Talk:Greatest Hits (Queen album)

Material removed
This article included information relating to Greatest Hits II and III, and Queen Rocks, despite the fact that these are not the albums described in the title/infobox, and have their own articles.

The article was neither specific to the first Greatest Hits compilation, nor a proper "catch all" for Queen's compilations. Since the other articles existed (and are notable), the material not relating to Greatest Hits (I) has mostly been removed; OTOH, closely-related albums (such as the "We Will Rock You" edition of Greatest Hits) now redirect here, since they are not separately notable, and are more clearly seen in the context of the original album.

I also split up the "history" section (which refers to lots of compilations, but...). I personally think that this goes into too much depth and analysis over what are basically just different (but mostly similar) compilations of Queen's work, but left the actual material intact anyway.

Fourohfour 15:03, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

I saw somewhere that this passed Sgt. Pepper as the highest selling album in the U.K. Any truth to this? --68.51.88.109 02:05, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Queen Greatest Hits.jpg
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BetacommandBot (talk) 17:19, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Good Omens
This line doesn't belong in the history section of the article.

The album was spotlighted in a different way in 1990, when Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman referred to the curious (and fictional) way that any cassette tape left in a car for more than two weeks will turn into a copy of Queen's Greatest Hits in their novel Good Omens.

I'm pretty sure it doesn't belong in the article at all. 189.216.19.48 (talk) 18:27, 30 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Maybe in a "references in popular culture" section? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.164.172.239 (talk) 16:01, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

In what way is this not part of its legacy that it's so ubiquitous that a very successful book, and later its very successful TV show, declared that it must be a paranormal phenomenon? If we're allowed random needle drops from TV, film and advertisements for individual songs then this inclusion, which actually speaks to its place in the zeitgeist, must be allowed Shadebug (talk) 14:31, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Track listing?
Why does not the section called "Track listing" include a list of the tracks??? --Oddeivind (talk) 07:45, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Critical reception
I thought about adding some reviews of this album, seeing as it's the UK's all-time bestseller and therefore a prime candidate for GA status, but the reviews from NME and Melody Maker at the time of its release in 1981 are, shall we say, somewhat unfavourable... the UK music press in general always disliked Queen throughout their career. I feel there ought to be a 'reception' section but I don't want to be accused of painting a negative picture of the record and contravening WP:NPOV. Later reviews of the album are more favourable, but taken as a whole with Greatest Hits II and III, because they were all packaged together – what's the best way aroud that, quoting the same review and score in the articles for all three albums? Richard3120 (talk) 09:17, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
 * If you're going to cover the reaction, you have to cover it all the way. Ignoring prominent negative reviews would be the NPOV vio, not adding them. The record was predictably panned by critics on release (yawn), but writers have softened on it in recent years. This guy argues it as the single greatest album ever: . Karyn Devlin (talk) 20:11, 27 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree entirely, I just wanted to wait until I'd got hold of those more favourable reviews first, so I could add them all together under a critical reception section, otherwise it would have looked a bit one-sided. The main problem with later reviews is that they tend to be a part of the reviews for Greatest Hits when lumped together with parts II and III, so you have to try and separate out the relevant parts. The anonymous comment below gave me a good laugh anyway - thank you, whoever you are. Richard3120 (talk) 20:27, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

The British music press and any sensible person's idea of good music generally had very little in common so with all the Britsh weekly music press now thankfully dead why bother giving the ridiculous items any further unwarranted attention. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.52.54.175 (talk) 19:45, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

The True UK Sales Of Greatest Hits - Queen
Although the UK Charts Company gives 'Greatest Hits' 6,120,000 UK Sales, they know that it has not actually sold that many as a stand-alone Album. In 2006 the UK Charts Company got some 'Chart Experts' to calculate the UK's Top 100 Best Selling Albums. The 'Experts' decided to add the UK Sales from 2 other Queen Compilations to Queen's 1st & 2nd 'Greatest Hits' Albums. They each got 66,000 Sales from a 1994 Double Queen CD & 560,000 each from a 2000 Triple Queen CD, 'The Platinum Collection'. That gave the 1st 2 Queen Hits Albums a massive 626,000 'bonus' Sales each. If we remove the 'bonus' Sales, from the 1st 'Greatest Hits' Album, we get 5,494,000 UK Sales for it. The Official Charts Company do not go into this, when they say that it has sold over 6,120,000 UK copies, as they know that the UK Media prefers uncomplicated matters & so they simply give the impression that it has sold 626,000 more than it really has. The 'bonus' Sales were admitted to & revealed by UK 'Chart Expert' Alan Jones, in the 19th September 2009 issue of 'Music Week'. However, even with the reduced total of 5,494,000, 'Greatest Hits' is still the UK's Best Selling Album. It just means that it is 'only' about 174,000 Sales ahead of the 2nd UK Best Seller - 'ABBA Gold', (which has over 5,320,000 UK Sales) - & not the massive 800,000, more than 'ABBA Gold's Sales, that the 'bonus' 626,000 Sales give it. 86.2.61.136 (talk) 16:20, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
 * All true, but... that's how many sales the OCC says it's sold now, and that's what Wikipedia has to go on – we would need that 2006 source to be able to add your information. Richard3120 (talk) 22:04, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

