Queen

One of the most successful and inventive bands in the history of rock, and a group that refused to be confined to a single sound. Queen formed in London in 1970, when guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor — survivors of an earlier band called Smile — joined forces with a flamboyant art student born Farrokh Bulsara, who renamed himself Freddie Mercury; bassist John Deacon completed the lineup in 1971. Across albums like A Night at the Opera, Sheer Heart Attack, News of the World, The Works, and The Game, they moved from operatic hard rock to disco, synth-pop, and stadium-sized balladry without ever sounding like anyone but themselves. Every member wrote hit singles, a rarity that gave the band an unusually deep catalog.

Queen have sold more than 300 million records worldwide, and their 1975 epic Bohemian Rhapsody has repeatedly been voted the greatest British single ever recorded. Their 21-minute performance at Live Aid in July 1985 is widely regarded as the finest live set in rock history, its synchronized crowd during Radio Ga Ga now the stuff of legend. Freddie Mercury died in November 1991, one day after publicly confirming he had AIDS, and the band completed a final album, Made in Heaven, from his last recordings in 1995. Brian May and Roger Taylor have carried the name forward on stage in the decades since, but the era captured on this site — the four of them at their imperial peak — is the one that rewrote what a rock band could be.