knightni

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Dec 1, 2009 -> 08:57 PM) Can I borrow your crystal ball? Can you get me some winning Lotto numbers?

This is one classy mailbag.

Right, (Quite Right!) You're bloody well right, you got a bloody right to say...

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Dec 1, 2009 -> 08:10 PM) I think the closest example we can aim for is that of the Angels' sustained success, their fight under Moreno pull up almost even with the Dodgers in that market, consistent playoff appearances, that's setting the bar about as high as you can. The thing about the Angels, though, is that they play in the smallest division in baseball and they are clearly the largest market and have the most payroll flexibility to fanbase in that division. Barring a run or two by Seattle, they should win that division every year almost by default. Comparison: (2008 Payroll) Angels 119,216,333 - Tigers 138,685,197 Mariners 117,993,982 - White Sox 121,152,667 Rangers 68,239,551 - Indians 78,970,067 A's - 47,967,126 - Twins 62,182,767 xxxxxxxxxxxx - Royals 58,245,500 The Ms had some bad contracts (Bedard, Beltre) to balloon their payroll up, but LAA has a definite advantage in overall talent in that division.

Perhaps, leg humping is a better alternative to ear humping.

There goes the Upton/Crawford speculation. They don't need Flowers now.

Only problem with Putz, he enters to "Thunderstruck." Twice in one game is overkill.

Mlb.tv blackout rules are bulls***. Undo them and I'll pay their fees again.

The problem with Freddy in '06 wasn't that he was "worthless." The problem was that he had a "tired arm", because of the amount of innings that he pitched in the '05 regular and postseason and the '06 WBC. The guy pitched himself into fatigue, ineffectiveness and eventually, surgery. People were mostly frustrated with his lack of effectiveness in '06, without realizing that he was pitching in pain and possibly pitching injured.

http://www.bangcartoon.com/2009/pick_sick.htm

Faith No More could rap - sorta.

3 out of 4 of my teams have been "done" since week 8.

Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five got in - in 2008. RunDMC went in this past year. The Hall is trying to bring in hip-hop fans.

QUOTE (SoxAce @ Dec 1, 2009 -> 12:49 AM) I just can't see the Bears ever being #5 in this city unless their personel does absolutely nothing this offseason as far as these coaches and perhaps the higher rankings (GM, etc..). Fan-wise, the Bears will always be #1, but there will be a few lean years coming unless they spend like mad men in the non-cap free agent year and draft well. Having no #1 or #2 next spring stunts the team improvement quite a lot. Hopefully, there will be better front office and on the field management by the time that they are in contention again.

Certainly, the Cubs will always try to spend their way into playoff contention, and the Sox have a very good rotation, so they are about even right now in playoff potential. The Bulls may have a good "core", but they are mediocre at best. Without a magical free agent pickup next year, they'll continue to have 35-40 win seasons and hover around the #8 playoff spot/last lottery spot for years to come.

This is how I see Chicago sports relevance/success over the next 2 years: 1. Blackhawks 2. Cubs 2. Sox 4. Bulls 5. Bears Cubs and Sox tied at 2. It all depends on what bats that KW can acquire.

I'm a sucker for 70s/80s pop rock bands. I had Heart, BOC, Journey, Kiss and Def Leppard plus They Might Be Giants (!) Just missed on Pat Benatar and Van Halen. I have very little music newer than 1992.

50. Weezer - SoxAce, Soxy, Cali 49. The Police - FLaSoxxJim, PlaySumFnJurny, RibbieRubarb 48. Lynard Skynard - knightni, Flash Tizzle, PlaySumFnJurny, Milkman delivers, TheGooch 47. Fleetwood Mac - PlaySumFnJurny, Tex, Soxy 46. Pearl Jam - MexSoxFan#1, Sonik22, TheGooch 45. Radiohead - StrangeSox, JPN366, MexSoxFan#1 44. Talking Heads - RibbieRubarb, FLaSoxxJim, Felix 43. Soundgarden - Cali, Steve9347, MexSoxFan#1 42. Guns N' Roses - TheGooch, Sox1422, Flash Tizzle 41. Creedence Clearwater Revival - RibbieRubarb, BigEdWalsh, Soxy 40. Paul McCartney/Wings - Steve9347, RibbieRubarb, knightni 39. David Bowie - FLaSoxxJim, RibbieRubarb, TheBones 38. Rise Against - Steve9347, 2nd_city_saint787, Sonik22 37. Tom Petty/Heartbreakers - TheGooch, farmteam, StrangeSox, PlaySumFnJurny 36. Bruce Springsteen/E St. Band - PlaySumFnJurny, Milkman delivers, Tex, farmteam 35. Queens of the Stone Age - StrangeSox, Felix, JPN366, farmteam 34. Slipknot - SoxAce, whitesox901, JPN366 33. Modest Mouse - whitesoxfan99, TheBones, StrangeSox 32. Green Day - Steve9347, whitesox901, Cali 31. The Killers - whitesoxfan99, Cali, TheGooch 30. Boston - knightni, Steve9347, Milkman delivers, 29. Cream/Eric Clapton - TheGooch, BigEdWalsh, Flash Tizzle, farmteam 28. Linkin Park - whitesox901, Sonik22, SoxAce 27. Alice in Chains - Cali, Sox1422, JPN366, MexSoxFan#1 26. Rage Against The Machine - Sox1422, SoxAce, MexSoxFan#1, Sonik22, TheBones 25. Elvis Presley - farmteam, Milkman delivers, RibbieRubarb, Soxy 24. Beastie Boys - SoxAce, Milkman delivers, TheBones 23. The Doors - Sox1422, Flash Tizzle, PlaySumFnJurny 22. System of a Down - Sox1422, SoxAce, whitesox901, MexSoxFan#1 21. Velvet Underground/Lou Reed - TheBones, Felix, BigEdWalsh, TheBones x2 20. The Kinks - FLaSoxxJim, Felix, BigEdWalsh, RibbieRubarb 19. Aerosmith - knightni, Tex, RibbieRubarb, TheGooch 18. Frank Zappa/Mothers - BigEdWalsh, FLaSoxxJim, Felix 17. U2 - Flash Tizzle, PlaySumFnJurny, whitesoxfan99, MexSoxFan#1 16. Queen - RibbieRubarb, Soxy, knightni, JPN366 15. Black Sabbath - MexSoxFan#1, TheGooch, Sox1422, Milkman delivers 14. AC/DC - TheGooch, knightni, PlaySumFnJurny, MexSoxFan#1 13. Eagles - knightni, Flash Tizzle, Milkman delivers, Tex, RibbieRubarb 12. Tool - Steve9347, JPN366, MexSoxFan#1, Sonik22 11. Foo Fighters - PlaySumFnJurny, whitesoxfan99, farmteam, StrangeSox, SoxAce, Steve9347 10. Red Hot Chili Peppers - SoxAce, MexSoxFan#1, Sonik22, Soxy, TheGooch, Sox1422, Flash Tizzle 9. Metallica - Sonik22, knightni, SoxAce, Steve9347, Milkman delivers, whitesox901, JPN366, MexSoxFan#1 8. Jimi Hendrix - farmteam, Sox1422, FlaSoxxJim, Felix, BigEdWalsh, Flash Tizzle, Milkman delivers, Sonik22, 7. Bob Dylan - StrangeSox, Felix, BigEdWalsh, Steve9347, PlaySumFnJurny, RibbieRubarb, Soxy, TheBones, farmteam 6. Pink Floyd - knightni, Felix, Flash Tizzle, PlaySumFnJurny, JPN366, MexSoxFan#1, RibbieRubarb, Sonik22 5. Nirvana - knightni, Felix, Steve9347, PlaySumFnJurny, whitesoxfan99, whitesox901, JPN366, RibbieRubarb, Sonik22, Soxy, Cali, farmteam, Sox1422 4. The Rolling Stones - FlaSoxxJim, Felix, BigEdWalsh, Flash Tizzle, PlaySumFnJurny, Milkman delivers, Tex, RibbieRubarb, Soxy, TheBones, TheGooch, StrangeSox 3. Led Zeppelin - Felix, SoxAce, BigEdWalsh, Steve9347, Flash Tizzle, PlaySumFnJurny, JPN366, MexSoxFan#1, RibbieRubarb, Soxy, TheGooch, farmteam, StrangeSox, Sox1422 2. The Who - knightni, FlaSoxxJim, Felix, BigEdWalsh, Flash Tizzle, PlaySumFnJurny, Milkman delivers, whitesoxfan99, MexSoxFan#1, Tex, Soxy, TheGooch, farmteam 1. The Beatles - knightni, FlaSoxxJim, Felix, SoxAce, BigEdWalsh, Steve9347, Flash Tizzle, PlaySumFnJurny, Milkman delivers, whitesoxfan99, JPN366, MexSoxFan#1, Tex, RibbieRubarb, Soxy, , TheBones, farmteam, StrangeSox, Sox1422

There we go! All done! I'll post the entire list and put in who voted for whom next.

