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There is nothing strange, considering that Queen nowadays (actually from 1984 and this gap becomes even bigger post Classic Queen album era) are much more popular in Europe than USA, and just various complications of hits sell pretty well in N. America, but not studio albums, when they were released (from 1984).
The 1991 version sold 150k copies there in recent years thanks to a CD and DL release in 2011 plus a vinyl release in 2017.
Nice work! Based on your data some nice analogies can be made. For example, three big British bands of different decades that are relatively less succesful in the States, aren't usually considered to be artistically hailed, though loved by large numbers of fans. Oasis sold almost 50 ml albums, of those almost 27 in Europe, according to this website, while Dire Straits, with also one bestseller, sold just above 100 ml albums worldwide, 57 in Europe. Queen , whose Bohemian Rhapsody is the only pre-2000 song that is streamed more than Wonderwall, now sold almost 200 ml albums, 97 in Europe. So the numbers double while the band is a decade older. Too much a coincidence to not be mentioned ;-).
Great work by MJD and the team!
Queen have had a huge boost in their numbers since this was last updated.
There is one thing that I've noticed that doesn't look right.
The Spotify streaming total for 'Who Wants To Live Forever' seems too low. There appears to be two versions of the track that have nearly streamed the same total. The original version on the album (up to today) has been streamed 47,211,974 times. This version run-time is 5 mins, 16 seconds.
There is another version of the song though that is on Greatest Hits 2 that is a different version (it's run-time is 4 mins 55 seconds) and has 47,342,440 times. I only noticed the difference when I ran the numbers app on your website- it is listed right near the end of the results next to 'I'm Slightly Mad' and Hammer to Fall.
If you also add the 3 other versions of WWTLF on Spotify - the remix 'Forever' at 14,003,861, the Live At Wembley version at 3,838, 343 and the Live At Budapest versions to the 2 versions you get a total of 115,183,812 and even with the extra time the versions have had to add streams since this analysis was done it should have easily exceeded 110,000,000 in total rather then the 67,514,000 figure you ended up with?
I always thought the WWTLF Spotify number was low compared to some of their other tracks so I'm assuming these 2 versions being streamed almost identically in number is the reason?
OK, so they beat Madonna in SALES.
She beats them in cultural impact and music influences as well as worldwide popularity. Queen are right now at their most popular, Madonna had decades of MJ level popularity, even if she is not nearly as big now.
Found information that (I believe from Billboard annual report):
Top 5 Albums 2019 In U.S.
Source: Nielsen Music, for the tracking period Jan. 4, 2019 through Jan. 2, 2020
Rank Artist Title Album+TEA+On-Demand Audio SEA
1 Queen Bohemian Rhapsody Soundtrack 1,162,000
3 Queen Greatest Hits Vol. 1 732,000
So what does that number 1,162,000 mean (just for 2019), if chartmaster number for Bohemian Rhapsody (from its release in 2019) - just 570 000 copies?
Nielsen music gives this data as representing TOP albums of 2019 in USA...
Lawyeris - that figure you quote is ‘equivalent sales’. It includes all the other sales (Spotify streams, streams from other platforms like Apple, YouTube, etc and digital single sales).
Bohemian Rhapsody sold 570,000 pure albums sales in the US up to the date of the analysis -physical, vinyl and digital sales. The remaining sales you quoted are made up by the above - streaming, etc. So 1,162,000 - 570,000 = 592.000.
592,000 sales are not pure album sales but streaming equivalent and digital singles sales equivalent sales.
MJD has to take these sales off otherwise there would be double-counting - streaming would be counted twice as it is already accounted for in the Streaming section of the analysis.
Hmmm. I would say I agree with you. Just to add/specify:
- Madonna has more worldwide hit songs than Queen so most people know/recognize more Madonna songs than Queen's.
- Madonna is Madonna, a solo music artist, so we pretty much know her voice and face so she gets all the credits/fame/money/awards/achievements , while Queen is a band and I only know the name of their vocalist.
- Madonna, is the best-selling female music artist so she is highly regarded especially in music and among women and while Queen may have outsold her in total EAS but The Beatles will always be regarded more as they are not just the best selling band but the best-selling musicians of all time.
Madonna was more popular because she was much more in the spotlight than Queen ever was. Even MJ admits this.
