Queen Are the First Act to Sell 7 Million Album Copies in the UK

By JJ Foster -

Queen

The rock legends of Queen have become the first act to sell seven million copies of an album in the UK. The album in question is the band’s 1981 Greatest Hits collection, which is owned by one in four households in the UK, according to the Official Charts Company. After that, Queen guitarist Brian May stated that no album had done that before and thanked everyone. Drummer Roger Taylor also made a statement, saying that the British public and their infinitely-great taste made the album the biggest-selling one in history. Taylor was also grateful and said the band members felt humbled and honored.

Queen’s Greatest Hits Collection Beats ABBA’s Gold by a Million Copies

A Queen’s Greatest Hits 1981 Vintage Vinyl Record Album
Queen’s Greatest Hits is about a million copies in front of the second album on the list – ABBA's 1992 Gold compilation. According to the chief executive of the Official Charts, Martin Talbot, when Queen’s Greatest Hits was released in 1981, career-spanning packages like it were rather rare and done only by the biggest acts. He also mentioned that he believed that the massive success of the album was the reason for hit packages becoming an omnipresent concept in today’s culture.

Queen and Michael Jackson Made the Top 10 Sales-List Twice

Queen’s hit collection was at six million sales before audio streams got included. A thousand streams are what's considered to be a single sale, so with 1.26 billion UK streams, the album got another million in the count. Queen was fronted by the late Freddie Mercury until his passing in 1991 and now has Adam Lambert on lead vocals. The group and the late Michael Jackson are the only two acts to make the top 10 sales list twice. Queen's 1991 Greatest Hits II placed 10th on the list with four million sales, and Michael Jackson's Thriller and Bad albums got the 6th and 9th positions respectively.

Queen Guitarist Bryan May

The other albums on the list include The Beatles’ Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Adele's 21, Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon, Oasis' (What's The Story) Morning Glory?, and Dire Straits' Brother In Arms.