1. The Beatles 19 of 24 lists - 391 points - highest ranking #1 knightni, whitesoxfan99, BigEdWalsh, Steve9347, MexSoxFan#1, RibbieRubarb, farmteam The Beatles were an English rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, who became one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. In their heyday the group consisted of John Lennon (rhythm guitar, vocals), Paul McCartney (bass guitar, vocals), George Harrison (lead guitar, vocals) and Ringo Starr (drums, vocals). Rooted in skiffle and 1950s rock and roll, the group later worked in many genres ranging from folk rock to psychedelic pop, often incorporating classical and other elements in innovative ways. The nature of their enormous popularity, which first emerged as the "Beatlemania" fad, transformed as their songwriting grew in sophistication. The group came to be perceived as the embodiment of progressive ideals, seeing their influence extend into the social and cultural revolutions of the 1960s. With an early five-piece line-up of Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, Stuart Sutcliffe (bass) and Pete Best (drums), The Beatles built their reputation in Liverpool and Hamburg clubs over a three-year period from 1960. Sutcliffe left the group in 1961, and Best was replaced by Starr the following year. Moulded into a professional outfit by music store owner Brian Epstein after he offered to act as the group's manager, and with their musical potential enhanced by the hands-on creativity of producer George Martin, The Beatles achieved UK mainstream success in late 1962 with their first single, "Love Me Do". Gaining international popularity over the course of the next year, they toured extensively until 1966, then retreated to the recording studio until their breakup in 1970. Each then found success in an independent musical career. McCartney and Starr remain active; Lennon was shot and killed in 1980, and Harrison died of cancer in 2001. During their studio years, The Beatles produced what critics consider some of their finest material including the album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967), widely regarded as a masterpiece. Nearly four decades after their breakup, The Beatles' music continues to be popular. The Beatles have had more number one albums on the UK charts, and held down the top spot longer, than any other musical act. According to RIAA certifications, they have sold more albums in the US than any other artist. In 2008, Billboard magazine released a list of the all-time top-selling Hot 100 artists to celebrate the US singles chart's fiftieth anniversary, with The Beatles at number one. They have been honoured with 7 Grammy Awards, and they have received 15 Ivor Novello Awards from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors. The Beatles were collectively included in Time magazine's compilation of the 20th century's 100 most important and influential people. Aged sixteen, singer and guitarist John Lennon formed the skiffle group The Quarrymen with some Liverpool schoolfriends in March 1957. Fifteen-year-old Paul McCartney joined as a guitarist after he and Lennon met that July. When McCartney in turn invited George Harrison to watch the group the following February, the fourteen-year-old joined as lead guitarist. By 1960 Lennon's schoolfriends had left the group, he had begun studies at the Liverpool College of Art and the three guitarists were playing rock and roll whenever they could get a drummer. Joining on bass in January, Lennon's fellow student Stuart Sutcliffe suggested changing the band name to "The Beetles" as a tribute to Buddy Holly and The Crickets, and they became "The Beatals" for the first few months of the year. After trying other names including "Johnny and the Moondogs", "Long John and The Beetles" and "The Silver Beatles", the band finally became "The Beatles" in August. The lack of a permanent drummer posed a problem when the group's unofficial manager, Allan Williams, arranged a resident band booking for them in Hamburg, Germany. Before the end of August they auditioned and hired drummer Pete Best, and the five-piece band left for Hamburg four days later, contracted to fairground showman Bruno Koschmider for a 48-night residency. "Hamburg in those days did not have rock'n'roll music clubs. It had strip clubs", says biographer Philip Norman. Bruno had the idea of bringing in rock groups to play in various clubs. They had this formula. It was a huge nonstop show, hour after hour, with a lot of people lurching in and the other lot lurching out. And the bands would play all the time to catch the passing traffic. In an American red-light district, they would call it nonstop striptease. Many of the bands that played in Hamburg were from Liverpool...It was an accident. Bruno went to London to look for bands. But he happened to meet a Liverpool entrepreneur in Soho, who was down in London by pure chance, and he arranged to send some bands over. Harrison, only seventeen in August 1960, obtained permission to stay in Hamburg by lying to the German authorities about his age. Initially placing The Beatles at the Indra Club, Koschmider moved them to the Kaiserkeller in October after the Indra was closed down due to noise complaints. When they violated their contract by performing at the rival Top Ten Club, Koschmider reported the underage Harrison to the authorities, leading to his deportation in November. McCartney and Best were arrested for arson a week later when they set fire to a condom hung on a nail in their room; they too were deported. Lennon returned to Liverpool in mid-December, while Sutcliffe remained in Hamburg with his new German fiancée, Astrid Kirchherr, for another month. Kirchherr took the first professional photos of the group and cut Sutcliffe's hair in the German "exi" (existentialist) style of the time, a look later adopted by the other Beatles. During the next two years, the group were resident for further periods in Hamburg. They used Preludin both recreationally and to maintain their energy through all-night performances. Sutcliffe decided to leave the band in early 1961 and resume his art studies in Germany, so McCartney took up bass. German producer Bert Kaempfert contracted what was now a four-piece to act as Tony Sheridan's backing band on a series of recordings. Credited to "Tony Sheridan and The Beat Brothers", the single "My Bonnie", recorded in June and released four months later, reached number 32 in the Musikmarkt chart. The Beatles were also becoming more popular back home in Liverpool. During one of the band's frequent appearances there at The Cavern Club, they encountered Brian Epstein, a local record store owner and music columnist. When the band appointed Epstein manager in January 1962, Kaempfert agreed to release them from the German record contract. After Decca Records rejected the band with the comment "Guitar groups are on the way out, Mr. Epstein", producer George Martin signed the group to EMI's Parlophone label. News of a tragedy greeted them on their return to Hamburg in April. Meeting them at the airport, a stricken Kirchherr told them of Sutcliffe's death from a brain haemorrhage. The band had its first recording session under Martin's direction at Abbey Road Studios in London in June 1962. Martin complained to Epstein about Best's drumming and suggested the band use a session drummer in the studio. Instead, Best was replaced by Ringo Starr. Starr, who left Rory Storm and the Hurricanes to join The Beatles, had already performed with them occasionally when Best was ill. Martin still hired session drummer Andy White for one session, and White played on "Love Me Do" and "P.S. I Love You". Released in October, "Love Me Do" was a top twenty UK hit, peaking at number seventeen on the chart. After a November studio session that yielded what would be their second single, "Please Please Me", they made their TV debut with a live performance on the regional news programme People and Places. The band concluded their last Hamburg stint in December 1962. By now it had become the pattern that all four members contributed vocals, although Starr's restricted range meant he sang lead only rarely. Lennon and McCartney had established a songwriting partnership; as the band's success grew, their celebrated collaboration limited Harrison's opportunities as lead vocalist. Epstein, sensing The Beatles' commercial potential, encouraged the group to adopt a professional attitude to performing. Lennon recalled the manager saying, "Look, if you really want to get in these bigger places, you're going to have to change—stop eating on stage, stop swearing, stop smoking." Lennon said, "We used to dress how we liked, on and off stage. He'd tell us that jeans were not particularly smart and could we possibly manage to wear proper trousers, but he didn't want us suddenly looking square. He'd let us have our own sense of individuality ... it was a choice of making it or still eating chicken on stage." In the wake of the moderate success of "Love Me Do", "Please Please Me" met with a more emphatic reception, reaching number two in the UK singles chart after its January 1963 release. Martin originally intended to record the band's debut LP live at The Cavern Club. Finding it had "the acoustic ambience of an oil tank", he elected to create a "live" album in one session at Abbey Road Studios. Ten songs were recorded for Please Please Me, accompanied on the album by the four tracks already released on the two singles. Recalling how the band "rushed to deliver a debut album, bashing out Please Please Me in a day", an Allmusic reviewer comments, "Decades after its release, the album still sounds fresh, precisely because of its intense origins." Lennon said little thought went into composition at the time; he and McCartney were "just writing songs à la Everly Brothers, à la Buddy Holly, pop songs with no more thought of them than that—to create a sound. And the words were almost irrelevant." Released in March 1963, the album reached number one on the British chart. This began a run during which eleven of The Beatles' twelve studio albums released in the United Kingdom through 1970 hit number one. The band's third single, "From Me to You", came out in April and was also a chart-topping hit. It began an almost unbroken run of seventeen British number one singles for the band, including all but one of those released over the next six years. On its release in August, the band's fourth single, "She Loves You", achieved the fastest sales of any record in the UK up to that time, selling three-quarters of a million copies in under four weeks.