Ranking Queen's four best-selling live albums

3 - Live Magic - 780k

Live Magic was partially more timely in terms of being recorded in the summer of 1986 at Wembley, London, Budapest, Hungary with the majority of the tracks taken from a night at Knebworth, UK ahead of a December 1986 release. But that didn’t include the US where it wasn’t released for another ten years, in 1996.

At the time of recording the band was riding high. This was a year after their fabulous Live Aid appearance which gave the band such a boost. It was part of the Magic Tour for their great album A Kind Of Magic. Their night at Knebworth was pretty significant too.

They hadn’t been able to add an extra night at Wembley on that tour to meet the huge demand. An extra gig at Knebworth with 120,000 fans was the answer. It also turned out to be the last appearance of the foursome as Queen. 

The track listing is very strong, classic Queen. The performances are very good, but some factors were holding the album back. Strange editing decisions cut out chunks, verses, and choruses from some of the songs. Much to fans' displeasure at the time. Maybe the aim was to keep it short, it was just a single album. Only 49 minutes of Queen when so much more was available. 

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