Queen’s Greatest Hits becomes first album in Official Charts history to reach 7 million UK chart ‘sales’

 

Brian May and Roger Taylor “humbled and honoured” as they make the milestone

 

 

British rock legends Queen make UK chart history as they become the first act ever to reach 7 million UK chart ‘sales’ of an album, the Official Charts Company can confirm.

 

Queen break Official Chart records as they surpass the 7 million milestone with their 1981 Greatest Hits album. The Official best-selling album of all time in the UK, the record includes such classic tracks as We Will Rock You, Don’t Stop Me Now and the group’s top-selling behemoth Bohemian Rhapsody.

 

Greatest Hits reaches this record-breaking achievement through a combination of physical sales, downloads and streams.

 

Back in 2014, Queen’s Greatest Hits became the first album to ever surpass 6 million sales in the UK and, as pure sales (physical and digital download copies) of the collection continue to increase, the group’s back catalogue proves enduringly popular in the modern streaming age. Greatest Hits has accumulated an incredible 1.26 billion total UK streams to date, with the album’s most-streamed track being Bohemian Rhapsody, which boasts 240 million UK streams and counting.

 

The record also recently celebrated its 1000th week on the Official Albums Chart, with Queen becoming the first British act ever to achieve this landmark milestone.

 

Speaking to OfficialCharts.com, Queen guitarist Brian May says: “We’re here to bring you the joyous news that Queen’s Greatest Hits album has sold 7 million copies, which nobody has ever done before. No album has done this before in history. Thank you, we appreciate it.”

 

Queen’s Roger Taylor adds: “The British public and their infinitely-great taste have made this the biggest-selling album in history. Thank you very much; we’re humbled and honoured. We salute you!”

 

Martin Talbot, Chief Executive, Official Charts Company, comments: “It really is a fantastic achievement by Queen to become the first act to notch up 7 million sales of one album, with their legendary Greatest Hits.

 

"When it was released for the first time in 1981, career-spanning packages such as Greatest Hits were relatively rare, the preserve of only the very biggest acts. Queen’s Greatest Hits can claim to be in more than one-in-four UK households’ record collections today, and there is no doubt that its massive success has done as much as any other release to turn hits packages into the omnipresent album concept that they are today."

 

https://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/q...-sales-__36841/

Edited July 19, 20222 yr by Ne Plus Ultra

There is always confusion around its actual full sales due to various re releases so its good that its confirmed by OCC.

I had them down as passing 7m ages ago going by their previous method of adding a third of the sales from The Platinum Collection and half the sales from a Greatest Hits 1 and 2 box set. I wonder if they’ve stopped doing this somewhere along the line but not retroactively taken away sales from those two other releases.

So is 7m just pure sales (which the '1 in 4 households now own a copy' bit implies) or is it 7m from sales + stream-equivelant-sales (which the other quote about approx 1.26m s-e-s's since it passed 6m seems to imply)?

 

 

Regarding the UK Sales of 'Greatest Hits' (One). The OCC only added in 'Enhanced Sales', from

'The Platinum Collection', (560,000), and the 1994 Double Queen CD, (66,000), in 2006. It was

done when The OCC compiled the UK's 'All Time' Top 100 Best Selling Albums, that Year. So, the

1981 Album got 626,000 'Enhance Sales' added to it. As did 'Greatest Hits II', (1991). The 1999

Compilation, 'Greatest Hits III', got 560,000 'Enhanced Sales' added in.

 

After that 2006 Top 100 was compiled, The OCC ceased adding Sales, from the 2000 Triple CD,

and the 1994 Double CD, to the 3 Queen 'Hits' Albums.

 

I know this, because I made Friends with The OCC Guy, who organised the 2006 Top 100. He

did not compile it, but he got some UK 'Chart Experts' to do so. I still know him, and he assures

me that there were Zero 'Enhanced Sales' added in after 2006. It was not an on-going process.

 

Alan Jones confirmed the 'Enhanced Sales' for Queen, in 'Music Week', in September 2009.

 

The 1981 Queen 'Hits' Albums has really sold 7,000,000 - 626,000, as a 'Stand-A-Lone' Album.

The OCC are careful not to mention its 'Enhanced Sales', when reporting on its UK Total. In fact,

2 of its 23 UK Platinum Disks, are really from 2 other Queen Compilations.

 

'ABBA Gold' is on about 6,110,000 UK Sales. The 1st Queen 'Hits' Album is really a few 100,000

in front of it. Not the massive almost 900,000, in front, that the 'Enhanced' 626,000 Sales give it.

 

I realize that many 'Chart Fans', (and Queen Fans), will disagree with me. But, I know that a lot of

'Chart Fans' do agree with me, as I've discussed it with them. It is a matter of what is right or wrong.

We each have our own perspectives.

 

 

Edited July 20, 20222 yr by zeus555

I get the rationale for including sales from the larger compilations but it's weird that they were only included up to 2006.

Zeus555, do you have an up to date sales figure for Beatles Sgt. Pepper?

If the enhanced sales are included with Greatest Hits then Platinum Collection would have 560,000 less sales. These sales can't be counted twice. And fewer BPI certs. Its one or the other but not both. No double counting.

It's all a bit of a farce with the double counting and enhanced sales though isn't it? So that figure of 7m isn't really accurate. Not taking away from its obvious popularity and longevity though!