[48] It became their first single to sell a million copies, and remained the biggest-selling record in the UK until 1978 when it was topped by "Mull of Kintyre", performed by McCartney and his post-Beatles band Wings. The popularity of the Beatles' music brought with it increasing press attention. They responded with a cheeky, irreverent attitude that defied what was expected of pop musicians and inspired even more interest. The Beatles' iconic "drop-T" logo, based on an impromptu sketch by instrument retailer and designer Ivor Arbiter, also made its debut in 1963. The logo was first used on the front of Starr's bass drum, which Epstein and Starr purchased from Arbiter's London shop. The band toured the UK three times in the first half of the year: a four-week tour that began in February preceded three-week tours in March and May–June. As their popularity spread, a frenzied adulation of the group took hold, dubbed "Beatlemania". Although not billed as tour leaders, they overshadowed other acts including Tommy Roe, Chris Montez and Roy Orbison, US artists who had established great popularity in the UK. Performances everywhere, both on tour and at many one-off shows across the UK, were greeted with riotous enthusiasm by screaming fans. Police found it necessary to use high-pressure water hoses to control the crowds, and there were debates in Parliament concerning the thousands of police officers putting themselves at risk to protect the group. In late October, a five-day tour of Sweden saw the band venture abroad for the first time since the Hamburg chapter. Returning to the UK, they were greeted at Heathrow Airport in heavy rain by thousands of fans in "a scene similar to a shark-feeding frenzy", attended by fifty journalists and photographers and a BBC Television camera crew. The next day, The Beatles began yet another UK tour, scheduled for six weeks. By now, they were indisputably the headliners. Please Please Me was still topping the album chart. It maintained the position for thirty weeks, only to be displaced by With The Beatles which itself held the top spot for twenty-one weeks. Making much greater use of studio production techniques than its "live" predecessor, the album was recorded between July and October. With The Beatles is described by Allmusic as "a sequel of the highest order—one that betters the original by developing its own tone and adding depth." In a reversal of what had until then been standard practice, the album was released in late November ahead of the impending single "I Want to Hold Your Hand", with the song excluded in order to maximize the single's sales. With The Beatles caught the attention of Times music critic William Mann, who went as far as to suggest that Lennon and McCartney were "the outstanding English composers of 1963". The newspaper published a series of articles in which Mann offered detailed analyses of The Beatles' music, lending it respectability. With The Beatles became the second album in UK chart history to sell a million copies, a figure previously reached only by the 1958 South Pacific soundtrack. Beatles releases in the United States were initially delayed for nearly a year when Capitol Records, EMI's American subsidiary, declined to issue either "Please Please Me" or "From Me to You". Negotiations with independent US labels led to the release of some singles, but issues with royalties and derision of The Beatles' "moptop" hairstyle posed further obstacles. Once Capitol did start to issue the material, rather than releasing the LPs in their original configuration, they compiled distinct US albums from an assortment of the band's recordings, and issued songs of their own choice as singles. American chart success came suddenly after a news broadcast about British Beatlemania triggered great demand, leading Capitol to rush-release "I Want to Hold Your Hand" in December 1963. The band's US debut was already scheduled to take place a few weeks later. When The Beatles left the United Kingdom on 7 February 1964, an estimated four thousand fans gathered at Heathrow, waving and screaming as the aircraft took off. "I Want to Hold Your Hand" had sold 2.6 million copies in the US over the previous two weeks, but the group were still nervous about how they would be received. At New York's John F. Kennedy Airport they were greeted by another vociferous crowd, estimated at about three thousand people. They gave their first live US television performance two days later on The Ed Sullivan Show, watched by approximately 74 million viewers—over 40 percent of the American population. The next morning one newspaper wrote that The Beatles "could not carry a tune across the Atlantic", but a day later their first US concert saw Beatlemania erupt at Washington Coliseum. Back in New York the following day, they met with another strong reception at Carnegie Hall. The band appeared on the weekly Ed Sullivan Show a second time, before returning to the UK on 22 February. During the week of 4 April, The Beatles held twelve positions on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, including the top five. That same week, a third American LP joined the two already in circulation; all three reached the first or second spot on the US album chart. The band's popularity generated unprecedented interest in British music, and a number of other UK acts subsequently made their own American debuts, successfully touring over the next three years in what was termed the British Invasion. The Beatles' hairstyle, unusually long for the era and still mocked by many adults, was widely adopted and became an emblem of the burgeoning youth culture. The Beatles toured internationally in June. Staging thirty-two concerts over nineteen days in Denmark, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand, they were ardently received at every venue. Starr was ill for the first half of the tour, and Jimmy Nicol sat in on drums. In August they returned to the US, with a thirty-concert tour of twenty-three cities. Generating intense interest once again, the month-long tour attracted between ten and twenty thousand fans to each thirty-minute performance in cities from San Francisco to New York. However, their music could hardly be heard. On-stage amplification at the time was modest compared to modern-day equipment, and the band's small Vox amplifiers struggled to compete with the volume of sound generated by screaming fans. Forced to accept that neither they nor their audiences could hear the details of their performance, the band grew increasingly bored with the routine of concert touring. At the end of the August tour they were introduced to Bob Dylan in New York at the instigation of journalist Al Aronowitz. Visiting the band in their hotel suite, Dylan introduced them to cannabis. Music historian Jonathan Gould points out the musical and cultural significance of this meeting, before which the musicians' respective fanbases were "perceived as inhabiting two separate subcultural worlds": Dylan's core audience of "college kids with artistic or intellectual leanings, a dawning political and social idealism, and a mildly bohemian style" contrasted with The Beatles' core audience of "veritable 'teenyboppers'—kids in high school or grade school whose lives were totally wrapped up in the commercialized popular culture of television, radio, pop records, fan magazines, and teen fashion. They were seen as idolaters, not idealists." Within six months of the meeting, "Lennon would be making records on which he openly imitated Dylan's nasal drone, brittle strum, and introspective vocal persona." Within a year, Dylan would "proceed, with the help of a five-piece group and a Fender Stratocaster electric guitar, to shake the monkey of folk authenticity permanently off his back"; "the distinction between the folk and rock audiences would have nearly evaporated"; and The Beatles' audience would be "showing signs of growing up". Capitol Records' lack of interest throughout 1963 had not gone unnoticed, and a competitor, United Artists Records, encouraged United Artists' film division to offer The Beatles a motion picture contract in the hope that it would lead to a record deal. Directed by Richard Lester, A Hard Day's Night had the group's involvement for six weeks in March–April 1964 as they played themselves in a boisterous mock-documentary of the Beatles phenomenon. The film premiered in London and New York in July and August, respectively, and was an international success. The Observer's reviewer, Penelope Gilliatt, noted that "the way the Beatles go on is just there, and that's it. In an age that is clogged with self-explanation this makes them very welcome. It also makes them naturally comic." According to Allmusic, the accompanying soundtrack album, A Hard Day's Night, saw The Beatles "truly coming into their own as a band. All