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As of now (07/04/2023): Queen vs. Led Zeppelin
Pure Studio Albums: 90,230,000 vs. 141,500,000
Other LPs (EAS): 139,348,000 vs. 51,200,000
Physical Singles (units sold): 49,960,000 vs. 6,350,000
Digital Singles (units sold): 59,650,000 vs. 32,030,000
Streams (EAS): 25,278,000 vs. 7,484,000
Total EAS: 278,795,000 vs. 206,897,000
Therefore, Queen have passed Led Zeppelin by total equivalent album sales (EAS).
Regarding to your other question, as of 2020 Queen had sold about 47,027,000 pure albums in US while it's obviously that Led Zeppelin did sell their biggest share of albums in the US (in the respective article there are no information about regional numbers). Hence, Led Zeppelin have sold more pure albums in US than Queen, which is why along with The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin are considered more successful -> important than Queen by American market focused journals like Rolling Stone. Note the name of the magazine, from which a clear subjective bias can be discerned, also in favor of a singer-songwriter who wrote "Like A Rolling Stone".
okay because many lz fans say something different and just seem to cling to the fact that lz was or is more successful, they seem to despise queen by saying that lz sold more records. that must mean that they outsold them in pure copies as well(178 million vs 182 as of 2016)
Worldwide Queen is bigger then Led Zeppelin.
In US Led Zeppelin is more powerful then Queen .
Remember, fans are always claiming their personal favorites are the best, most influential, meaningful, important, successful artists at least within their respective genres. There are individual opinions and there are statistical facts. So, the fundamental question should actually always be clarified in advance.
At some point it was true that Led Zeppelin sold more albums than Queen but not anymore, especially since the movie. And of course Queen are much bigger when it comes to singles and streaming.
"In US Led Zeppelin is more powerful then Queen ."
For what it's worth, 69% of Americans have a positive opinion of Queen against 68% for Led Zeppelin (Yougov).
But their chart numbers are pretty disappointing. They only had 3 no 1 hits when Freddie was still alive(Bohemian Rhapsody, Under Pressure, Innuendo)
Queen have had (I guess) five UK number one singles, but nine or ten UK number one albums, which is more important because success with albums is more sustainable.
Having one or several number one singles is a nice media boost for an artist for a certain moment. But charts, especially those for single hits, are no reference for ultimately commercial success.
If you look to chart positions, these are always snapshots relative to what also happens to be in the charts.
You mentioned Led Zeppelin who haven't got a significant number of highly charted singles, similar with Pink Floyd (7th most selling artist worldwide) or Metallica.
So, if you want to know how successful an artist is/has been, look to the units of albums, singles, downloads and streaming sold, instead of chart positions.
There is some really nice sales disc for auction included in the Sotherby's Freddie Mercury - A World Of His Own. MJD this might help shed some light on new sales figures as some are rare and dated. For Instance the sales on this site for SHA in Sweden is estimated at 25,000, however there is a sales disc presented too Freddie for sales in Sweden for SHA in 1977 for 50,000 sales. Even if you not a huge fan of Queen it's well worth a delve into what is for sale from a rock Icons life!
https://www.sothebys.com/en/series/freddie-mercury-a-world-of-his-own?locale=en
You have to browse through the 6 auction ( on stage and clt2 ) have sales awards listed
Hi Slightlymad!
Thanks for the link, these are indeed really nice. It's rare to get concrete numbers with a date for many of these exotic countries (exotic being not the usual western music industry country). That will help refining our discogs statistics to sales methods and we will obviously take a look at it once we update them. Obviously we still need to be cautious with in-house awards, some can add singles into albums' or stuff like that, but we will check the details when we will be there.
By the way, we added them to the receipts database so that the information is easy to read.
Long before the movie, Queen had outsold Zeppelin by a significant amount.
Yes, overall they had, when including singles, videos, downloads etc but I'm pretty sure in their (Queens) original analysis, prior to the film, they were not significantly ahead on album sales, I think they were either just behind or just ahead of Led Zeppelin.
Queen had, what I like to call "the curse of #2". Check out how many of their singles landed at #2.
Tell me where to get those fact numbers? From record companies? Not e.g Discogs doesn't give any facts, but you can infer. Is It 47027000 fact number to Queen US album sales? Queen's Soundscan number 1991-2012 was 20 m, very near.
I entirely appreciate that. I realise that neither the ASR or CSPC methodology is recognised outside of the Chartmasters website. I was only using it as a point of reference/comparison due to the fact that the people commenting are doing so on this site.
As you say, it's difficult to put together a completely 'bullet proof' system of measuring these things given the radically different methods of music consumption over time.
For what it's worth I neither like or dislike Taylor Swifts' material. She is certainly going through a huge purple patch at the moment though. For my money she isn't in the same league as the artists mentioned as of yet but who knows what the future holds.
Hey folks:
To remind you, this is a Queen discussion and not a discussion about any blonde pretending to be cute album cover poser. If you want to discuss other people, go to respective sections.
Anyway, let's switch to the only relevant issue in this particular discussion:
QUEEN!!!!!!😀 😃👍
Anything else is
OFF TOPIC!!!🧐
Are the digital sales automatically updated or just the streaming numbers? (Curious for all artists)
Thanks
Hi Jav!
Depends on the artist, to make it simple, sales are automatically update for 2023 articles, they are not for older ones.
