Yes, really. I am talking about current physical sales. Queen currently outsell Madonna.

Overall, Queen have outsold Madonna. That's why Queen are above Madonna.

Indeed Tony. Unfortunately, there are Americans here who have trouble getting their heads around the fact that there is an entire world outside of America.

You're embarrassing yourself. Firstly, it's Freddie Mercury (not Freddy). Secondly, I suggest you look up the figures rather than talking nonsense.

Nuno, it's glaringly obvious at this point you are way out of your depth.

Jackson's peak was long ago, even though overall, his sales are along way behind The Beatles. Jackson is 102nd most streamed artist on Spotify, below The Beatles and Queen. Queen are at number 40. That makes Queen the most streamed legacy act. And streaming is how the majority of people listen to music these days.

Nuno, back in 2017, this very website said that even if Madonna puts out another album, Queen will still overtake her. You protest far too much! lol

Alright RLAAMJR. You keep inventing ridiculous excuses like you playing your cassette and CD over and over and how "it’s possible Madonna’s songs arent streamed more because they had it saved directly through their cellphones, usb , computers etc " Lol.

None of what you've said there changes that Queen are far more streamed / bought / well known.

@djdj. Physical singles? Why are you limiting it to that only? Are we still living in the pre-internet era? If you want to cherry pick fine, but that's not the way it works in reality.

For the sake of balance, and considering how the vast majority stream music nowadays...

Have you compared their most streamed songs on Spotify? Let's see...

Queen

Bohemian Rhapsody = 1,119,287,947
Don't Stop Me Now = 771,906,947
Another One Bites The Dust = 720,069,344
Under Pressure = 636,873,595
We Will Rock You = 592,445,003

Madonna

Material Girl = 112,329,270
Like a Prayer= 118,947,380
4 Minutes (feat. Justin Timberlake) = 105,843,034
Hung Up = 97,938,354
Like a Virgin = 90,878,538

Now, if you want the overall sales, Chartmasters has kindly done the maths!

Rolling Stone magazine is an out of touch joke. For example, I suggest you search for Dave's Music database online. He combined 27 greatest singer polls / lists, which overall placed Freddie Mercury in first place (that should be no surprise - as it's no secret that Freddie Mercury either tops or lands very high on greatest singer polls). But Rolling Stone magazine? They placed Mercury at number 18 (lower than Bob Dylan, who obviously doesn't have the chops that Mercury had.). Where was Mike Patton on their list? Where was Kate Bush? Nowhere. Did I say Rolling Stone magazine is an out of touch joke?

@ Nuno. Not that I give two hoots for their music, but you might want to compare Madonna's recent album sales to... say... Adele or Taylor Swift, being as you mentioned them and Madonna's relevance, or rather, her irreverence. Madonna's albums haven't been selling good for a long time.

Nuno wrote "Actually they did not beat Madonna in sales. They beat in EAS and Streaming only. "

Streaming = sales.
And did you not realise what EAS stands for?

Yes, Queen have outsold Madonna.

👍🏼👍🏼😂 Great one Steve, I think you have firmly shut up Nuno and djdj!! and finally ended this debate, at least there are some sensible Americans out there😂🎸.

I don't think Bohemian Rhapsody has 2B views on Youtube. The music video has around 1.1B views, while other various videos seem to push it up to 1.5B views or so. What am I missing?

I like Queen and I do think they are getting respect now that they didn't get earlier in their careers. They have some epic songs. But I still don't agree with triple counting an album that sells for $15 on Amazon, The Platinum Collection. And to say the 8.5 million people would have bought Greatest Hits Volume Three, on it's own, is not a reasonable assumption. A good example to compare it to is the Led Zeppelin Box set set, which sold 3.7 million copies, was priced at $60 and is only counted once. Both are similar career spanning compilations which cannibalized their original catalogs, however, people were willing to shell out $60 for the later and I've never seen the platinum collection on sale for much over $20. I know this website isn't about the $$$'s, but let's be honest, with the Platinum collection, at it's price point, you are getting 1/2 of Queen's good songs for free. In my mind, if you are going count the Led Zeppelin Box Set as one each, then the same should apply to the Platinum collection.

Between the double counting of the Greatest Hits 1 and 2 and triple counting the Platinum Collection, they are getting 20,820,000 additional sales. I agree with nearly all of the CSPC methodology except the idea of applying multiple sales to some collections and not to others, when they both have the same result on the back catalog for that artist. Then again, it isn't my website.

Kudos to Queen, though, anyway. A great result.