of the disparate influences on their first two albums had coalesced into a bright, joyous, original sound, filled with ringing guitars." That "ringing guitar" sound was primarily the product of Harrison's 12-string electric Rickenbacker, a prototype given him by the manufacturer, which made its debut on the record. Harrison's ringing 12-string inspired Roger McGuinn, who obtained his own Rickenbacker and used it to craft the trademark sound of The Byrds. Beatles for Sale, the band's fourth studio album, saw the emergence of a serious conflict between commercialism and creativity. Recorded between August and October 1964, the album had been intended to continue the format established by A Hard Day's Night which, unlike the band's first two LPs, had contained no cover versions. Acknowledging the challenge posed by constant international touring to the band's songwriting efforts, Lennon admitted, "Material's becoming a hell of a problem". Six covers were eventually included on the album. Released in early December, its eight self-penned numbers nevertheless stood out, demonstrating the growing maturity of the material produced by the Lennon-McCartney partnership. In April 1965, Lennon and Harrison's dentist spiked their coffee with LSD while they were his guests for dinner. The two later deliberately experimented with the drug, joined by Starr on one occasion. McCartney was reluctant to try it, but eventually did so in 1966, and later became the first Beatle to discuss it publicly. Controversy erupted in June 1965 when Queen Elizabeth II appointed the four Beatles Members of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) after Prime Minister Harold Wilson nominated them for the award. In protest—the honour was at that time primarily bestowed upon military veterans and civic leaders—some conservative MBE recipients returned their own insignia. The Beatles' second film, Help!, again directed by Lester, was released in July. Described as "mainly a relentless spoof of Bond", it inspired a mixed response among both reviewers and the band. McCartney said, "Help! was great but it wasn't our film—we were sort of guest stars. It was fun, but basically, as an idea for a film, it was a bit wrong." The accompanying soundtrack, the band's fifth studio album, again contained a mix of original material and covers, but with more emphasis than before on Lennon as lead singer and songwriter. Help! saw the band making increased use of vocal overdubs and incorporating classical instruments into their arrangements, notably the string quartet on the pop ballad "Yesterday". Composed by McCartney, "Yesterday" would inspire the most recorded cover versions of any song ever written. The LP's closing track, "Dizzy Miss Lizzy", became the last cover the band would include on an album. With the exception of Let It Be's brief rendition of the traditional Liverpool folk song "Maggie Mae", all of their subsequent albums would contain only self-penned material. On 15 August, The Beatles' third US visit opened with the first major stadium concert in history when they performed before a crowd of 55,600 at Shea Stadium, New York. A further nine successful concerts followed in other US cities. Towards the end of the tour the group were introduced to Elvis Presley, a foundational musical influence on the band, who invited them to his home. Presley and the band set up guitars in his living room, jammed together, discussed the music business and exchanged anecdotes. September saw the launch of an American Saturday morning cartoon series featuring the Beatles and echoing A Hard Day's Night's slapstick antics. Original episodes appeared for the next two years, and reruns aired through 1969. Rubber Soul, released in early December, was hailed by critics as another major step forward in the maturity and complexity of the band's music. Biographer and music critic Ian MacDonald observes that with Rubber Soul, The Beatles "recovered the sense of direction that had begun to elude them during the later stages of work on Beatles for Sale". After Help!'s foray into the world of classical music with flutes and strings, Rubber Soul's introduction of a sitar on "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" marked a further progression outside the traditional boundaries of rock music. The album also saw Lennon and McCartney's collaborative songwriting increasingly supplemented by distinct compositions from each (though they continued to share official credit). Their thematic reach was expanding as well, embracing more complex aspects of romance and other concerns. As their lyrics grew more artful, fans began to study them for deeper meaning. There was speculation that "Norwegian Wood" might refer to cannabis. In 2003, Rolling Stone magazine's "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" ranked Rubber Soul at number five, and the album is today described by Allmusic as "one of the classic folk rock records". According to both Lennon and McCartney, however, it was "just another album". Recording engineer Norman Smith saw clear signs of growing conflict within the group during the Rubber Soul sessions; Smith later said that "the clash between John and Paul was becoming obvious" and "as far as Paul was concerned, George could do no right." In June 1966, Yesterday and Today—one of the compilation albums created by Capitol Records for the US market—caused an uproar with its cover, which portrayed the smiling Beatles dressed in butcher's overalls, accompanied by raw meat and mutilated plastic dolls. A popular, though apocryphal, story was that this was meant as a response to the way Capitol had "butchered" their albums. Thousands of copies of the album had a new cover pasted over the original; an uncensored copy fetched $10,500 at a December 2005 auction. During a tour of the Philippines the month after the Yesterday and Today furore, The Beatles unintentionally snubbed the nation's first lady, Imelda Marcos, who had expected the group to attend a breakfast reception at the Presidential Palace. When presented with the invitation, Epstein politely declined on behalf of the group, as it had never been his policy to accept such official invitations. The group soon found that the Marcos regime was unaccustomed to taking "no" for an answer. The resulting riots endangered the group and they escaped the country with difficulty. Almost as soon as they returned home, they faced a fierce backlash from US religious and social conservatives (as well as the Ku Klux Klan) over a comment Lennon had made in a March interview with British reporter Maureen Cleave. Lennon had offered his opinion that Christianity was dying and that The Beatles were "more popular than Jesus now". The comment went virtually unnoticed in England, but when US teenage fan magazine Datebook printed it five months later—on the eve of the group's final US tour—it created a controversy in the American South's "Bible belt". South Africa also banned airplay of Beatles records, a prohibition that would last until 1971. Epstein publicly criticised Datebook, saying they had taken Lennon's words out of context, and at a press conference Lennon pointed out, "If I'd said television was more popular than Jesus, I might have got away with it." Lennon said he had only been referring to how other people saw The Beatles, but "if you want me to apologise, if that will make you happy, then okay, I'm sorry." Rubber Soul had marked a major step forward; Revolver, released in August 1966 a week before the band's final tour, marked another. Pitchfork identifies it as "the sound of a band growing into supreme confidence" and "redefining what was expected from popular music." Described by Gould as "woven with motifs of circularity, reversal, and inversion", Revolver featured sophisticated songwriting and a greatly expanded repertoire of musical styles ranging from innovative classical string arrangements to psychedelic rock. Abandoning the group photograph that had become the norm, its cover—designed by Klaus Voorman, a friend of the band since their Hamburg days—was a "stark, arty, black-and-white collage that caricatured the Beatles in a pen-and-ink style beholden to Aubrey Beardsley." The album was preceded by the single "Paperback Writer", backed by "Rain". The Beatles shot short promo films for both songs, described as "among the first true music videos", which aired on Top of the Pops and The Ed Sullivan Show. Among Revolver's most experimental tracks was "Tomorrow Never Knows", for whose lyrics Lennon drew from Timothy Leary's The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead. The song's creation involved eight tape decks distributed about the recording studio building, each manned by an engineer or band member, who randomly varied the movement of a tape loop while Martin created a composite recording by sampling the incoming data. McCartney's "Eleanor Rigby" made prominent use of a string octet; it has been described as "a true hybrid, conforming to no recognizable style or genre of song." Harrison was developing as a songwriter, and three of his compositions earned a place on the record. In 2003, Rolling Stone ranked Revolver as the third greatest album of all time. On the US tour that followed, The Beatles played none of its songs. The final show, at Candlestick Park, San Francisco, on 29 August, was their last commercial concert. It marked the end of a four-year period dominated by touring that included nearly 60 US concert appearances and over 1400 internationally. Freed from the burden of touring, the band's creativity and desire to experiment grew as they recorded Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, beginning in December 1966. Emerick recalled, "The Beatles