Madonna was the biggest music star except Michael Jackson. She was global. Queen was very limited in the US. She outsold them by nearly 2 to 1 in the US.
Madonna had the charts, money and fame. She still has the money.
Your point? This website is called chartmasters not influencemasters in case you didn't notice. 🙂
And what's the point to start a discussion just for the sake of it under a post about Queen where probably there are a lot of Queen fans?
There's no need for this, everyone knows that sales doesn't necessarily indicate greatness, they just indicate what people bought, not the quality of it, relax. To each their own.
With your statement about cultural impact I can agree, with music influences I strongly DISAGREE.
Why don't we just comment on data instead?
Btw, if Queen were not so unlucky/snobbed/invisible in the US they would have already sell more than Madonna prior to the movie (since the US market is the biggest market and it sorta deicides the worldwide sales); Madanna has also more decades of career.
Ps. I was a big fan of Madonna in my teens (I'm 40) and I own every Madonna album 'till Music, but I prefer Queen over Madonna. That said I'm glad she is the best selling female artist of all time and propably no other female artist will ever top her.
I'm saying this just so you know I'm not an hater, I don't want to start a discussion, I just don't get why people get so salty about data.
Have a nice day.
Madonna is irrelevant now and she will never be relevant again. Even when she dies, no one cares anymore lol. That’s what happens when you base your career off shock value.
Queen debuted a decade before Madonna, they released similar amount of albums too, so it's pretty equal. Queen had tons of compilations despite not being active.
"Queen are one of only two acts in history to crack 100 million EAS with material from two distinct decades."
Is the other one MJ or Beatles?
Actually, it's Elvis
1950s
1. Elvis Presley – 127,149,000
1960s
1. Beatles – 376,924,000
2. Elvis Presley – 131,658,000
3. Rolling Stones – 110,801,000
4. Simon & Garfunkel – 89,796,000
5. Bob Dylan – 72,934,000
6. The Doors – 72,455,000
7. Led Zeppelin – 57,592,000
8. Creedence Clearwater Revival – 52,246,000
9. Barbra Streisand – 31,384,000
10. Johnny Hallyday – 29,793,000
11. Bee Gees – 27,358,000
12. Pink Floyd – 21,773,000
13. Cher – 14,854,000
14. Fleetwood Mac – 14,807,000
15. Jackson 5 & The Jacksons – 13,281,000
1970s
1. Pink Floyd – 171,695,000
2. Eagles – 163,422,000
3. Led Zeppelin – 138,828,000
4. Queen – 129,721,000
5. Elton John – 129,344,000
6. Abba – 125,972,000
7. Rod Stewart & Faces – 108,674,000
8. Bob Marley – 107,997,000
9. Bee Gees – 104,914,000
10. Fleetwood Mac – 95,398,000
11. Rolling Stones – 73,368,000
12. Billy Joel – 72,103,000
13. David Bowie – 68,914,000
14. AC/DC – 67,824,000
15. Paul McCartney – 65,482,000
16. Aerosmith – 60,765,000
17. Supertramp – 58,979,000
18. Barbra Streisand – 57,359,000
19. Elvis Presley – 54,499,000
20. John Lennon – 47,679,000
1980s
1. Michael Jackson – 181,681,000
2. Madonna – 131,613,000
3. Phil Collins – 119,105,000
4. U2 – 111,861,000
5. Queen – 107,549,000
6. Prince – 93,149,000
7. AC/DC – 84,857,000
8. Bruce Springsteen – 82,382,000
9. Bon Jovi – 79,146,000
10. George Michael & Wham! – 69,617,000
11. Dire Straits – 67,720,000
12. Metallica – 64,948,000
13. Billy Joel – 62,280,000
14. Journey – 61,102,000
15. Guns N’ Roses – 58,419,000
16. Whitney Houston – 56,494,000
17. Bryan Adams – 46,495,000
18. Barbra Streisand – 43,186,000
19. Rolling Stones – 37,912,000
20. Elton John – 37,330,000
1990s
1. Celine Dion – 160,090,000
2. Mariah Carey – 144,462,000
3. Garth Brooks – 108,309,000
4. Whitney Houston – 88,381,000
5. Nirvana – 80,179,000
6. Michael Jackson – 78,755,000
7. Metallica – 75,261,000
8. Backstreet Boys – 74,905,000
9. Madonna – 66,562,000
10. Shania Twain – 65,863,000
11. Guns N’ Roses – 56,524,000
12. Red Hot Chili Peppers – 55,552,000
13. Alanis Morissette – 50,237,000
14. Oasis – 47,347,000
15. Spice Girls – 47,339,000
16. Green Day – 44,616,000
17. Cranberries – 42,810,000
18. U2 – 42,021,000
