Queen

Queen, one of the biggest and most dynamic bands in rock history, had their beginnings in 1967 when guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor met at Imperial College, London and joined heavy rock psychedelic band Smile. When singer Tim Staffell quit, May and Taylor recruited the flamboyant Freddie Mercury, then front man with a band called Wreckage, to replace him. The rest is a gloriously camp, glam, powerhouse bombastic blast of rock history. Their first UK hit single Seven Seas of Rhye in 1974 triggered a phenomenal run of success, peaking with Bohemian Rhapsody which, uniquely, has been a UK chart-topper in four different years and is the third biggest-selling British single of all time. A brilliant performance at the Wembley leg of Live Aid in 1985 cemented a legend which has endured despite the death of Mercury from an AIDS related illness in 1991. John Deacon then retired from music, but Roger Taylor and Brian May kept the name alive.