insisted that everything on Sgt. Pepper had to be different. We had microphones right down in the bells of brass instruments and headphones turned into microphones attached to violins. We used giant primitive oscillators to vary the speed of instruments and vocals and we had tapes chopped to pieces and stuck together upside down and the wrong way round." Parts of "A Day in the Life" required a forty-piece orchestra. Nearly seven hundred hours of studio time were devoted to the sessions. They first yielded the non-album double A-side single "Strawberry Fields Forever"/"Penny Lane" in February 1967; Sgt. Pepper followed in June. The musical complexity of the records, created using only four-track recording technology, astounded contemporary artists seeking to outdo The Beatles. For Beach Boys leader Brian Wilson, in the midst of a personal crisis and struggling to complete the ambitious Smile, hearing "Strawberry Fields" was a crushing blow and he soon abandoned all attempts to compete. Sgt. Pepper met with great critical acclaim. In 2003, Rolling Stone ranked it number one among its "500 Greatest Albums of All Time" and it is widely regarded as a masterpiece. Jonathan Gould describes it as a rich, sustained, and overflowing work of collaborative genius whose bold ambition and startling originality dramatically enlarged the possibilities and raised the expectations of what the experience of listening to popular music on record could be. On the basis of this perception, Sgt. Pepper became the catalyst for an explosion of mass enthusiasm for album-formatted rock that would revolutionize both the aesthetics and the economics of the record business in ways that far outstripped the earlier pop explosions triggered by the Elvis phenomenon of 1956 and the Beatlemania phenomenon of 1963. Sgt. Pepper was the first major pop album to include its complete lyrics, which were printed on the back cover. Those lyrics were the subject of intense analysis; fans speculated, for instance, that the "celebrated Mr K." in "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!" might in fact be the surrealist fiction writer Franz Kafka. The American literary critic and professor of English Richard Poirier wrote an essay, "Learning from the Beatles", in which he observed that his students were "listening to the group's music with a degree of engagement that he, as a teacher of literature, could only envy." Poirier identified what he termed the "mixed allusiveness" of the material: "It's unwise ever to assume that they're doing only one thing or expressing themselves in only one style ... one kind of feeling about a subject isn't enough ... any single induced feeling must often exist within the context of seemingly contradictory alternatives." McCartney said at the time, "We write songs. We know what we mean by them. But in a week someone else says something about it, and you can't deny it ... You put your own meaning at your own level to our songs". Sgt. Pepper's remarkably elaborate album cover also occasioned great interest and deep study. The heavy moustaches worn by the band swiftly became a hallmark of hippie style. Cultural historian Jonathan Harris describes their "brightly coloured parodies of military uniforms" as a knowingly "anti-authoritarian and anti-establishment" display. On 25 June, the band performed their newest single, "All You Need Is Love", to TV viewers worldwide on Our World, the first live global television link. Appearing amid the Summer of Love, the song was adopted as a flower power anthem. Two months later the group suffered a loss that threw their career into turmoil. After being introduced to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, they travelled to Bangor for his Transcendental Meditation retreat. During the retreat, Epstein's assistant Peter Brown called to tell them Epstein had died. The coroner ruled Epstein's death an accidental overdose, but it was widely rumoured that a suicide note had been discovered among his possessions. Epstein had been in a fragile emotional state, stressed by both personal issues and the state of his working relationship with The Beatles. He worried that the band might not renew his management contract, due to expire in October, based on discontent with his supervision of business matters. There were particular concerns over Seltaeb, the company that handled Beatles merchandising rights in the United States. Epstein's death left the group disoriented and fearful about the future. Lennon said later, "I didn't have any misconceptions about our ability to do anything other than play music and I was scared." He also looked back on Epstein's death as marking the beginning of the end for the group: "I knew that we were in trouble then ... I thought, We've f***in' had it now." Magical Mystery Tour, the soundtrack to a forthcoming Beatles television film, appeared as a six-track double extended play disc (EP) in early December 1967. In the United States, the six songs were issued on an identically titled LP that also included tracks from the band's recent singles. Allmusic says of the US Magical Mystery Tour, "The psychedelic sound is very much in the vein of Sgt. Pepper, and even spacier in parts (especially the sound collages of 'I Am the Walrus')", and calls its five songs culled from the band's 1967 singles "huge, glorious, and innovative". It set a new US record in its first three weeks for highest initial sales of any Capitol LP, and it is the one Capitol compilation later to be adopted in the band's official canon of studio albums. Aired on Boxing Day, the Magical Mystery Tour film, largely directed by McCartney, brought The Beatles their first major negative UK press. It was dismissed as "blatant rubbish" by the Daily Express, which described it as "a great deal of raw footage showing a group of people getting on, getting off, and riding on a bus". The Daily Mail called it "a colossal conceit", while the Guardian labelled it "a kind of fantasy morality play about the grossness and warmth and stupidity of the audience". It fared so dismally that it was withheld from the US at the time. In January, the group filmed a cameo for the animated movie Yellow Submarine, a fantasia featuring a cartoon version of The Beatles. The group's only other involvement with the film was the contribution of several unreleased studio recordings. Released in June 1968, it was well received for its innovative visual style and humour in addition to its music. It would be seven months, however, before the film's soundtrack album appeared. The Beatles, wearing identical dark-grey button-down shirts. They are clean-shaven, except for Starr, who has a mustache. Lennon, wearing mutton chops, holds a folded telescope. All are smiling, except for McCartney, who looks pensive. In the interim came The Beatles, a double LP popularly known as the White Album for its virtually featureless cover. Creative inspiration for the album came from an unexpected quarter when, with Epstein's guiding presence gone, the group turned to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi as their guru. At his ashram in Rishikesh, India, a three-month "Guide Course" became one of their most creative periods, yielding a large number of songs including most of the thirty recorded for the album. Starr left after ten days, likening it to Butlins, and McCartney eventually grew bored with the procedure and departed a month later. For Lennon and Harrison, creativity turned to questioning when Yanni Alexis Mardas, the electronics technician dubbed Magic Alex, suggested that the Maharishi was attempting to manipulate the group. After Mardas alleged that the Maharishi had made sexual advances to women attendees, Lennon was persuaded and left abruptly, taking the unconvinced Harrison and the remainder of the group's entourage with him. In his anger Lennon wrote a pointed song called "Maharishi", but later modified it to avoid a legal suit, resulting in "Sexy Sadie". McCartney said, "We made a mistake. We thought there was more to him than there was." During recording sessions for the album, which stretched from late May to mid-October 1968, divisions and dissent started to drive the group apart. Starr quit the band for a period, leaving McCartney to perform drums on several tracks. Lennon's romantic preoccupation with avant-garde artist Yoko Ono contributed to tension within the band and he lost interest in co-writing with McCartney. Flouting the group's well-established understanding that they would not take partners into the studio, Lennon insisted on bringing Ono, anyway disliked by Harrison, to all of the sessions. Increasingly contemptuous of McCartney's creative input, he began to identify the latter's compositions as "granny music", dismissing "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" as "granny s***". Recalling the White Album sessions, Lennon gave a curiously foreshortened summing-up of the band's history from that point on, saying, "It's like if you took each track off it and made it all mine and all Paul's... just me and a backing group, Paul and a backing group, and I enjoyed it. We broke up then." McCartney also recalled that the sessions marked the start of the breakup, saying, "Up to that point, the world was a problem, but we weren't" which had always been "the best thing about The Beatles". Issued in November, the White Album was the band's first Apple Records album release. The new label was a subsidiary of Apple Corps, formed by the group on their return from India, fulfilling a plan of Epstein's to create a tax-effective business structure. The record attracted more than two million advance orders, selling nearly four million copies in the US in little over a month, and its