Ranking Queen's four best-selling live albums

2 - Live Killers - 1.3 million

Although there were further heights to come, this album Live Killers pretty much nailed good timing all around. Recorded during the band's tour of their Jazz album in early 1979 across Europe, it was released in June that same year. The band was still pretty high on success from earlier albums. 

Jazz itself is one where in retrospect many people rate it highly. It’s still not a favorite by any means for me. The track listing for Live Killers only draws lightly from that album, thankfully. It is otherwise crammed with plenty of classics from the band in the 1970s. A great reflection of their music so far. 

As is evident from the higher sales figure quoted above, the album proved pretty popular. Chart success and a double platinum award in the US help its ranking. Although some critics muttered a bit on release it was popular with fans and is a superb live double album. 

1 - Live at Wembley ‘86 - 1.8 million

This top-selling Queen live album crosses over somewhat with Live Magic. Recorded on one night at Wembley Stadium on July 12, 1986, it’s the same Magic Tour that the other album was taken from. However, that album was dominated more by their final gig at Knebworth. The crossover also comes much later as this album wasn’t released until 1992. So it wasn’t really direct competition at the time. 

The track listing is amazing, a double album with so many hits, a great mix of older and newer (at the time of recording) plus a few rock and roll standards like “Tutti Frutti” and a typically Freddie fun version of “Big Spender”. Queen had so many great songs it must have been a real problem choosing what to include and what to miss. The album is also a great memory of the Live Aid show a year earlier with Freddie once again having the crowd eating out of his hand throughout. What a band they were!

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