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NewsPress Release: Queen are The Champions!
Queen make Official Chart history - Greatest Hits becomes first album ever to hit 6 million UK sales
Hashtag: #Queen6M
London, 11 February 2014
Legendary British band Queen have made chart history by becoming the
first act ever to reach 6 million UK sales of an album, the Official
Charts Company can confirm.
Queen have broken chart records after surpassing the 6 million sales
milestone with their 1981 Greatest Hits album. Britain’s best-selling
album of all time, a staggering one in three British families (or one in
four British households) now owns a copy of the iconic act’s original
best-of collection featuring such classic tracks as We Will Rock You,
Another One Bites The Dust and their top-selling hit, Bohemian Rhapsody.
In a video message via OfficialCharts.com, Queen’s Brian May says:
“Great news, AMAZING news from the Official Charts Company! Queen’s
Greatest Hits which was released in 1981 has passed the 6 million mark
in sales, which is incredible. I just want to say thanks to everyone who
has supported us through the years, we hope to continue to serve you.” View video here.
Queen’s Roger Taylor adds:
"Wonderful. Who would have thought it! And all due to the Great British public. Thank you. A great honour!"
Martin Talbot, Chief Executive of the Official Charts Company comments :
“Becoming the first album to pass 6 million sales is a quite
incredible achievement by Queen and their iconic Greatest Hits album.
Ever since it was first released in 1981, this package of classic pop
and rock tracks has been an indispensable item in every music fan’s
record collection – perhaps THE definitive greatest hits album!"
A true, enduring classic, the British public continue to buy Queen’s
Greatest Hits in their droves; some 33 years after its original release,
the album regularly sells several thousand copies per week,
particularly around the Christmas gifting period, a trusted stocking
filler for British music fans.
Sales of the album digitally are also now racking up, having been downloaded 124,000 times in the UK to date, though Queen’s Greatest Hits is evidently still very much an essential collectors’ favourite that music lovers demand to own a coveted physical copy of.
Gennaro Castaldo of British recorded music industry body, the BPI comments:
“Queen are a part of our music heritage now, with a timeless appeal
that will ensure demand for their songs will continue as new
generations of fans keep coming through."
Queen’s Greatest Hits leads the way, some 900,000 copies ahead of ABBA
Gold as the UK’s best-selling album of all time. ABBA last year
overtook The Beatles Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band to take up
second place in the list. And if 6 million sales isn’t enough for
Freddie, Brian and co, Queen’s follow-up, Greatest Hits II, which was
release in October 1991 – a month before lead singer Freddie Mercury’s
untimely death - also rides high at Number 10 in the all-time Official
Albums Chart, having notched up a further 3.9 million UK sales to date.
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Greatest Hits (Queen album)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Greatest Hits | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
Original 1981 edition
| ||||
| Greatest hits album by Queen | ||||
| Released | 26 October 1981 | |||
| Recorded | 1973–1980 (1981 U.K. edition (Parlophone) & 2011 U.K. edition (Island) & 1994 U.S. edition) 1972–1981 (1981 U.S. & Canada edition) 1974–1981 (1981 Japan edition & 2011 Japan Reissue edition) 1972–1983 (1992 U.S. edition (Hollywood Recoreds) 1973–1982 (2004 U.S. edition (Greatest Hits: We Will Rock You) | |||
| Genre | Rock | |||
| Length | 57:20 (UK edition) | |||
| Label | Parlophone | |||
| Producer | Queen, various | |||
| Queen chronology | ||||
| ||||
| Alternative covers | ||||
1992 U.S. edition
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2011 Universal Remaster
| ||||
| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   [1] |
| Entertainment Weekly | B+[2] |
| The Rolling Stone Album Guide |  [3] |
Greatest Hits is a compilation album by the British rock group Queen. When released in October 1981, the album consisted of Queen's best-selling singles since their first chart appearance in 1974 with "Seven Seas of Rhye", up to their 1980 hit "Flash" (though in some countries "Under Pressure", the band's 1981 chart-topper with David Bowie, was included). There was no universal track listing or cover art for the album, and each territory's tracks were dependent on what singles had been released there and which were successful.
Queen's Greatest Hits was an instant success, peaking at number one on the UK Album Chart for four weeks. It has spent 476 weeks in the UK Charts, and is the best-selling album of all time in the UK, selling six million copies there.[4][5][6][7] It is certified eight times platinum in the United States, and is Queen's most commercially successful album worldwide with over 25 million copies sold, making it one of the best-selling albums of all time
History[edit]
There was no universal track listing or cover art for the Greatest Hits album, and each territory's tracks were dependent on what singles were released there and what tracks charted. In some cases, despite the band's popularity, not enough songs were issued as singles to fill a compilation album, and a few album tracks were used as filler. Some examples of these were "Sweet Lady" and "Love of My Life", neither was released as a single in any country, but appear on some regions'1981 Hits release. In the UK and the U.S., where solid numbers could be collected, the standard was raised again by only including top 20 hits.
The U.S. ended up with its original edit of Queen's first single release, "Keep Yourself Alive", which had been re-released in the U.S. in 1975 (original release was 1973) after the success of "Bohemian Rhapsody". Also, because of the delay in release dates between the UK (out first) and the U.S. (almost a month later), the U.S. was able to add "Under Pressure" (Queen's duet with David Bowie) to its Hits collection, as it was released during that interim.
In Argentina and Brazil, the LP edition included the same list of UK Greatest Hits minus "Seven Seas of Rhye", and including "Love of My Life" (Live Killers version). CD version is the same as the British.
In 1991, Queen sought to issue a second Greatest Hits collection worldwide, this time with a standard track listing. However, the band had just changed record labels in the US, from Capitol to Hollywood Records, who were keen on a massive promotion of the band's back catalog. The problem was that Elektra still held the US rights to that first 1981 collection (despite being Hollywood's US licencée). Hollywood Records decided to not release Greatest Hits II to the U.S. market, but instead created their own collection, Classic Queen (1992), peaking at no.4.[10] This compilation was made up of tracks such as "Bohemian Rhapsody", "Keep Yourself Alive" and "Under Pressure" (which had already appeared on the Elektra 1981 Hits collection) as well as newer tracks ("A Kind of Magic" and "Radio Ga Ga").[11] Some tracks were not even singles in the U.S. ("One Year of Love") or anywhere ("Stone Cold Crazy").[11] Though well received, this collection would eventually pose the problem of overlapping track lists in the future.
Hollywood Records, later that year, re-released a companion collection Greatest Hits with similar artwork (on a red background, where Classic Queen was on royal blue). Commonly referred to as the Red Greatest Hits, it features most of the '70s tracks absent from Classic Queen (including "Another One Bites the Dust" [1980], "We Will Rock You", "We Are the Champions" and "Killer Queen").
In 2004, to promote the Las Vegas production of the musical We Will Rock You, Hollywood Records released Greatest Hits: We Will Rock You Edition which was the UK Greatest Hits with three bonus tracks.
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