But the difference is that those other artists you´ve mentioned were huge before their death or split-up. Queen wasn´t.
I bet that the vast majority of those 80 million albums they sold after Freddie´s death were sold between 1991-1995, i.e. in a mere five years period as opposed 18 years (from 1991 to 2009) as one would tend to believe.
Queen were very big outside US well before 1991 but if a band is not able to "conquer" the most important music market in the world it hardly may be considered as one of the all time greatest bands. And that was my original point. Think of Oasis and that claim about them being the biggest band on earth during the 90´s. That was a joke. And no, by no means am I comparing Queen and Oasis. That would be another joke
You mentioned Argentina as one of the countries where the greatest hits compilations sold incredibly well. That´s true but let me tell you that most of the argentinian people didn´t care about Queen before Freddie died. When that happened all of a sudden Queen was everywhere and lots of people rushed to buy Queen albums, specially their greatest hits. I know this is something expected but maybe not on this scale.
Finally, I like Queen´s music quite a lot and consider Mercury one of the greatest singer ever.
So now back to the greatest band on earth!
Well, Elvis Presley had never been that big outside of the English speaking counries before 1977, check his albums and singles chart histories in most territories. Back then, it was very difficult to really become big in many regions, and it was thanks to acts like Abba, Queen, Bee Gees and a few others that Western acts could break in such places as Middle East, Asia, and others.
Led Zeppelin's sales were always a bit hit and miss outside North America and Uk, for example. And their popularity faded in most important Eurpean territories like Germany, Italy, Spain, where they only had one or two successful albums, but after they retired, they started selling much more as a "catalog" group.
Pink Floyd'd sales were big before 1983 and so on, but according to Billboard, they had sold about 60 million albums worldwide by about 1986. By now, they have sold 190 million, just to show how much their sales have increased while they were mainly inactive. According to EMI, they are the group that sold the most copies over the last 25 years on catalog based on their information.
I could go on, with countless examples.
I really don't see how you can say that Queen weren't huge before 1991, to be honest. It is a question of opinions. But, for example, News Of The World had sold over 7 million units by the end of 1978 (just one year after it ws released) and the single We Are The Champions over 5 million units. That works out to be
12 million records overall, from two titles. In 1980 and early 1981, they sold over 4 million of The Game and Another One Bites The Dust each; overall, they did roughly 12 million records in just a bit more than a year and just in USA. That album, The Game, was one of the biggest hits in Europe during the summer of 1980, as well as Latin America, Israel, South Africa and more. I could go on in explaining how each tite fared to show that they were big. All I can say is that they had sold over 90 million albums by early 1991 and 40/45 million singles by that moment, which means that they had only been surpassed by the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Abba, and Bee Gees as a band counting all formats. But you say that they weren't "huge".
As I said, USA isn't the only country that cares. U2 have sold 50% more than Queen did there; but at the same time, Queen have sold twice as much as U2 in Germany and Japan (#2 and #4 biggest mrkets in the world), and much more in UK (#3 market worldwide). So based on your comment, I could claim that U2 aren't big in three of the most important markets worldwide (Japan, Uk, and Germany) compared to Queen, but would that make sense?.
As for Argentina, I'm from this country.
And Queen were already big before 1991. Look at this article:
"J. M. COSTA, - Buenos Aires - 10/03/1981
Argentina sigue viviendo el Mundial-78, su éxito del Mundial. Tal vez por ello, cuando la semana pasada Freddie Mercury, cantante de Queen, soltaba aquello de We are the champions (Nosotros somos los campeones), el estadio Vélez Sarsfield temblaba emocionado porque en ese momento se unían dos orgullos nacionales: el gol de Kempes y la apertura de Argentina a los grandes, grandísimos conciertos de rock internacionales.
A Suramérica no suelen ir los grupos punteros de rock. O, al menos, no van cuando se encuentran en su mejor momento, y siempre lo hacen con un equipo reducido, nada que ver con lo habitual en Europa, Estados Unidos o Japón. Es una simple cuestión logística y un prejuicio descalificador. A pesar de ello, y como un reto,
Queen (120.000 elepés de The game vendidos) y su apoderado comenzaron a trabajar en esa idea hace casi un año. Se trataba de mostrar cómo puede ser rentable montar una gira de este tipo sin por ello perder dinero, metiendo a casi medio millón de personas en ocho actuaciones. Y hacerlo a lo grande y por vez primera al aire libre.Desde Tokio, donde acababa de actuar el grupo, se fletó un avión de carga (un DC-8) para transportar parte del equipo de luces y sonido." (March 10, 1981)
The Game had sold 120,000 LPs by two days after their tour. With the tour effect, it continued to sell well until the rest of the year, and ended up on
200,000 units. Name one single U2 album that has sold that many in Argentina. If Queen weren't big in Argentina, U2 (and many international acts for that matter) weren't either by your own logic.
But you are right when you said how Queen's sales increased after 1991, I can't deny it. They released their Greatest Hits II a few weeks before Freddie Mercury's death, and the album entered the chart here in Argentina at #5, which means there was already demand for the band even befored Freddie died. The album has now sold 650,000 copies. Made In Heaven was #1 in 1992 and went double platinum in 2001 for sales of 120,000+ copies.
As for the bands's sales, I think that a big share of them came from the period between 1991 and 1995, like you rightly explained. Actually, in one of my previous messages, I provided enough evidence to support it. But well, their sales have been massive since 2002 up through early 2009, mainly because of their musical We Will Rock You. For example, in Japan, they sold 1,781,001 copies in 2004 alone and are basically the biggest selling group of the last 5 years. In markets like Argentina, Brazil, Korea or even Uk, they are still selling as much as active acts like Madonna, for example. It is unbelievable.
Glad that you like Queen. I'm a big fan. I'm a fan of most classic bands, including U2, I far prefer their recent stuff to any "current" band at the moment. But I'm not a troll here. I just happen to be very passionate about these issues. I even have some Italian U2's sales that may interest you. If you want, I can send them to you.
Sorry for off-topic again. And yes, U2 are biggest band right now as have since 1987.
