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Top 50 Bands Of All Time Named In New Poll

added 11 October 2004 at 17.44

Following its well-established tradition of having a list of ‘World’s Greatest Bands, Songwriters, Singles, Gigs, Singers or Albums’ Q Magazine has now announced its Top 50 Bands Of All Time list.

Q Magazine’s regular lists seem to be designed specifically to enrage people and promote furious arguements whenever they arrive (U2’s ‘One’ as the World's Greatest Song anyone?) but with their Top 50 Bands Of All Time list the magazine
has tried to be more scientific.

Each band's placing has been allocated according to a points system that measured sales of their biggest album, the scale of their biggest headlining show and the total number of weeks spent on the UK album chart.

As such Pink Floyd nab the top spot. Their 1979 concept album 'The Wall' has sold 23.3 million copies so far (figures for their 1973 opus 'Dark Side of the Moon' – which has almost definitely sold more - were rejected because of inaccurate records), their largest live show was 125,000 at Knebworth Park in 1975 and they spent 911 weeks in the UK charts.

"I must say I suspected it might have been Queen at number one,” Q editor Paul Rees confessed, “But then when you think of the huge sales of 'The Wall' and 'Dark Side of the Moon' it would have to be Pink Floyd. If you look at the top 10 you would expect those bands to be in there. It's slightly more surprising that the champagne corks are popping for bands such as Erasure [ranked 47] and Hootie & the Blowfish [40]. I was genuinely stunned to see them in there."

Surprisingly The Beatles only got to eighth place behind the Rolling Stones, U2, Dire Straits and Bruce Springsteen And The E Street Band, a result put down to a lack of recent gigs (ahem) and a finite number of album releases.

While the list contained all the expected acts (The Eagles, Oasis, Red Hot Chili Peppers) there are a couple of surprises. Wham! get a creditable 38 placing, The Backstreet Boys are at 22, the 42 spot is filled by Status Quo and The Shadows are at 48.

Q Magazines full Top 50 Bands Of All Time list is as follows:

1. Pink Floyd
2. Led Zeppelin
3. Rolling Stones
4. U2
5. Queen
6. Dire Straits
7. Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band
8. The Beatles
9. Bob Marley and the Wailers
10. Fleetwood Mac
11. The Eagles
12. The Beach Boys
13. Oasis
14. Bon Jovi
15. Guns N' Roses
16. Nirvana
17. Genesis
18. Bee Gees
19. Metallica
20. Boston
21. R.E.M.
22. Backstreet Boys
23. Red Hot Chili Peppers
24. AC/DC
25. The Police
26. Steve Miller Band
27. ABBA
28. Santana
29. Simply Red
30. Supertramp
31. The Carpenters
32. Journey
33. Spice Girls
34. Def Leppard
35. Deep Purple
36. UB40
37. Aerosmith
38. Wham!
39. Pearl Jam
40. Hootie & the Blowfish
41. Status Quo
42. Simple Minds
43. Wet Wet Wet
44. 'N Sync
45. Eurythmics
46. Duran Duran
47. Erasure
48. The Shadows
49. Boyz II Men
50. Van Halen

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