
-Swistzerland: 50 k
-Austria: number 2

Estimated for Europe: 2,7 M

[HUR]

Here is a part of an article taken from an argentinian newspaper in 2001:

"El hombre que fue reina

El cantante de Queen murió hace diez años. Su personalidad marcó a fuego el gusto argentino y sus discos se venden casi tanto como los de los Beatles.
Ochocientos cincuenta mil novecientos treinta discos es la cifra que Queen vendió en Argentina solamente en discos compactos. En los últimos diez años, desde que la vida de Freddy Mercury se apagó definitivamente, ese es el número; el indicador Queen; el dato que dice que este es el segundo grupo de rock— superado solo por The Beatles—que más discos de catálogo vende.
Queen vendió casi 400 mil discos de su Greatest Hits II (Grandes éxitos)"


In conclusion, it says that Queen had sold 850.930 copies only in CD´s in Argentina until 2001, and they are the second best selling band after The Beatles. It aslo says that Greatest hits had sold over 0,4 M copies (I presume the figure was based in Cd´s only).

[Basil]

The first post on this thread has had some soundscan figures updated and weeks on catalogue chart added.

[braca]

What about the Freddie Mercury solo album sales?

17 new Freddie Mercury - The Very Best of Freddie
Mercury Solo
Parlophone - 79.000

So 79.000 sold in it 1st week
beyonce did a little better with 736.000 copies sold
according to
http://www.mediatraffic.de/albums.htm


Haven forum listed this ref the UK:
Released to coincide with what would have been his 60th birthday last Tuesday (5th), The Very Best Of Freddie Mercury Solo debuts at number six with sales of 23,155 The album, available both as a single disc and as a double disc set, should receive another boost with the screening of an ITV documentary, It's A Kind Of Magic tomorrow (12th). Queen back catalogue benefited from the anniversary too, with Greatest Hits advancing 95-87 and Live At Wembley '86 and Greatest Hits II re-entering at 149 and 164 respectively.

[HUR]

Basil, thank you for the update. You can add "Queen rocks" to your list for USA, which scanned, as posted by Hamboo, 58 k as of this year. Besides, "The crown jewels" was released in 1998 and Greatest hits 3 in 1999.

[Basil]

Basil, thank you for the update. You can add "Queen rocks" to your list for USA, which scanned, as posted by Hamboo, 58 k as of this year. Besides, "The crown jewels" was released in 1998 and Greatest hits 3 in 1999.

Thanks HUR, I was hoping someone would provide this info. Braca has added (by PM) an updated figure of 69k for Rocks. All edited onto Page One.

[HUR]

Yes, the real total is 69 k, and not 58 k. Thank you Basil.

[jimmypages59]

Queen UK Album Sales 1992 - 2006

Figures in Green are Music Club Sales.

Queen
1992 --- 20483 --- From July Onwards
1993 --- 35005
1994 --- 3500 --- 1001
1995 --- 2646 --- 1268
1996 --- 2656 --- 551
1997 --- 1944 --- 773
1998 --- 4266
1999 --- 1690
2000 --- 2377
2001 --- 10931
2002 --- 3731 --- 853
2003 --- 4621 --- 477
2004 --- 4492 --- 36
2005 --- 9128 --- 2
2006 --- 7022 --- 4
Total sales --- 114,492 --- 4,965 --- 119,457

Queen II
1992 --- 20434 --- From July Onwards
1993 --- 31324
1994 --- 5946 --- 1059
1995 --- 3243 --- 596
1996 --- 3365 --- 637
1997 --- 2738 --- 491
1998 --- 5245
1999 --- 2422
2000 --- 3225
2001 --- 9993
2002 --- 3442 --- 752
2003 --- 5204 --- 451
2004 --- 2382 --- 30
2005 --- 12935
2006 --- 7384
Total sales --- 119,282 --- 4,016 --- 123,298

Sheer Heart Attack
1992 --- 7322 --- From July Onwards
1993 --- 7468
1994 --- 6435
1995 --- 4760
1996 --- 4248
1997 --- 5469
1998 --- 7911
1999 --- 4109
2000 --- 4163
2001 --- 5133
2002 --- 4930
2003 --- 7382
2004 --- 4048
2005 --- 23094
2006 --- 13728
Total sales --- 110,200

A Night At The Opera
1992 --- 11241 --- From July Onwards
1993 --- 13182
1994 --- 13303
1995 --- 11499 --- 9068
1996 --- 9200 --- 6465
1997 --- 12186 --- 1633
1998 --- 12400 --- 372
1999 --- 10723
2000 --- 8050
2001 --- 14541
2002 --- 7799 --- 1814
2003 --- 18056 --- 422
2004 --- 14941 --- 220
2005 --- 93786 --- 95
2006 --- 41918
Total sales --- 292,825 --- 20,089 --- 312,914

A Day At The Races
1992 --- 6077 --- From July Onwards
1993 --- 7530
1994 --- 6093
1995 --- 5809
1996 --- 6000
1997 --- 9467
1998 --- 7569
1999 --- 5211
2000 --- 5554
2001 --- 6936
2002 --- 4278 --- 1270
2003 --- 6596 --- 222
2004 --- 4036 --- 225
2005 --- 35415 --- 20
2006 --- 28442 --- 48
Total sales --- 145,013 --- 1,785 --- 146,798

News Of The World
1992 --- 5105 --- From July Onwards
1993 --- 6391
1994 --- 5734
1995 --- 5198
1996 --- 5330
1997 --- 6380
1998 --- 5514
1999 --- 2256
2000 --- 3738
2001 --- 4009
2002 --- 5329 --- 984
2003 --- 4461 --- 193
2004 --- 2220 --- 169
2005 --- 14074
2006 --- 12114
Total sales --- 87,853 --- 1,346 --- 89,199


Jazz
1992 --- 4258
1993 --- 4862
1994 --- 7340
1995 --- 4097
1996 --- 4578
1997 --- 3313
1998 --- 8755
1999 --- 4504
2000 --- 2133
2001 --- 3037
2002 --- 2811
2003 --- 3450
2004 --- 1513
2005 --- 11635
2006 --- 10442
Total sales --- 76,728

Innuendo
1992 --- 26701 --- From July Onwards
1993 --- 23870 ---
1994 --- 14517 --- 6078
1995 --- 13722 --- 3850
1996 --- 1332 --- 3640
1997 --- 11141 --- 2477
1998 --- 10791 --- 2473
1999 --- 8614 --- 1529
2000 --- 5190 --- 1184
2001 --- 5412 --- 700
2002 --- 5365 --- 581
2003 --- 10503 --- 113
2004 --- 4801 --- 90
2005 --- 13923 --- 36
2006 --- 10824 --- 44
Total Sales --- 166,706 --- 22,795 --- 189,501

Certifed Platinum in Mar 91, so only about 15 months missing. With Mercury's death in Nov 91, the album could have sold a lot of copies in that time. I would imagine it should be at least 2 X Platinum. 300,000 + 189,000 + 100,000+ (If not more, it probably done at least 50,000 in 92) (Mar 91-Jun 92).