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 * ✅ The archive links are functional, but both the original link and the archive link in both cases fail to bring up the required result as the pages are now dead. Richard3120 (talk) 17:00, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * ✅ Richard3120 (talk) 17:01, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

2004 US Edition Error?
Hey, I was looking for info while I was tagging a new CD rip when I noticed that the track lengths don't jive. Queen on Fire's track length on Tie Your Mother Down (Live) is clearly 4:09, not 3:52. That means that the source of the track has to be Live at Wembley '86, Queen Rock Montreal, or Hungarian Rhapsody: Queen Live in Budapest (the last of which doesn't have a track time). I'm not a huge Queen buff, so I have no clue other than the track times (the first two match perfectly), but I'm sure someone could set the record straight. You're welcome. :) Blast Vortex (talk) 14:31, 4 August 2017 (UTC)
 * It's not an error - that's the track length listed on the album. I don't have that version to be able to confirm the track timings, but there's no reason why it should be exactly the same length as the Queen on Fire version - on Greatest Hits perhaps they edited down some of the crowd noise from the beginning and end of the song, for example. Richard3120 (talk) 14:51, 4 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Oh, sorry then. When in doubt, I always go with the album liner notes, etc. That makes you correct. It's just that I saw those other times thought it more than just highly coincidental. Wouldn't be the first time somebody made a mistake. Hell, I make mistakes all the time. Case in point.... Gotta love those audio edits. My bad. Thanks for the correction. Blast Vortex (talk) 18:31, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Issue to address
Near the top of the page, we read the following : "because of the delay in release dates between the UK (out first) and the US (almost a month later), the US was able to add "Under Pressure" (Queen's duet with David Bowie) to its Hits collection, as it was released during that interim."

Well, whilst October and November are indeed separate months, the span between October 26th and November 3rd (which are the release dates mentioned at the bottom of the page) is a week, not a month. Not only that, according the to the "Under Pressure" Wiki page, it was released on October 26th, also.

So - something needs to be fixed or clarified on a few fronts there. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.224.73.49 (talk) 00:55, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
 * "Under Pressure" charted in the UK in the week ending 14 November, which means yes, it would have been released in the week beginning 26 October (although back in 1981 Friday was the most common release day, so it could have been released on 30 October).
 * It sounds as though there's some original research going on there - there's no definite source to say the US release date was 3 November (I suspect this would have been mentioned in Billboard at the time to be able to confirm it), and it's just speculation to say that the different release dates were the reason "Under Pressure" was not included on the UK release. In my opinion it's more likely to be due to David Bowie's record company of the time, RCA, objecting to the song's inclusion on the album - Bowie was trying to get out of his contract at the time, and RCA may well have prevented the inclusion on the UK album, but had no control over its inclusion in other territories. That's just speculation on my part, of course. Richard3120 (talk) 02:17, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Update: here we have the answer, from Billboard – it looks like the album was released simultaneously in the UK and in the US (and there is a full page advert in the October 31 issue of Billboard, which appears to confirm it was released in the US in the same week as the UK), but according to this article, the manufacturing process takes longer in European pressing plants, so they started pressing up the album earlier than in the US and didn't have time to include "Under Pressure". Richard3120 (talk) 19:39, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

total weeks on UK chart
Although nobody is disputing that Queen's Greatest Hits is the biggest selling album in UK chart history, we need to stop editors claiming that it has been on the album chart for the most number of weeks as this is not true. Abba's Gold holds that record as per here. Additionally, adding the weeks on chart for Queen's Platinum Collection is not appropriate as that is a triple album set that contains far more than just the first Greatest Hits album. It is a distinctly separate title with its own article page and its own catalogue number. 92.7.249.5 (talk) 08:38, 5 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I think this has come about because the six-million-plus sales that the OCC states for Greatest Hits also includes a substantial amount from The Platinum Collection. I'm not sure why the OCC did this, as I would agree with you that it should be counted as a completely separate album. Richard3120 (talk) 17:08, 5 July 2021 (UTC)