One of the most successful albums of all time, Queen’s ‘Greatest Hits’ has racked up a mind-boggling array of achievements – as these stats prove. By Jason Draper
Featuring 17 classic songs from Queen’s remarkable first decade together, the group’s original Greatest Hits album has become one of the most successful records of all time. Although it seemingly picks up fresh plaudits with each passing year, the collection made headlines from day one. As Martin Talbot, the former Chief Executive of the UK’s Official Charts Company, once noted: “When it was released for the first time in 1981, career-spanning packages such as Greatest Hits were relatively rare, the preserve of only the very biggest acts.” Having celebrated its 45th anniversary this past October, Greatest Hits has broken records all around the world, and has become the yardstick by which all hits collections are measured. The numbers say it all…
Queen’s ‘Greatest Hits’ – By The Numbers 4 Weeks at UK No. 1
Released on 26 October 1981, Greatest Hits debuted at No. 2 in the UK charts, before heading to the top spot a week later. Spending four consecutive weeks at No. 1 throughout November and into early December, the album consolidated the success of the group’s then recent chart-topping David Bowie collaboration, ‘Under Pressure’. A stalwart presence on the Official Albums Chart, it went Top 10 again in the 1990s and the 2010s, as it sped towards its record-breaking run of…
1,300+ Weeks on the UK charts
As of the start of November 2026, Greatest Hits spent its 1,300th week in the UK Top 100, where it sits as the longest-charting album in UK history, beating out other high-profile best-ofs by ABBA and Bob Marley. And that number seems only set to increase, as the collection is currently in the middle of an unbroken run that began on 4 May 2023 and now totals more than 180 consecutive weeks on the chart.
7.8 million UK chart sales
Officially recognised as the best-selling album of all time in the UK, Greatest Hits’s chart performance is down to some phenomenal sales figures, totalling 7.8 million in July 2026. On its current trajectory, that 8 million landmark isn’t far off, which means the UK’s most successful rock act will soon have yet another reason to unfurl their “We Are the Champions” banner.
25 Percentage of UK households that own a copy
According to Martin Talbot, “Queen’s Greatest Hits can claim to be in more than one in four UK households’ record collections today.” The former Official Charts Company exec made that assessment just as the album celebrated reaching 7.8 million sales. Holding steady with a similar appraisal made in 2014 – in which the record was said to have been owned by one in three British families, after becoming the first album in UK history to hit 6 million sales – Greatest Hits continues to raise the bar in the band’s homeland – something that Roger Taylor has attributed to “the British public and their infinitely great taste”.
26 UK platinum certifications
Era-defining albums such as The Beatles’ St. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours and Michael Jackson’s Thriller sit comfortably among the UK’s most successful records, but Queen’s Greatest Hits tops them all. Having gone platinum 26 times over to date, it’s proof positive that you won’t be able to stop Queen now – or ever, by the looks of it.
720+ Weeks on the US charts
The story is much the same stateside, where the album made its Top 10 debut in November 2020, and recently surpassed 720 weeks on the Billboard 200. Much like its UK chart stats, this figure just keeps climbing, making Greatest Hits the most killer Queen release in the US.
200+ Weeks on top of the Billboard Top Hard Rock Albums chart
On 3 April 2026, Forbes reported that Greatest Hits had spent 208 weeks – or exactly four years – at the top of Billboard’s Top Hard Rock Albums chart. Noting that “few releases… have spent at least 52 weeks – a complete year – atop one of Billboard’s albums rosters”, Forbes’s senior correspondent Hugh McIntyre called Queen’s success a “nearly unheard of” achievement that “only a very small group of names in music history would have even a shot at matching”.
25 million Copies sold worldwide
Added to its 26 UK platinum certifications, Greatest Hits has gone platinum nine times in the US, 15 times in Australia, ten times in New Zealand, five times in Argentina, three times in Canada and once in Brazil. Earning further gold and multi-platinum awards across Denmark, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan and Switzerland, the album has racked up more than 25 million sales worldwide, meaning that it takes its place alongside records such as Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon, Guns N’ Roses’ Appetite for Destructionand Nirvana’s Nevermind for global cultural cut-through.
6 Tracklist variants
It’s a mark of Queen’s wide-ranging appeal that their hits differ from country to country. Accordingly, Greatest Hits was released with no fewer than six different tracklist variations, with some reports putting that figure as high as 12. Each one reflects the tastes of a particular part of the world, so while there are no surprises for guessing that ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, ‘Another One Bites the Dust’ and ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ found a home on every edition, there are enough variations to keep collectors busy. The 15-track Australian Greatest Hits included the A Day at the Races single ‘Tie Your Mother Down’; the Japanese edition included a different A Day at the Races cut, ‘Teo Torriatte’; and most international editions featured ‘Under Pressure’, Queen’s hit collaboration with David Bowie. Not that the original UK pressing had gone out of its way to ignore one of the band’s most beloved songs. Rather, Greatest Hits was already being manufactured at home by the time ‘Under Pressure’ blew up. Remarkably, Greatest Hits became the group’s first-ever official Hungarian release, when it was issued in the country in 1988. That means Queen hadn’t released anything official in Hungary at the time of their history-making concert at the Népstadion, in Budapest, on 27 July 1986. That didn’t stop fans from going berserk at the gig, which was filmed for VHS release and given a 40th-anniversary 4K restoration as Queen: Budapest in October 2026.
6 Spin-off releases
There have been no shortage of Queen compilations since the release of the original Greatest Hits, with 1992’s The 12” Collection bringing together extended versions and remixes of songs, and Queen Forever featuring newly unearthed Freddie Mercury vocal recordings, worked up into finished songs by Brian May and Roger Taylor. But Greatest Hits remains the go-to for Queen fans of every type, and it has inspired a run of spin-offs. Companion VHS release Greatest Flix featured all the group’s promo videos to that point, with a bonus live performance of ‘We Will Rock You’, while Greatest Pix collected a wealth of iconic band portraits taken by US photographer Neal Preston. Over in the States, the Greatest Hits video release put a spin on Greatest Pix when it was released in 1992, featuring, as it did, newly cut promo videos for ‘Now I’m Here’, ‘Seven Seas of Rhye’ and ‘Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy’, plus a Rick Rubin remix of ‘We Will Rock You’, which ran over the end credits. Picking up from where the original Greatest Hits album left off, Greatest Hits II and Greatest Hits III were released in 1991 and 1999, respectively, with each new instalment bringing the Queen story up to date. Packaged together in 2000 as The Platinum Collection, they served as the ultimate presentation of Queen’s glittering crown jewels.
4th Best-selling album of all time
Simply put: It will still rock you.
Jason Draper