tracks dominated the playlists of US radio stations. Despite its popularity, it did not receive flattering reviews at the time. According to Jonathan Gould, The critical response... ranged from mixed to flat. In marked contrast to Sgt. Pepper, which had helped to establish an entire genre of literate rock criticism, the White Album inspired no critical writing of any note. Even the most sympathetic reviewers... clearly didn't know what to make of this shapeless outpouring of songs. Newsweek's Hubert Saal, citing the high proportion of parodies, accused the group of getting their tongues caught in their cheeks. General critical opinion eventually turned in favor of the White Album, and in 2003 Rolling Stone ranked it as the tenth greatest album of all time. Pitchfork describes the album as "large and sprawling, overflowing with ideas but also with indulgences, and filled with a hugely variable array of material ... its failings are as essential to its character as its triumphs." Allmusic observes, "Clearly, the Beatles' two main songwriting forces were no longer on the same page, but neither were George and Ringo"; yet "Lennon turns in two of his best ballads", McCartney's songs are "stunning", Harrison is seen to have become "a songwriter who deserved wider exposure" and Starr's composition is "a delight". By now the interest in Beatles lyrics was taking a serious turn. When Lennon's song "Revolution" had been released as a single in August ahead of the White Album, its messages seemed clear: "free your mind", and "count me out" of any talk about destruction as a means to an end. In a year characterized by student protests that stretched from Warsaw to Paris to Chicago, the response from the radical left was scathing. However, the White Album version of the song, "Revolution 1", added an extra word, "count me out ... in", implying a change of heart since the single's release. The chronology was in fact reversed—the ambivalent album version was recorded first—but some felt that The Beatles were now saying that political violence might indeed be justifiable. The Yellow Submarine LP finally appeared in January 1969. It contained only four previously unreleased songs, along with the title track, already issued on Revolver; a song from Magical Mystery Tour; and seven instrumental pieces composed by Martin. Because of the paucity of new Beatles music, Allmusic suggests the album might be "inessential" but for Harrison's "It's All Too Much", "the jewel of the new songs... resplendent in swirling Mellotron, larger-than-life percussion, and tidal waves of feedback guitar... a virtuoso excursion into otherwise hazy psychedelia". Although Let It Be was the band's final album release, most of it was recorded before Abbey Road. Initially titled Get Back, Let It Be originated from an idea Martin attributes to McCartney: to prepare new material and "perform it before a live audience for the very first time—on record and on film. In other words make a live album of new material, which no one had ever done before." In the event, much of the album's content came from studio work, many hours of which were captured on film by director Michael Lindsay-Hogg. Martin said that rehearsals and recording for the project, which occupied much of January 1969, were "not at all a happy ... experience. It was a time when relations between the Beatles were at their lowest ebb." Aggravated by both McCartney and Lennon, Harrison walked out for a week. He returned with keyboardist Billy Preston, who participated in the last ten days of sessions and was credited on the "Get Back" single—the only other musician to receive such acknowledgment on an official Beatles recording. The band members had reached an impasse on a concert location, rejecting among several concepts a boat at sea, the Tunisian desert and the Colosseum. Ultimately, the final live performance by The Beatles, accompanied by Preston, was filmed on the rooftop of the Apple Corps building at 3 Savile Row, London, on 30 January 1969. Engineer Glyn Johns worked for months assembling various iterations of a Get Back album, while the band turned to other concerns. Conflict arose regarding the appointment of a financial adviser, the need for which had become evident without Epstein to manage business affairs. Lennon favoured Allen Klein, who had negotiated contracts for The Rolling Stones and other UK bands during the British Invasion. McCartney's choice was John Eastman, brother of Linda Eastman, whom McCartney married on 12 March (eight days before Lennon and Ono wed). Agreement could not be reached, so both were appointed, but further conflict ensued and financial opportunities were lost. Martin was surprised when McCartney contacted him and asked him to produce another album, as the Get Back sessions had been "a miserable experience" and he had "thought it was the end of the road for all of us... they were becoming unpleasant people—to themselves as well as to other people." Recording sessions for Abbey Road began in late February. Lennon rejected Martin's proposed format of "a continuously moving piece of music", and wanted his own and McCartney's songs to occupy separate sides of the album. The eventual format, with individually composed songs on the first side and the second largely comprising a medley, was McCartney's suggested compromise. On 4 July, while work on the album was in progress, the first solo single by a member of The Beatles appeared: Lennon's "Give Peace a Chance", credited to the Plastic Ono Band. The completion of the Abbey Road track "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" on 20 August was the last time all four Beatles were together in the same studio. Lennon announced his departure to the rest of the group on 20 September, but agreed that no public announcement would be made until a number of legal matters were resolved. Released six days after Lennon's declaration, Abbey Road sold four million copies within two months and topped the UK chart for eleven weeks. Its second track, the ballad "Something", was also issued as a single—the first and only song by Harrison to appear as a Beatles A side. Abbey Road received mixed reviews, although the medley met with general acclaim. Allmusic considers it "a fitting swan song for the group" containing "some of the greatest harmonies to be heard on any rock record". MacDonald calls it "erratic and often hollow": "Had it not been for McCartney's input as designer of the Long Medley... Abbey Road would lack the semblance of unity and coherence that makes it appear better than it is." Martin singled it out as his personal favourite of all the band's albums; Lennon said it was "competent" but had "no life in it", calling "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" "more of Paul's granny music". Recording engineer Geoff Emerick noted that the replacement of the studio's valve mixing console with a transistorised one produced a less punchy sound, leaving the group frustrated at the thinner tone and lack of impact. For the still uncompleted Get Back album, the final new Beatles song, Harrison's "I Me Mine", was recorded on 3 January 1970. Lennon, in Denmark at the time, did not participate. To complete the album, now retitled Let It Be, in March Klein gave the Get Back session tapes to American producer Phil Spector. Known for his Wall of Sound approach, Spector had recently produced Lennon's solo single "Instant Karma!" In addition to remixing the Get Back material, Spector edited, spliced and overdubbed several of the recordings that had been intended as "live". McCartney was unhappy with Spector's treatment of the material and particularly dissatisfied with the producer's orchestration of "The Long and Winding Road", which involved a choir and thirty-four-piece instrumental ensemble. He unsuccessfully attempted to halt the release of Spector's version. McCartney publicly announced his departure from the band on 10 April, a week before the release of his first, self-titled solo album. Pre-release copies of McCartney's record included a press statement with a self-written interview, explaining the end of his involvement with The Beatles and his hopes for the future. On 8 May, the Spector-produced Let It Be was released. The accompanying single, "The Long and Winding Road", was the band's last; it was released in the United States, but not Britain. The Let It Be documentary film followed later in the month; at the Academy Award ceremony the next year, it would win the Oscar for Best Original Song Score. The Sunday Telegraph called it "a very bad film and a touching one ... about the breaking apart of this reassuring, geometrically perfect, once apparently ageless family of siblings." More than one reviewer commented that some of the Let It Be tracks sounded better in the film than on the album. Observing that Let It Be is the "only Beatles album to occasion negative, even hostile reviews", Allmusic describes it as "on the whole underrated... McCartney in particular offers several gems: the gospel-ish 'Let It Be', which has some of his best lyrics; 'Get Back', one of his hardest rockers; and the melodic 'The Long and Winding Road', ruined by Spector's heavy-handed overdubs." McCartney filed a suit for the dissolution of The Beatles on 31 December 1970. Legal disputes continued long after the band's breakup, and the dissolution of the partnership did not take effect until 1975. Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starr all released solo albums in 1970. Further albums followed from each, sometimes with the involvement of one or more of the others. Starr's Ringo (1973) was the only album to include compositions and performances by all four, albeit on separate songs. With Starr's collaboration, Harrison staged The Concert for Bangladesh in New York City in August 1971 with sitar maestro Ravi Shankar. Other than an unreleased jam session in 1974 (later bootlegged as A Toot and a Snore in '74), Lennon and McCartney never recorded together again. Two double-LP sets of The Beatles' greatest hits compiled by Allen Klein, 1962–1966 and 1967–1970, were released in 1973, at first under the Apple Records imprint. Commonly known as the Blue Album and Red Album respectively, each earned a Multi-Platinum certification in the United States and a Platinum certification in the United Kingdom. Between 1976 and 1982, EMI/Capitol released a wave of Beatles compilation albums without input from the band members. The only one to feature previously unreleased material was The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl (1977). The first officially issued concert recordings by the group, it contained selections from two shows The Beatles played during their 1964 and 1965 US tours. After the international release of the original British albums on CD in 1987, EMI deleted this latter group of compilations—including the Hollywood Bowl record—from its catalogue. The Beatles' music and enduring fame were commercially exploited in various other ways, outside the band members' creative control. The Broadway musical Beatlemania, a nostalgia revue featuring four musicians performing as The Beatles, opened in early 1977 and proved popular, spinning off five separate touring productions. The Beatles tried and failed to block the 1977 release of Live! at the Star-Club in Hamburg, Germany; 1962. The independently issued album compiled recordings made during the group's Hamburg residency, taped on a basic recording machine with one microphone. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1978), a musical film starring the Bee Gees and Peter Frampton, was a commercial failure and "artistic fiasco". In 1979, the band sued the producers of Beatlemania, settling for several million dollars in damages. "People were just thinking The Beatles were like public domain", said Harrison. "You can't just go around pilfering The Beatles' material." Lennon was shot and killed on 8 December 1980, in New York City. In a personal tribute Harrison wrote new lyrics for "All Those Years Ago", a song about his time with The Beatles recorded the month before Lennon's death. With McCartney and his wife, Linda, contributing backing vocals, and Starr on drums, the song was overdubbed with the new lyrics and released as a single in May 1981. McCartney's own tribute, "Here Today", appeared on his Tug of War album in April 1982. The Beatles were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988, their first year of eligibility. Harrison and Starr attended the ceremony along with Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, and his two sons, Julian and Sean. McCartney declined to attend, issuing a press release saying, "After 20 years, the Beatles still have some business differences which I had hoped would have been settled by now. Unfortunately, they haven't been, so I would feel like a complete hypocrite waving and smiling with them at a fake reunion." The following year, EMI/Capitol settled a decade-long lawsuit by The Beatles concerning royalties, clearing the way to commercially package previously unreleased material. Live at the BBC, the first official release of previously unissued Beatles performances in 17 years, appeared in 1994. That same year McCartney, Harrison and Starr reunited for the Anthology project, the culmination of work begun in the late 1960s by Neil Aspinall. Initially The Beatles' road manager, and then their personal assistant, Aspinall began to gather material for a documentary after he became director of Apple Corps in 1968. The Long and Winding Road, as Aspinall provisionally titled his Beatles history, was shelved, but as executive producer for the Anthology project Aspinall was able to complete his work. Documenting the history of The Beatles in the band's own words, the project saw the release of many previously unissued Beatles recordings; McCartney, Harrison and Starr also added new instrumental and vocal parts to two demo songs recorded by Lennon in the late 1970s. During 1995 and 1996 the project yielded a five-part television series, an eight-volume video set and three two-CD box sets. The two songs based on Lennon demos, "Free as a Bird" and "Real Love", were each released as singles. The CD box sets featured artwork by Klaus Voorman, creator of the Revolver album cover in 1966. The releases were commercially successful and the television series was viewed by an estimated 400 million people worldwide. 1, a compilation album of every Beatles number one British and American hit, was released on 13 November 2000. It became the fastest-selling album of all time, with 3.6 million sold in its first week and over 12 million in three weeks worldwide. It was a number one chart hit in at least 28 countries, including the UK and the US. As of April 2009, it had sold 31 million copies globally, and is the highest selling album of the decade in the United States. Harrison died from lung cancer on 29 November 2001. McCartney and Starr were among the musicians who performed at the Concert for George, organized by Eric Clapton and Harrison's widow, Olivia. The tribute event took place at the Royal Albert Hall on the first anniversary of Harrison's death. As well as songs he composed for The Beatles and his own solo career, the concert included a celebration of Indian classical music, Harrison's interest in which had influenced the band. In 2003, Let It Be… Naked, a reconceived version of the album with McCartney supervising production, was released to mixed reviews. It was a top ten hit in both the UK and the US. As a soundtrack for Cirque du Soleil's Las Vegas Beatles stage revue Love, George Martin and his son Giles remixed and blended 130 of the band's recordings to create "a way of re-living the whole Beatles musical lifespan in a very condensed period". The show premiered in June 2006, and the Love album was released that November. Attending the show's first anniversary, McCartney and Starr were interviewed on Larry King Live along with Ono and Olivia Harrison.[219] Also in 2007, reports circulated that McCartney was hoping to complete "Now and Then", a third Lennon demo worked on during the Anthology sessions. It would be credited as a "Lennon/McCartney composition" with the addition of new verses, and feature a new drum track by Starr and archival recordings of Harrison playing guitar. Lawyers for The Beatles sued in March 2008 to prevent the distribution of unreleased recordings purportedly made during Starr's first performance with the group at Hamburg's Star-Club in 1962. In November, McCartney discussed his hope that "Carnival of Light", a 14-minute experimental recording The Beatles made at Abbey Road Studios in 1967, would receive an official release. McCartney headlined a charity concert on 4 April 2009 at Radio City Music Hall for the David Lynch Foundation with guest performers including Starr. The Beatles: Rock Band, a music video game in the style of the Rock Band series, was released on 9 September 2009. On the same day, remastered versions of the band's twelve original studio albums plus Magical Mystery Tour and the compilation Past Masters were issued. The Beatles discography 1962 "My Bonnie" - #26 1962 "Love Me Do" - #1 1962 "P.S. I Love You" - #10 1963 "From Me to You" - #41 1963 "She Loves You" - #1 1963 "Roll Over Beethoven" - #68 1963 "I Want to Hold Your Hand" - #1 1963 "I Saw Her Standing There" - #14 1964 "Please Please Me" - #3 1964 "All My Loving" - #45 1964 "Why" - #88 1964 "Twist and Shout" - #2 1964 "There's a Place" - #74 1964 "Can't Buy Me Love" - #1 1964 "You Can't Do That" - #48 1964 "Do You Want to Know a Secret" - #2 1964 "Thank You Girl" - #35 1964 "Sie Liebt Dich (She Loves You)" - #97 1964 "Ain't She Sweet" - #19 1964 "A Hard Day's Night" - #1 1964 "I Should Have Known Better" - #53 1964 "I'll Cry Instead" - #25 1964 "I'm Happy Just to Dance with You" - #95 1964 "And I Love Her" - #12 1964 "If I Fell" - #53 1964 "Matchbox" - #17 1964 "Slow Down" - #25 1964 "I Feel Fine" - #1 1964 "She's a Woman" - #4 1965 "Eight Days a Week" - #1 1965 "I Don't Want to Spoil the Party" - #39 1965 "Ticket to Ride" - #1 1965 "Yes It Is" - #46 1965 "Help!" - #1 1965 "I'm Down" - #101 1965 "Yesterday" - #1 1965 "Act Naturally" - #47 1965 "We Can Work It Out" - #1 1965 "Day Tripper" - #5 1966 "Nowhere Man" - #3 1966 "What Goes On" - #81 1966 "Paperback Writer" - #1 1966 "Rain" - #23 1966 "Yellow Submarine" - #2 1966 "Eleanor Rigby" - #11 1967 "Penny Lane" - #1 1967 "Strawberry Fields Forever" - #8 1967 "All You Need Is Love" - #1 1967 "Baby, You're a Rich Man" - #34 1967 "Hello, Goodbye" - #1 1967 "I Am the Walrus" - #56 1968 "Lady Madonna" - #4 1968 "The Inner Light" - #96 1968 "Hey Jude" - #1 1968 "Revolution" - #12 1969 "Get Back" - #1 1969 "Don't Let Me Down" - #35 1969 "The Ballad of John and Yoko" - #8 1969 "Something" - #1 1969 "Come Together" - #1 1970 "Let It Be" - #1 1970 "The Long and Winding Road" - #1 1976 "Got to Get You into My Life" - #7 1976 "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" - #49 1978 "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"/"With a Little Help from My Friends" - #71 1982 "The Beatles Movie Medley" - #12 1995 "Baby It's You" / "I'll Follow the Sun" - #67 1995 "Free as a Bird" - #6 1996 "Real Love" - #11 Factoid: The official release of The Beatles' catalogue in a limited edition of 30,000 USB flash drives is planned for December 2009. "All You Need Is Love" http://media-convert.com/convert/?xid=7-cefgmjcc

