Best-selling album in the UK

Queen's (UK) Greatest Hits compilation, released in 1981, has sold 7 million copies – a figure made up of physical sales and album-equivalent units, i.e., downloads and streams – in the UK.

The album features Bohemian Rhapsody, We Will Rock You, We Are the Champions and Don’t Stop Me Now and “can claim to be in more than one in four UK households’ record collections today”, according to a report by the Official Charts Company on 19 July 2022.

The Freddie Mercury-fronted rock band reached the 7-million landmark ahead of runner-up ABBA (Gold – Greatest Hits), with reported sales of approximately 6.1 million, The Beatles (Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band), Adele (21) and Oasis ((What’s the Story) Morning Glory?).

Queen’s Greatest Hits II, released a month before Mercury’s death in October 1991, is the 10th-best-seller in the UK with around 4 million copies sold. Greatest Hits has accumulated 1.26 billion streams in the UK, with the most popular track, Bohemian Rhapsody, notching up 240 million streams.

As of the Official Albums Chart dated 21 July 2022, Greatest Hits had spent 1,006 weeks in the UK Top 100 (third only to ABBA’s Gold – Greatest Hits on 1,054 weeks and Bob Marley & The Wailers’ Legend compilation on 1,038 weeks), 52 weeks in the Top 10 and 326 weeks in the Top 40. It topped the UK chart for four weeks in a row from 14 November 1981 after making its debut at No.2 on 7 November.