Queen’s Greatest Hits album is “the golden goose that just keeps giving”, drummer Roger Taylor said, after it finished 2021 as the fifth best-selling album of the year.
The album, which was first released in 1981, includes hits We Are the Champions and Bohemian Rhapsody, and was given the ranking by the Official Charts Company 2021 on its roundup chart.
The company also gave it the accolade of Britain’s most popular album of the past 60 years.
Taylor, 72, said the news was “unbelievable” and added: “All praise the golden goose that just keeps giving!”
2021 was a memorable year for the British rock band as it marked the album’s 40th anniversary, as well as Queen’s 50th milestone.
Taylor also finished and released his sixth album in 2021, Outsider, which peaked at number three.
The Official Charts Company said one in four British households have a copy of Greatest Hits, which was the first – and only – album to have sold more than six million copies in the UK.
It is certified as platinum 23 times, with global sales in excess of 25 million.
In July 2021, the same month a collector’s edition was released, the album reached number two in the charts.
Other songs on it include Killer Queen, Somebody To Love, and Another One Bites the Dust.