Greatest Hits (Queen album)

Greatest hits
Compilation album by Queen
Publication (s)	November 2nd 1981
Label (s)	EMI / Parlophone ; Elektra , Hollywood Records (USA)
Format (s)	LP , MC , CD
Genre (s)	skirt
Title (number)	17 (CD)
running time	58:18 (CD)
occupation	Freddie Mercury - vocals , piano , rhythm guitar on Crazy Little Thing Called Love Brian May - guitars , vocals, piano Roger Taylor - drums , percussion , vocals John Deacon - bass , synthesizer on Play the Game
chronology Flash Gordon (1980) Greatest hits Hot Space (1982)

Greatest Hits is the first compilation album by the British rock group Queen , released in late 1981, and their most commercially successful album.

The album

Greatest Hits contains the most successful singles from the band's first decade; from 1973 to 1980 nine of the total of 15 Queen studio albums were released.

The album begins with the band's two biggest single hits - Bohemian Rhapsody and Another One Bites the Dust - and ends, like the concerts, with We Will Rock You and We Are the Champions . More than on the studio albums, the pieces by Freddie Mercury dominate on Greatest Hits , as his compositions were disproportionately represented, especially in the first single releases of the individual albums. Only Roger Taylor does not contain a track: Until the publication of Greatest Hits , none of the songs he sang himself at the time had appeared as a queen single.

There are numerous different LP editions of this album , the title composition of which has been slightly adapted to the respective countries. The single Under Pressure (together with David Bowie ), released in parallel to Greatest Hits , is not included in the British album version.

With more than 31 million copies sold, Queens Greatest Hits is one of the world's best-selling albums. It took first place in the charts . a. in Great Britain , Germany , the Netherlands and Austria . With six million copies sold, it is the UK's best-selling album of all time. It reached 11 times platinum status and was on the UK charts for 753 weeks. Greatest Hits Queens is also the most commercially successful album in the USA . In 2011 the box set and the three individual albums from it were released as a digitally remastered version.

The photographs on the cover and on the inner sleeve are from Snowdon . As with the selection of the pieces, the individual versions also differ in the cover design, which is particularly true for the LP version of the album, which originally appeared in German-speaking countries.

After the two complementary compilations Greatest Hits II (1991) and Greatest Hits III (1999) were published, box sets with the first hits album were jointly produced : Greatest Hits I & II became 1994 and The Platinum Collection (Greatest Hits I, II & III) released in 2000. A video clip compilation Greatest Flix I and Greatest Flix II was released individually and in 1992 together with four pieces previously unpublished on video under the title Box of Flix - Queen's Greatest Hits as double VHS and in 1998 (without bonus tracks) under the title Greatest Flix I & II as a double video CD .

Track list

British or CD edition

The following track list of the British LP edition is identical to the later CD release of the album, which is uniform in (almost) all countries:

LP side 1:

1. Bohemian Rhapsody (Mercury) - 5:56 → A Night at the Opera , 1975
2. Another One Bites the Dust (Deacon) - 3:34 → The Game , 1980
3. Killer Queen (Mercury) - 3:00 → Sheer Heart Attack , 1974
4. Fat Bottomed Girls (May) - 3:22, single version → Jazz , 1978
5. Bicycle Race (Mercury) - 3:01 → Jazz , 1978
6. You're My Best Friend (Deacon) - 2:50 → A Night at the Opera , 1975
7. Don't Stop Me Now (Mercury) - 3:29 → Jazz , 1978
8. Save Me (May) - 3:46 → The Game , 1980

LP side 2:

1. Crazy Little Thing Called Love (Mercury, 1979) - 2:41 → The Game , 1980
2. Somebody to Love (Mercury) - 4:55 → A Day at the Races , 1976
3. Now I'm Here (May) - 4:13 → Sheer Heart Attack , 1974
4. Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy (Mercury) - 2:53 → A Day at the Races , 1976
5. Play the Game (Mercury) - 3:31 → The Game , 1980
6. Flash (May) - 2:46, single version → Flash Gordon , 1980
7. Seven Seas of Rhye (Mercury) - 2:48 → Queen II , 1974
8. We Will Rock You (May) - 2:00 → News of the World , 1977
9. We Are the Champions (Mercury) - 2:59 → News of the World , 1977

This selection includes the 15 Queen singles that had topped the British charts by then, with We Are the Champions / We Will Rock You and Fat Bottomed Girls / Bicycle Race each being released together on a single. The included single mixes of Fat Bottomed Girls and Flash differ significantly from the versions released on the respective studio albums.

Spending in other countries

There are numerous different versions of the Greatest Hits LP, adapted to the respective countries. Below are examples of some of the deviations from the British edition. In the German-speaking countries, an additional, seventh track, Spread Your Wings (Deacon), and a further edition instead, a ninth track, Under Pressure (Queen / Bowie) are included. The only 14 tracks in the USA / Canada edition contains the singles Keep Yourself Alive (May) and Under Pressure , while for example some LP versions released in Bulgaria contain two songs with Death on Two Legs (Mercury) and Sweet Lady (May), who never appeared as singles.

In the wake of the success of the compilation album Classic Queen (the US equivalent of Greatest Hits II ) released in the United States in 1992 , Hollywood Records re-released the album Greatest Hits in the same year . The red cover is based on that of Classic Queen . In contrast to the conventional CD edition, this US reissue contains, instead of Bohemian Rhapsody (which is featured on Classic Queen ) and Flash, the two songs I Want to Break Free and Body Language , which was relatively successful as a single in the USA in contrast to Great Britain was.

