List of the top 20 Greatest Hits collections of all time might shock you

10 - Simon & Garfunkel - Simon & Garfunkel’s Greatest Hits - 18.8m

Here's another eye-opener. There’s no doubting its credentials to be in this top 20 list. But it’s hard to take that it was raised in 1972, two years after the pair first split up. The album is full of classic songs from the duo and also had four new at the time live versions. It’s the top-selling album in the US from a duo, too.

9 - Queen - Greatest Hits II - 19m

There are plenty of Queen hits to go around, as the title indicates. And plenty of buyers for this album too. This release covers Queen’s hits from 1981 to 1991. It came out just one month before Freddie Mercury’s death. It certainly marked the end of an era. It wasn’t released in the US until much later with a different compilation sold there. But it still sold in huge numbers.

8 - Michael Jackson - HIStory: Past, Present and Future-Book I - 20m

Well, the Michael Jackson story was quite some tale overall, and probably lots more we will never know. This was a two disc album and, as the title shows, it was forward looking and a retrospective too. The first disc, HIStory Begins, was a 15 song greatest hits collection. The second album, HIStory Continues was all new material, much of it referring to the investigations into his life and possible child abuse allegations.  It was released in 1995, a couple of years after those events had created a media storm.

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