"Greatest Hits" - the album - entered the charts as soon as it was released, and has rarely been out of the British charts since! "Greatest Flix" - the video - was the first real collection of promo videos released commercially by any band. "Greatest Pix" - the book - was compiled by Jacques Lowe, who was President Kennedy's personal biographer during his term of office. It was Jacques' personal selection of the greatest Queen pictures of the previous decade.

The band's twelfth album, "HOT SPACE", was released on May 21st, 1982 whilst the band was in the middle of an extensive European tour. On June 5th that year, they played the huge open-air Milton Keynes Bowl. The whole show was filmed by Tyne Tees Television, under the direction of Gavin Taylor, to be shown on Channel Four's "The Tube" programme at a later date. In September 1982, the Japanese company, Mercury Records (nothing to do with Freddie!) released an album called "Gettin' Smile". It was at first thought to be a bootleg, but after listening to the album, Roger and Brian declared it to be the REAL Smile, although neither of them recalled having recorded so much with that band! In December 1982, Queen made it into the Guinness Book of Records as Britain's highest-paid executives.

In January 1983, Freddie began work on a solo album, and Roger began work on his second solo album. During the early part of the year, Brian had flown out to Los Angeles and gathered together a few close friends in the Record Plant studios there. Brian had some basic ideas to work on, but it was generally a lengthy jam session. However, Brian had no intention of wasting the talents of Edward Van Halen, Alan Gratzer, Phil Chen and Fred Mandel - and so kept the tapes rolling throughout the whole session. The result was the mini album "STAR FLEET PROJECT", which was released in October 1983.

The band went back into the studios in August 1983 to start work on their next album. Work commenced at the Record Plant in LA - the first time the band had recorded in America. After a number of months, recording switched from LA to Munich - a city that the band spent so much time in during that recording session that they almost thought of it as home!

In February 1984, the band released their thirteenth album - "THE WORKS". "Radio Ga Ga", taken from that album, became a worldwide hit, reaching Number One in nineteen different countries. The video for the single, directed by David Mallett, featured fan club members again. The handclapping chorus became a favourite with live audiences all over the world. Another single from "The Works" was "I Want To Break Free", and that had an even more outrageous video also featuring members of the fan club.