Ranking all of Queen's studio albums from worst to best selling

3 - A Night At The Opera - 6 million

Perhaps surprisingly given its impact on the band and their music, the classic Queen album, A Night At The Opera,  is only their third best-selling studio album. It was their fourth album and was released in 1975 to huge acclaim. Reportedly one of the most expensive albums to be made at the time, there was certainly plenty of studio work that went into the songs on it to justify that. Roy Thomas Baker as producer, with the band made sure of success with an amazing collection of music. 

The top track has to be “Bohemian Rhapsody” (Mercury), no more needs to be said about that extraordinary song. Alongside that, other top tracks would be “Love Of My Life” (Mercury), which now features May playing alongside a video of Mercury at their live gigs, and then “You’re My Best Friend” (Deacon). I’d also add the complex “Prophets Song” (May) for its intricate vocals and unique sound.

2 - The Miracle - 9.5 million

In second place is the band's thirteenth studio album The Miracle released in 1989. This doesn’t have as many great hit songs on it as many other of their albums. Which makes it a surprise to be so high in the sales ranking. But the music it does have is still excellent and clearly, the album was highly popular and successful.

By the time the album was being recorded Mercury’s HIV diagnosis was known, within the band anyway. Although his health at that point didn’t restrict their ability to record the album, that and marital breakups for both May and Taylor all added extra pressure.  None of which weakened the music on the album with all four band members in outstanding form. 

Top tracks on The Miracle are “I Want It All” (May) and “Breakthru” (Mercury and Taylor), plus also “The Invisible Man” (Taylor) which brought out their funk and electro side again, with some more intricate guitar from May. Having noted again the songwriters here, it was at this point that the band agreed that all songs would now be credited to all four of them as Queen, no matter who wrote them. 

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