Chronology of the singles

year	Singles	Chart placements
1974	Seven Seas of Rhye	# 10 Great Britain
1974	Killer queen	# 2 Great Britain, # 3 Netherlands, # 10 Austria, # 12 Germany, # 12 USA
1975	Now I'm Here	# 11 Great Britain, # 25 Germany, # 32 Netherlands
1975	Bohemian Rhapsody	# 1 Australia, # 1 Great Britain (9 weeks), # 1 Netherlands, # 4 Switzerland, # 7 Germany, # 9 USA
1976	You're my best friend	# 7 Great Britain, # 9 Netherlands, # 16 USA
1976	Somebody to love	# 1 Netherlands, # 2 Great Britain, # 13 USA, # 21 Germany
1977	Queen's First EP (Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy)	# 17 Great Britain
1977	We Are the Champions / We Will Rock You	# 2 Great Britain, # 2 Netherlands, # 4 USA, # 12 Austria, # 13 Germany
1978	Bicycle Race / Fat Bottomed Girls	# 7 Netherlands, # 11 Great Britain, # 21 Austria, # 24 USA, # 27 Germany
1979	Don't stop me now	# 9 Great Britain, # 14 Netherlands, # 35 Germany, # 86 USA
1979	Crazy Little Thing Called Love	# 1 Netherlands, # 1 USA, # 2 Great Britain, # 5 Switzerland, # 9 Austria, # 13 Germany
1980	Save me	# 5 Netherlands, # 11 Great Britain, # 42 Germany
1980	Play the game	# 8 Switzerland, # 14 Great Britain, # 15 Netherlands, # 40 Germany, # 42 USA
1980	Another one bites the dust	# 1 Argentina, # 1 Guatemala, # 1 Canada, # 1 Spain, # 1 USA, # 6 Germany, # 6 Austria, # 7 Great Britain, # 8 Switzerland, # 14 Netherlands
1980	Flash	# 1 Austria, # 3 Germany, # 10 Great Britain, # 18 Netherlands, # 42 USA

The table does not include the following singles released between 1973 and 1981: Keep Yourself Alive ; Liar (USA); Tie Your Mother Down ; Teo Torriatte (Japan); Long Away (USA); Spread Your Wings ; It's Late (USA); Jealousy (USA); Mustapha (Germany); Love of My Life (live) ; We Will Rock You (live) (USA); Need Your Loving Tonight (USA, Japan); Under pressure .

Chart placements

Queens Greatest Hits reached the following positions in the charts :

• # 1 - Germany / UK / Canada / New Zealand / Netherlands / Austria / Portugal / Spain.
• # 2 - Australia
• # 3 - Finland
• # 4 - France (compilation charts).
• # 5 - Switzerland
• # 9 - Japan
• # 11 - USA
• # 35 - Italy

Trivia

A compilation entitled Queen was released in the GDR in 1982 . Seven of their 12 tracks are also included on Greatest Hits , and the LP also includes the tracks White Queen , Death on Two Legs , In Only Seven Days , Dead on Time and Spread Your Wings . Two editions of this GDR pressing were published, which differ in the cover design. One cover picture shows the band in front of a white background, like in the middle of the fold-out cover of Queen II , but this time in color; On the other cover, next to the logo, the Queen emblem from the album from that time is shown.

Sales figures and awards

Country / Region	Award	Sales
Awards for music sales (country / region, Award, Sales)
Australia (ARIA)	15 × platinum	1,050,000
Argentina (CAPIF)	3 × platinum	180,000
Brazil (PMB)	platinum	250,000
Germany (BVMI)	7 × gold	1,750,000
Finland (IFPI)	platinum	55,058
France (SNEP)	gold	100,000
Italy (FIMI)	platinum	100,000
Hong Kong (IFPI / HKRIA)	gold	10,000
Japan (RIAJ)	gold	100,000
Canada (MC)	3 × platinum	300,000
New Zealand (RMNZ)	Platinum + 10 × Platinum (Remastered)	165,000
Netherlands (NVPI)	platinum	100,000
Austria (IFPI)	4 × platinum	200,000
Poland (ZPAV)	gold	10,000
Sweden (IFPI)	gold	50,000
Switzerland (IFPI)	5 × platinum	250,000
Spain (Promusicae)	gold	50,000
United States (RIAA)	8 × platinum	8,000,000
United Kingdom (BPI)	21 × platinum	6,300,000
All in all	7 × gold 77 × platinum	19,020,058

Main article: Queen (band) / Music Sales Awards

See also

• List of the best-selling music albums certified by BVMI in Germany
• List of number one hits in Germany (1981)
• List of number one hits in the UK charts (1981)
• List of number one hits in Austria (1981)

Web links

• RIP LORD SNOWDON - The story of the cover photo on Brian May's blog
• Queen Picture Hall: Greatest Hits - pictures of various album covers (English)
• Andrew Young: Greatest Hits - information about the different editions of the album (English)

Sources and Notes

1. ^ Radio Swiss Pop - Music Database - Band . ( radioswisspop.ch [accessed on March 4, 2019]).
2. ↑ UK: Queen's "Greatest Hits" is the first to crack the 6 million mark ( Memento of the original from February 22, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Daniel Teplan, Musikmarkt, February 12, 2014 
3. ↑ Greatest Hits UK Charts. Officialcharts.com, accessed December 31, 2016 . 
4. ↑ RIAA:Top 100 albums.
5. ↑ Chart surfer
6. ^ ^{A b c d} Andrew Young: Queen International Album Chart Positions (USA, Japan, Netherlands, Italy).
7. ↑ austriancharts.at
8. ↑ The other tracks on the album (with catalog number Amiga 8 55 787) are Bicycle Race , Bohemian Rhapsody , We Will Rock You , We Are the Champions , Somebody to Love , Killer Queen and Don't Stop Me Now .