Frustrated Wonderer

I know it is very hard to rate bands from different times and musical taste is difficult to explain. But, given music sales, chart hits, innovation, brand name, fan base, whole album musical experiencing and other factors (include whatever you consider adds to the bands "ranking"), I would say that the top 5 best Rock Bands are as follows:

1) The Beatles - 1 BILLION album sold, incredibly innovative at the time with great classics and 27 no.1 hits. A musical sensation in the 60's hard to argue against them in the no.1 spot. Lennon and McCartney by themselves were legends, together they created a new generation in which music would take its course

2) Led Zeppelin - 300 Million albums sold. Al tough not know for launching many successful singles, all Zep albums made it to the top ten in the U.S Charts. No other band has done this. Some may call them musical thieves, other call them pure artists. Jimmy Page is just too awesome on the guitar. Had a cult like following. I think a no.2 should go to the Zep.

3) Pink Floyd - 250 million albums sold. Although the band stared quite strongly with its first album, Piper at the Gates of Dawn. The fall of lead singer and guitarist Syd Barrett caused the band to experiment with success until the explosion of Dark Side of the Moon. With 14 YEARS on the billboards charts, DSOTM is considered by many to be the greatest concept album of all time. Wish you Were Here, Animals and especially the Wall relieve massive sales and were truly pres tine concept albums focusing on lyrics other than your typical love songs.

4) The Rolling Stones - 200 Million albums sold. Probably the only band that remotely rivaled the Beatles in the 60's. Great guitar riffs combined with a bad-ass attitude created a cult like following to this band than continues even today. Most famously known for there hit song "I Can't Get No Satisfaction", whose main line and riff were made by Keith Richards your stereotypical drug user, rock star. They continue touring to this day.

5) Queen - Yes, Queen. Some may be surprised at this pick as this bands music is somewhat very different from all the other bands. Yet 300 million albums sold, many number 1 hits, especially in the UK, makes it hard NOT to include them on this list. With rock theme songs like "We Will Rock You" and the nice ballad "Bohemian Rhapshody", Queen was a different innovative band. Also, Lead singer Freddie Mercury was a very inspirational and brave lead singer.

I cannot help but have some biases in these ratings, though I do try to be objective. Some would put the Stones on top of Pink Floyd, others might not even include Queen at all, but alas, these are what I think are the 5 greatest bands.

Barry's Response - A great summary of artistically triumphant and commercially successful musical recording acts of the 20th century. The universal British presence here ignores some American greats such as the Velvet Underground, the Ramones and Nirvana, but I can still agree with what you have had to contribute. Thank you very much.