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Queen’s ‘Greatest Hits’ Becomes First Album to Sell 7 Million In U.K.
https://www.billboard.com/music/chart-beat/queen-greatest-hits-7-million-uk-sales-milestone-1235115774/
Hi Dan!
Sadly, as it's often the case with OCC claims, this figure is fake in so many ways that it isn't worth mentioning it!
I'm surprised that the figure would be so fake. You had the sales at 5.37 million 2.5 years ago and their 50th anniversary was during that 2.5 years. They were near the top of the charts for much of that year. Just this summer, with 10 sold out shows in London, they were the opening act of the jubilee, which again increased interest in their music. In the U.S. their Greatest Hits album actually hit its top chart position in November 2020 and has been in the top 40 nearly every week since the movie came out. (Not that the U.S. would factor in to the U.K. sales.) I'm just surprised the 7 million figure would not be at least somewhat close to correct.
Just looking at it from the point of physical releases, the problem with the OCCs Greatest Hits total, stems back to 2006 and the release of their Top 100 Best Selling albums list.
For some reason the OCC decided to add sales from a 1990s double pack release of Greatest Hits I & II and from The Platinum Collection. Half of the double packs sales and one third of The PCs sales were added to the sales of the stand alone GHs. They also did not include GHs Music Club sales in their total, which totaled around 300,000 from 1992 to the early 2000s.
So, as you see, the figure given is a made up number, that in reality, relates to nothing. It doesn't tell us how many stand alone copies GHs has sold or how many copies of GHs have actually been shipped. This would be GHs retail + GHs music club + GH in I & II + GHs in The PC, which actually comes to 7.77m going by the last published figures in this article and that's not factoring in streaming or downloads.
Hey Martin -- In ur 7,77 m are you counting every sale of the pc box ( which we should in my opinion ) to the total or a third as the occ apparently did?
Can provide a breakdown of the 7,77?
Hi Jay!
The case wasn't about GH being a great seller or not, but if the OCC were telling the truth or not. The fact is, their article is full of lies. They act as if the 7m units is something real, even stating the share of households owning it, etc, while it's a bunch of garbage.
As Martin says, their figure:
- completely ignores club sales
- add portions of multi-packs into the total for some periods
I can add that:
- it ignores the same portions of the same multi-packs for some other periods
- it obviously add streams, and while I was one of the first to do so nearly a decade ago, it's a nonsense to then say households own the record based on that
- it adds streams counted twice and then merged together, effectively counting the exact same stream multiple times
- it takes a pure claim as the basis of every pre-94 sales
- it misses nearly a third of 94-95 sales due to panel limitations that used to be fixed but aren't anymore due to their laziness
- it adds downloads for the album but not for singles, while it does add singles' units from streams
- it replaces the real number of streams of the two biggest songs with a random figure, and ignores entirely streams from the 5 weakest songs
Once you put all this together, you may throw dices and claim that this tells the reality of GH's album sales in the UK rather than believing the OCC.
Hi Braca, yeah it was just me adding up the stand alone sales 5.37m, with PC 2.19m and I&II 210k
These 300k music club sales are already part of the 5.37 million figure as we do count these units!
Yes, Dan - it's official and is the FACT, for ages. And no one, even MJD can't deny it, no matter does he agree with that or not. As we all know, he never changes his mind and believes that only he is right.
THIS IS THE FACT! DONE.
PS I also don't like this method, that they divided, for example, Platinum collection's sales into 1/3 parts and added to original hits albums. I don't agree with that. They maybe had to add all the sales to Greatest hits 1, 2 and 3 albums separately, and don't count Platinum collection as another album. 'cause PC is the same as Greatest hits + Greatest hits II + Greatest hits III albums, just together.
Best solution, would've been to leave them as they were, as separate products, failing that, yes, the logical solution is surely to merge all the separate totals together.
How do you think, Martin - will ever OCC change the method of counting sales of GH, or not?
And maybe you know - if this THEIR method is applying in other identical cases?
"Queen were usually put alongside the likes of U2, the Eagles and AC/DC."
No they're weren't. The vast majority of people aren't American. There's a entire world outside of the U.S where Queen have never been regarded alongside those acts. Why are you talking as if everyone comes from north America? They've always been regarded as a top act worldwide.
Surely you can correct that so it reflects the worldview. The Steve Hoffman forum and its inward looking American boomers - who still think 1970s U.S magazines such as Rolling Stone spoke the gospel - aren't the world. Far from it.
Queen are huge. I mean truelly massive! I would say their music today is perhaps more well known globally than even The Beatles.
Hi.
Silly question - when i look at the physical singles, i see:
We are the champions - 5,191,000 copies
We will rock you - 585,000 copies
Both of them were released as one single, how come they're separated in sales?
Hi dan!
WWRY is indeed the B side of the main WATC single. But it was also released as an A side in a handful of markets which sold 585k.
On the new Miracle reissue on Spotify, there is a problem with counting the streaming numbers. 'The Miracle backing track', 'I Want It All backing track', 'Rain Must Fall backing track' and 'My Baby Does me backing track' all have the same count as the original songs.
It happens. On the Physical Graffiti Deluxe version, the Driving Through Kashmir demo version of Kashmir, also just shows the original stream count. Strangely, at one point many years ago, for maybe a few days it showed its own count, which at the time was around 800k, but within a few days it had reverted back to just showing the same count as the original and has done ever since.
The first gold record of the single "Another one bites the dust", for +500,000 copies sold, in which year was it awarded?
I'm not exactly sure what you mean but these are it's US RIAA cert dates for its Gold and Platinum certs. On top of this, I can't think of any other country, where the original 7" single shipped 500k.
QUEEN ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST NOVEMBER 25, 1980 PLATINUM SINGLE
QUEEN ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST OCTOBER 01, 1980 GOLD SINGLE
In those days the requirement for a Gold single was one million units sold
I believe this was adjusted to 500,000 at the end on the 80ties
The Riaa site (unfortunetly) just tallies the certifications as 500,000 for G and 1,000,000 for P regardless when it was awarded. The org certification (no longer listed on the riaa site) was for 2,000,000 copes sold.
I expected Face it alone to do better performing on the charts. It was well recieved from critiques and gets a lot of attention. But nevertheless what a successful band and a noticeable upswing after the biopic. Well deserved. Queen is present on the radio every day, at least on my station in Germany.
Wow, so they've sold 300 million records (pure sales) and are likely the most streamed pre-90s artist of all-time. I wish Freddie Mercury was here to see how many people still love his voice.