19. TLC – 38,447,000
20. Bon Jovi – 37,185,000
2000s
1. Eminem – 123,624,000
2. Linkin Park – 67,608,000
3. Coldplay – 66,326,000
4. Britney Spears – 62,135,000
5. Beyoncé – 50,503,000
6. Pink – 48,326,000
7. Norah Jones – 48,153,000
8. Robbie Williams – 47,775,000
9. Nickelback – 46,375,000
10. Black Eyed Peas – 45,631,000
11. Alicia Keys – 43,142,000
12. Michael Bublé – 42,346,000
13. Ayumi Hamasaki – 40,263,000
14. U2 – 38,338,000
15. Madonna – 37,931,000
16. Avril Lavigne – 36,931,000
17. Rihanna – 36,818,000
18. Lady Gaga – 34,991,000
19. Usher – 34,775,000
20. Shakira – 34,227,000
2010s
1. Adele – 73,356,000
2. Ed Sheeran – 61,066,000
3. Justin Bieber – 60,072,000
4. Taylor Swift – 55,950,000
5. Rihanna – 55,886,000
6. Bruno Mars – 52,339,000
7. Drake – 52,256,000
8. One Direction – 44,466,000
9. BTS – 40,695,000
10. Eminem – 38,691,000
11. Maroon 5 – 37,803,000
12. Katy Perry – 35,012,000
13. Ariana Grande – 33,108,000
14. Coldplay – 28,500,000
15. Lady Gaga – 27,496,000
16. Kendrick Lamar – 26,660,000
17. Imagine Dragons – 24,676,000
18. Beyoncé – 23,194,000
19. Michael Bublé – 19,821,000
20. Post Malone – 18,529,000
They are Huge (and always were huge) but let's not forget that half of Queen sales were done after Freddy Mercury died, not before when the songs were originally released. Also this movie documentary that was a huge box office hit (almost 1 billion dollars) really helped Queen increase their EAS on these past 2 years exposing them to a new audience.
They only beat Madonna sales because Freddy Mercury died and they became a cult band (and most Madonna albums and single sales here are under-estimated as some of her albums aren't re-certified since the 80's or 90's in most world countries but are every day on iTunes charts of dozens countries for the past 17 years). In fact while he was still alive Madonna sales were higher than Queen, Most of their sales were after his death.
3 years ago Madonna was still ahead on EAS, they jumped over 20 millions after their hit movie documentary that exposed them to a new audience. Madonna will catch up with them one day soon for sure.
26 million has been added, they were still one of the most streamed acts from the 20th century. When Freddie Mercury died their physical album sales were around 90 million. If you look at many other artists from that era, around half of their album sales have happened since then as well. Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin especially.
Her music is becoming much less relevant. Michael Jackson will always be relevant. Your knowledge of Queen, with all due respect, is inaccurate. Their catalogue sales around the world were quietly pulling in massive amounts while Madonna had a very powerful marketing machine behind her, allowing for countless hits for various reasons. Streaming is a much clearer way of us seeing who REALLY is popular these days and there are many 20th century acts now streaming way WAY more than Madonna.
Nuno - you see just what you want to see. Your argument, that Freddie Mercury's death as a factor helped to sell Queen's music and that's why Queen overtook Madonna is incorrect. Of course, in some way it helped, but Queen with Freddie's death lost a lot more. First of all - to release new material, new albums, second of all - to do live tours, I mean with Freddie Mercury (touring with Rogers and Lambert doesn't count, you just can't these concerts compare with Freddie's), and when there are no new albums, new material, when the last concert with original line was in 1986, your singer is dead - the band gets less press attention, comparing if Mercury would be still alive and touring, and releasing new albums and etc. Madonna had this all the time - new albums, concerts, scandals, attention and etc.
But Queen's music and Freddie's voice is so unique, so diverse, so original, that their music is timeless and people even after almost 30 years after Mercury died are interested and values Queen music, and is gaining new fans.
And I believe, if there will be a movie about Madonna - it wouldn't be so successful as Queen movie was.