Yeah but no but - it's not sales though is it? 'sales' it says, which means streaming plays of individual tracks (or 3 massively popular tracks, as I prefer to think of it), so the claim that 1 in 7 households own a copy is bollocks. People who bought the original Greatest Hits probably also bought The Platinum Collection on CD, so there'll be a million at least duplication, and streaming sales is in no way "owning" a copy. it's renting the tracks, or listening to them for free. Or some of the tracks. It should be a piece of piss to work out how many actual streams the album has had: Just see how many sales-equivalent Bicycle Race has had - it's the least-listenable track on the album, so that's the actual base-line 'sales' for the album, or maybe Save Me, Now I'm Here, Play The Game, whichever has the lowest streaming 'sales'. I'm happy to place a large sum of money that all Abba Gold tracks get more plays than those tracks, even if individual Abba tracks dont get nearly as many plays as Don't Stop Me Now Bo rap or We Will Rock You....

If you'd excuse the streams from the "This is Queen" playlist it would be 1 million less probably

Yeah but no but - it's not sales though is it? 'sales' it says, which means streaming plays of individual tracks (or 3 massively popular tracks, as I prefer to think of it), so the claim that 1 in 7 households own a copy is bollocks. People who bought the original Greatest Hits probably also bought The Platinum Collection on CD, so there'll be a million at least duplication, and streaming sales is in no way "owning" a copy. it's renting the tracks, or listening to them for free. Or some of the tracks. It should be a piece of piss to work out how many actual streams the album has had: Just see how many sales-equivalent Bicycle Race has had - it's the least-listenable track on the album, so that's the actual base-line 'sales' for the album, or maybe Save Me, Now I'm Here, Play The Game, whichever has the lowest streaming 'sales'. I'm happy to place a large sum of money that all Abba Gold tracks get more plays than those tracks, even if individual Abba tracks dont get nearly as many plays as Don't Stop Me Now Bo rap or We Will Rock You....

This is the most sensible assessment of how album streams should be counted I've seen (I'm still pro there being a cap), if you take the lowest streamed song on the standard edition of an album as being the number of streams the album has accrued, that could signify the popularity of the album - maybe exclude obvious interludes/intros from this (tracks under 1m?). The album chart should be made up of genuine sales and streams of the album as a complete body (in the best possible way). Greatest Hits will always do better (always have done, due more familiar songs, doesn't take a rocket scientist to work that out), but the current model the OCC use was evidently designed for studio albums, not compilations which may have a far higher number of songs that rack up streams repeatedly.

 

Any streams of individual tracks (particularly where greatest hits are concerned) are already covered in the singles chart... GH albums are the biggest culprits for duplicate counting.

Edited July 20, 20222 yr by Juranamo

the best example is Elton John - Diamonds, it's a GH album no one is streaming, back when Apple was publishing the album stream top 1500 based on proper album streams, Diamonds was never top 1500

 

but still the album gets 5K downloads every week cos that the album all the EJ streams go to, if you go stream Sacrifice from Sleeping with the Past album, 1 stream to Diamonds, if you stream Sacrifice from the "This is Elton John" playlist, 1 stream to Diamonds, you just go to This is Elton John and stream the whole thing, thats 20 streams to Diamonds and so on etc etc etc... and all this without ever streaming Diamonds

And as a result of the media surrounding it’s milestone it’s back to #1 on iTunes and multiple versions are in the Top 25 best sellers on Amazon :magic:

In fairness, it has spent 353 weeks in the Albums Sales Chart which, if added to the earlier 663 weeks it spent in the official chart while sales only, would put it on 1016 weeks - 10 more than its official total.

the best example is Elton John - Diamonds, it's a GH album no one is streaming, back when Apple was publishing the album stream top 1500 based on proper album streams, Diamonds was never top 1500

 

but still the album gets 5K downloads every week cos that the album all the EJ streams go to, if you go stream Sacrifice from Sleeping with the Past album, 1 stream to Diamonds, if you stream Sacrifice from the "This is Elton John" playlist, 1 stream to Diamonds, you just go to This is Elton John and stream the whole thing, thats 20 streams to Diamonds and so on etc etc etc... and all this without ever streaming Diamonds

Looking at this example its crazy how the streaming points are allocated, i think they need to increase the number of songs listened to from an actual album for it to pick up streaming points, im not fully sure how possible that it to do but something better needs to be in place as albums such as Queens Greatest hits, Abba gold, elton john etc will forever clog up the chart. Again as im not sure but could some acr rule be applied to the album chart?

Hopefully not - that's artifical.

It would not change all-time "sales".

Regarding the UK Sales of 'Greatest Hits' (One). The OCC only added in 'Enhanced Sales', from

'The Platinum Collection', (560,000), and the 1994 Double Queen CD, (66,000), in 2006. It was

done when The OCC compiled the UK's 'All Time' Top 100 Best Selling Albums, that Year. So, the

1981 Album got 626,000 'Enhance Sales' added to it. As did 'Greatest Hits II', (1991). The 1999

Compilation, 'Greatest Hits III', got 560,000 'Enhanced Sales' added in.

 

After that 2006 Top 100 was compiled, The OCC ceased adding Sales, from the 2000 Triple CD,

and the 1994 Double CD, to the 3 Queen 'Hits' Albums.

Thanks for this! The OCC are still a little late to recognise this achievement though as I now make out that the compilation pass 7m on the w/e 13th January 2022 and this coming week it'll surpass 7.1m.