I did some digging at the great Finnish chart history site link to find out Queen's chart history up in here. I thought this might be interesting to some fellow Queen fans in Finland and maybe some "chartphiles" around the world as well.
First, some notions regarding the Finnish charts:
- Until mid-1985 charts were compiled monthly, from that point on weekly.
-From 1972 to 1992 the single charts were top 30 lists. In 1992 they changed the single charts to top 20 list.
And one more thing: I have also included some information on other (unofficial) Finnish charts such as "50 hittiä", "jukebox-lista" & "radiosoittolista" when this information was available. As I'm not really familiar with all these charts that we used to have in this country, i ask all the fellow Finns please to contribute, if you have recollections on how these different charts were compiled etc...
Anyway, here's what I found:
SINGLES
Single #highest position, time spent on the charts (chart history in brackets)
Killer Queen #16, 3 months (11/74 #23; 12/74 #18; 2/75 #16)
Bohemian Rhapsody #15, 1 month (1/76 #15)
You're My Best Friend #27, 1 months (8/76 #27)
Somebody To Love #21, 1 months (12/76 #21)
Body Language #5, 2 months (5/82 #5; 6/82 #17)
Radio Ga Ga #2, 5 months (2/84 #7; 3/84 #2; 4/84 #3; 5/84 #13; 6/84 #22)
(also #10 on jukebox chart)
I Want To Break Free DNC (but #10 on jukebox chart)
A Kind Of Magic #16, 5 wks (17/86 #16; 18/86 #23; 19/86 #18; 20/86 #29; 21/86 #18)
I Want It All #6, 10 wks (24/89 #26; 25/89 #6; 26/89 #7; 27/89 #10; 28/89 #13; 29/89 #20; 30/89 #19; 31/89 #21; 32/89 #28; 33/89 #26)
(also #4 on jukebox chart & #5 on radio airplay chart)
Breakthru #10, 5wks (30/89 #29; 31/89 #16; 32/89 #10; 33/89#10; 34/89 #30)
(also #6 on jukebox chart)
Innuendo #3, 7wks (2/91 #14; 3/91 #3; 4/91 #3; 5/91 #3; 6/91 #7; 7/91 #19; 8/91 #26)
The Show Must Go On #15, 4wks (50/91 #27; 51/91 #22; 52/91 #18; 1/92 #15)
(also #1 on radio airplay chart)
Heaven For Everyone #5, 2wks* (43/95 #5; 44/95 #6)
(#1 on radio airplay chart, #2 on "50Hits")
A Winter's Tale DNC (but #10 on "50Hits")
Let Me Live DNC (but #10 on radio airplay chart, #21 on "50Hits")
No One But You DNC (#5 on radio airplay chart, #20 on "50Hits")
----
ALMUMS #highest position, number of weeks, first entry on charts month/year
Sheer Heart Attack #7 22wks 12/74
A Night At The Opera #1 38wks 12/75
A Day At The Races #4 23wks 12/76
News Of The World #9 15wks 11/77
Jazz #15 11wks 12/78
Live Killers #28 2wks 8/79
The Game #24 2wks 7/80
Hot Space #10 10wks 5/82
The Works #7 14wks 3/84
A Kind Of Magic #10 16wks 6/86
The Miracle #1 22wks 5/89
Innuendo #1 19wks 1/91
Greatest Hits II #1 52wks 10/91
Greatest Hits #3 34wks 12/91
Live At Wembley ’86 #17 11wks 5/92
Made In Heaven #1 16wks 11/95
Greatest Hits III #35 2wks 11/99
The Platinum Collection #14 18wks 2/03
Absolute Greatest #15 14wks 12/09
Live At The Rainbow #40 1wk 9/14
Forever 36 5wks 11/14
---
Five Live EP #39 1wk 5/93
The Cosmos Rocks #15 2wks 9/08
That's it! If you have some additional information, please contribute!
Some further comments: I think it paints quite an interesting picture of how Queen have done in Finland. We may speculate that the gig @Helsinki in Nov '74 gave the some publicity here (even if the show wasn't sold out) which is shown in the chart performance of SHA & Killer Queen.
Body language being a big hit seemingly out of the blue is mystery to me. Does anyone have any ideas??
I recall they aired Wembley '86 on TV in the late 80's and that probably affected The Miracle's sales and brought them back to the charts big time.
Sources: link link link
Goes to show how much media coverage, promotion and distribution channels affect success in less globalised times. What happened to The Game and the lead singles? Huge in the biggest music markets in the world, also top 10 in Sweden and Norway, yet not making an impact in Finland.
As a fellow Finn I find it a little sad that Body language did so much better than Bohemian rhapsody. Also interesting that The miracle (the album) did so much better than A kind of magic.
Riku M wrote:
As a fellow Finn I find it a little sad that Body language did so much better than Bohemian rhapsody. Also interesting that The miracle (the album) did so much better than A kind of magic.
But NATO was a complete smash hit album, number 1 and in charts for most of the year, so Finland clearly appreciated Bohemian Rhapsody a lot in that way.They just bought the album instead of the single
Riku M wrote:
As a fellow Finn I find it a little sad that Body language did so much better than Bohemian rhapsody. Also interesting that The miracle (the album) did so much better than A kind of magic.
But NATO was a complete smash hit album, number 1 and in charts for most of the year, so Finland clearly appreciated Bohemian Rhapsody a lot in that way.They just bought the album instead of the single