Status Quo　

Status Quo are one of Britain’s longest-lived bands, staying together for over six decades. During much of that time, the band was only successful in the U.K., where it racked up a string of Top Te ..more

Wham　

Wham! sparked something of a pop revival in the mid-’80s and could arguably be held responsible for sparking off the boy band trend of the ’90s. They were unashamedly pop, to the point of ..more

Rainbow　

The brainchild of former Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, Rainbow quickly developed into one of the ’70s most successful heavy metal bands behind charismatic front man Ronnie James ..more

Beach Boys　

Beginning their career as the most popular surf band in the nation, the Beach Boys finally emerged by 1966 as America’s preeminent pop group, the only act able to challenge (for a brief time) the o ..more

Coldplay　

After surfacing in 2000 with the breakthrough single Yellow, Coldplay quickly became one of the biggest bands of the new millennium, honing a mix of introspective Brit-pop and anthemic rock that ..more

Mick Mars　

Aurora (Norway)　

Gentle Giant　

Formed at the dawn of the progressive rock era in 1969, Gentle Giant seemed poised for a time in the mid-’70s to break out of its cult-band status, but somehow never made the jump. Somewhat clos ..more

The Bee Gees　

Relying on their top-notch songwriting and impeccable vocals, the Bee Gees were able to craft a long-running career that began in the late ’50s in Australia. Along the way they became a hit-produci ..more

Tommy Bolin　

It’s hard to listen to the music of Tommy Bolin and not wonder what could’ve been if the exceptionally talented (and versatile) guitarist hadn’t succumbed to a senseless drug overdose at the age of ..more

Creedence Clearwater Revival　

At a time when rock was evolving away from the forces that had made the music possible in the first place, Creedence Clearwater Revival brought things back to their roots with their concise synthes ..more

Frank Zappa & The Mothers Of Invasion　

Van Morrison　

Equal parts blue-eyed soul shouter and wild-eyed poet-sorcerer, Van Morrison is among popular music’s true innovators, a restless seeker whose incantatory vocals and alchemical fusion of R＆B, jazz, ..more

Magnum　

Hard rockers Magnum got their start in Birmingham, England, in the mid-’70s. The band’s first album, Kingdom of Madness, came out in 1978, right in the midst of the punk rock musical revolution. ..more

Kraftwerk　

During the mid-’70s, Germany’s Kraftwerk established the sonic blueprint followed by an extraordinary number of artists in the decades to come. From the British new romantic movement to hip-hop to ..more

Mike Oldfield　

Composer Mike Oldfield rose to fame on the success of Tubular Bells, an eerie, album-length conceptual piece employed to stunning effect in the film The Exorcist. Born May 15, 1953, in Readin ..more

Within Temptation　

Goth metal stars Within Temptation marry the guitar-driven force of hard rock with the sweep and grandeur of symphonic music, and the results have made them one of the most popular bands ever ..more

R.E.M.　

R.E.M. marked the point when post-punk turned into alternative rock. When their first single, Radio Free Europe, was released in 1981, it sparked a back-to-the-garage movement in the American und ..more

Rage　

The German heavy metal outfit, Rage, originally formed in the early ’80s, and although the group has issued albums on a steady basis ever since, lead singer/bassist Peter Peavey Wagner is t ..more

Helloween　

Alongside Switzerland’s Celtic Frost and Sweden’s Bathory, Germany’s Helloween were possibly the most influential heavy metal band to come out of Europe during the 1980s. By taking the hard-r ..more