Queen

Über Queen

London four-piece formed in 1970 around Freddie Mercury's voice, Brian May's homemade Red Special guitar, John Deacon's bass, and Roger Taylor's drums. Across the seventies and eighties they built the template for stadium rock theatre: multi-tracked vocal harmonies, mock-operatic suites, and arena anthems written to be shouted back. Bohemian Rhapsody (1975) broke pop format; Live Aid in 1985 is still cited as the greatest live performance ever televised. Mercury died in 1991, but the catalogue has never left rotation.