2. The Who 13 of 24 lists - 207 points - highest ranking #1 Milkman delivers The Who are an English rock band formed in 1964. The primary lineup consisted of guitarist Pete Townshend, vocalist Roger Daltrey, bassist John Entwistle, and drummer Keith Moon. They became known for energetic live performances including the pioneering spectacle of instrument destruction. The Who have sold about 100 million records and have charted 27 top forty singles in the United Kingdom and United States with 17 top ten albums. The Who rose to fame in the UK with a series of top ten hit singles, boosted in part by pirate radio stations such as Radio Caroline, beginning in January 1965 with "I Can't Explain". The albums My Generation (1965), A Quick One (1966) and The Who Sell Out (1967) followed, with the first two hitting the UK top five. They first hit the US Top Forty in 1967 with "Happy Jack" and hit the top ten later that year with "I Can See for Miles". Their fame grew with memorable performances at the Monterey Pop and Woodstock music festivals. The 1969 release of Tommy was the first in a series of top ten albums in the US, followed by Live at Leeds (1970), Who's Next (1971), Quadrophenia (1973), The Who By Numbers (1975), Who Are You (1978) and The Kids Are Alright (1979). Moon died at the age of 32 in 1978, after which the band released two studio albums, the UK and US top five Face Dances (1981) and the US top ten It's Hard (1982), with drummer Kenney Jones, before disbanding in 1983. They re-formed at events such as Live Aid and for reunion tours such as their 25th anniversary tour (1989) and the Quadrophenia tours of 1996 and 1997. In 2000, the three surviving original members discussed recording an album of new material, but their plans temporarily stalled upon Entwistle's death at the age of 57 in 2002. Townshend and Daltrey continue to perform as The Who, and in 2006 they released the studio album Endless Wire, which reached the top ten in the UK and USA. The Who were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990, their first year of eligibility. Their display there describes them as "Prime contenders, in the minds of many, for the title of World's Greatest Rock Band." The Los Angeles Times wrote that during their tenure as a quartet, the band "rivaled The Beatles, Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones as the most vital rock voice of youth." Time Magazine wrote in 1979 that "No other group has ever pushed rock so far, or asked so much from it." They received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the British Phonographic Industry in 1988, and from the Grammy Foundation in 2001. In 2008 surviving members Townshend and Daltrey were honoured at the 31st Annual Kennedy Center Honors. In the early 1960s, Townshend and Entwistle started a trad jazz band called The Confederates. Townshend played banjo and Entwistle played the French horn, which he had learned to play in his school band. Daltrey met Entwistle walking down the street with a bass guitar slung over his shoulder and asked him to join his band called The Detours, which he had formed the year before. After a few weeks, Entwistle suggested Townshend as an additional guitarist. In the early days the band played a variety of music suitable for the pubs and halls they performed in, then became influenced by American blues and country music, playing mostly rhythm and blues. The lineup was Daltrey on lead guitar, Townshend on rhythm guitar, Entwistle on bass, Doug Sandom on drums, and Colin Dawson vocals. After Dawson left, Daltrey moved to vocals and Townshend became sole guitarist. In 1964 Sandom left and Keith Moon became drummer. The Detours changed their name to The Who in February 1964 and, with the arrival of Moon that year, the line-up was complete. However, for a short period in summer 1964, under the management of mod Peter Meaden, they changed their name to The High Numbers, releasing "Zoot Suit/I'm the Face", a single aimed at appealing to mod fans. When the single failed to chart, the band reverted to The Who. Meaden was replaced as manager by the team of Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp, who saw the band play at the Railway Tavern, offered to manage them and bought Meaden out. They became popular among the British mods, a 1960s subculture involving cutting-edge fashions, scooters and music genres such as rhythm and blues, soul, and beat music. In September 1964, during a performance at the Railway Tavern in Harrow and Wealdstone, London, Townshend accidentally broke the head of his guitar through the ceiling. Angered by sn*****s from the audience, he smashed the instrument on the stage. He picked up another guitar and continued the show. A large crowd attended the next concert, but Townshend declined to smash another guitar. Instead, Moon wrecked his drumkit after Townshend received catcalls from the crowd. Instrument destruction became a staple of The Who's shows for several years. The incident at the Railway Tavern is one of Rolling Stone magazine's "50 Moments That Changed the History of Rock 'n' Roll". The band crystallised around Townshend as primary songwriter and creative force. Entwistle also made songwriting contributions, and Moon and Daltrey contributed occasional songs in the '60s and '70s. The Who's first release, and first hit, was January 1965's "I Can't Explain", a record influenced by the Kinks, with whom they shared American producer Shel Talmy. The song was only played in a few markets in the USA, notably by DJ Peter C Cavanaugh on WTAC AM 600 in Flint, Michigan. "I Can't Explain" was a top 10 hit in the UK and was followed by "Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere", a song credited to Townshend and Daltrey. The debut album My Generation (The Who Sings My Generation in the U.S.) was released the same year. It included "The Kids Are Alright" and the title track "My Generation". Subsequent hits, such as the 1966 singles "Substitute", about a young man who feels like a fraud, "I'm a Boy", about a boy dressed as a girl, and "Happy Jack", about a mentally disturbed young man, show Townshend's use of the themes of sexual tension and teenage angst. Although successful as a singles band, Townshend wanted The Who's albums unified rather than collections of songs. Townshend said "I'm a Boy" was from a projected rock opera, the first sign of which came in the 1966 album A Quick One, which included the storytelling medley "A Quick One While He's Away", which they referred to as a mini-opera. A Quick One was followed in 1967 by the single "Pictures of Lily" and The Who Sell Out - a concept album like an offshore radio station, complete with humorous jingles and commercials. It included a mini rock opera called "Rael" (whose closing theme ended up on Tommy) and The Who's biggest US single, "I Can See for Miles". The Who destroyed equipment at the Monterey Pop Festival that year and repeated the routine on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour with explosive results as Moon detonated his drumkit. Years later, during filming of The Kids Are Alright, Townshend claimed that the event was the start of his hearing troubles. The drum kit had been loaded with an excessive amount of explosives due to Keith Moon bribing a stage hand. The resulting explosion was much more powerful than had been anticipated. Music channel VH1 listed the event at #10 on their list of the 100 Greatest Rock 'n' Roll Moments on Television. In 1968, The Who headlined the first Schaefer Music Festival in New York City's Central Park and released the single "Magic Bus". In December, they took part in The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus, performing their mini-opera, "A Quick One While He's Away". Also that year, Townshend became the subject of the first Rolling Stone interview. Townshend said he was working on a full-length rock opera. This was Tommy, the first work billed as a rock opera and a landmark in modern music. During this time the teachings of India's Meher Baba influenced Townshend's songwriting, continuing for many years. Baba is credited as "Avatar" on Tommy. In addition to commercial success, Tommy became a critical smash, Life Magazine saying, "...for sheer power, invention and brilliance of performance, Tommy outstrips anything which has ever come out of a recording studio," and Melody Maker declaring, "Surely The Who are now the band against which all others are to be judged." The Who performed much of Tommy at the Woodstock Music and Art Festival that year. That, and the ensuing film, catapulted The Who's popularity in the USA. Though the festival became free, the Who demanded to be paid before performing despite banks and roads being closed 2–3 am on Sunday morning and only agreed to play when one of the promoters, Joel Rosenman, came up with a certified check for $11,200 ($68,597 in current dollar terms). It was during the performance of The Who at Woodstock that one of the most notorious events of the concert took place. Yippie leader Abbie Hoffman sat on the stage with concert organizer Michael Lang during The Who's set. Hoffman had been working the medical tent since the festival's opening act and was under the influence of LSD. Hoffman had become increasingly determined to publicize the case of John Sinclair, who had been given a 10-year jail sentence for passing two marijuana cigarettes to an undercover narcotics officer. Hoffman jumped up and grabbed a microphone during a brief lull in The Who's performance of Tommy saying, "I think this is a pile of s***, while John Sinclair rots in prison!" Townshend replied, "f*** off! f*** off my f***ing stage!" and struck Hoffman with his guitar. Hoffman leaped off the stage and disappeared into the crowd. In February 1970 The Who recorded Live at Leeds, thought by many critics to be the best live rock album of all time. The album, originally containing mostly the show's set closing hard rock songs, has been re-released in expanded and remastered versions. These versions remedy technical problems with the original and are expanded with portions of the performance of Tommy, as well as versions of earlier singles and stage banter. A double-disc version contains the entire performance of Tommy. The Leeds University gig was part of the Tommy tour, which not only included gigs in European opera houses but saw The Who become the first rock act at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. In March The Who released the UK top twenty hit "The Seeker". In March 1971, the band began recording the available Lifehouse material, a new Townshend-penned rock opera, with Kit Lambert in New York, and then restarted the sessions with Glyn Johns in April. Selections from the material, with one unrelated song by Entwistle, were released as a traditional studio album, Who's Next. The album became their most successful album among critics and fans, but terminated the Lifehouse project. Who's Next reached #4 in the USA pop charts and #1 in the UK. Two tracks from the album, "Baba O'Riley" and "Won't Get Fooled Again", are cited as pioneering examples of synthesizer use in rock music; both tracks' keyboard sounds were generated in real time by a Lowrey organ (though in "Won't Get Fooled Again", the organ was processed through a VCS3 synthesizer). Synthesizers can be heard elsewhere on the album, in "Bargain", "Going Mobile", and "The Song is Over". In October The Who released the UK top twenty hit "Let's See Action". On 4 November 1971 The Who opened the Rainbow Theatre in London and played for three nights. In 1972 they released the UK top ten and US top twenty single "Join Together" and the UK and US Top Forty "The Relay". Who's Next was followed by Quadrophenia (1973), The Who's second completed double album rock opera. The story is about a boy named Jimmy, who struggles for self-esteem, with his family and others, and is mentally ill. His story is set against clashes between Mods and Rockers in the early 1960s in the UK, particularly at Brighton. The album became their highest charting cross-Atlantic success, peaking at #2 in the UK and US. The US tour started on 20 November 1973 at the San Francisco, California Cow Palace in Daly City where Moon passed out during "Won't Get Fooled Again" and, after a break backstage, again in "Magic Bus". Townshend asked the audience, "Can anyone play the drums? - I mean somebody good." An audience member, Scot Halpin, filled in for the rest of the show, a jam featuring "Smokestack Lightning", "Spoonful" and "Naked Eye". In 1974 The Who released the outtakes album Odds & Sods, which featured several songs from the aborted Lifehouse project. Their 1975 album, The Who by Numbers, had introspective songs, lightened by "Squeeze Box", another hit single. Some critics considered By Numbers Townshend's "suicide note." A movie version of Tommy released that year was directed by Ken Russell, starred Daltrey and earned Townshend an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Score. In December, The Who set the record for largest indoor concert at the Pontiac Silverdome. In 1976, The Who played at The Valley in what was listed for over a decade in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's loudest concert. On 18 August 1978, the band released Who Are You. It became their biggest and fastest seller to that date, peaking at #2 in the US, and was certified platinum in the US on the twentieth of September. This success was overshadowed by Moon's death September 7, 1978. He died in his sleep after an overdose of Heminevrin - prescribed to combat alcohol withdrawal - a few hours after a party held by Paul McCartney. The last album cover shows Moon in a chair with the words "not to be taken away"; the song "Music Must Change" has no drum track. Kenney Jones, of The Small Faces and The Faces, joined as Moon's successor. On 2 May 1979, The Who returned to the stage with well-received concerts at the Rainbow Theatre in London, at the Cannes Film Festival in France, Wembley Stadium and five dates at Madison Square Garden in New York City. A small tour of the United States was marred by tragedy: on 3 December 1979 in Cincinnati, Ohio, a crush at Riverfront Coliseum killed 11 fans. The band was not told until after the show because civic authorities feared crowd problems if the concert were cancelled. The band was shaken upon learning of the incident and requested assistance in subsequent venues for appropriate safety precautions for their following concerts. Also in 1979, The Who released a documentary film called The Kids Are Alright and a film version of Quadrophenia, the latter a box office hit in the UK and the former capturing many of the band's most scintillating moments on stage, including their last performance with Keith Moon. In December, The Who became the third band, after the Beatles and The Band, featured on the cover of Time. The article, written by Jay Cocks, said The Who had "outpaced, outlasted, outlived and outclassed" all of their rock band contemporaries. The band released two studio albums with Jones as drummer, Face Dances (1981) and It's Hard (1982). Face Dances produced a US top twenty and UK top ten hit with the single "You Better You Bet" and a string of MTV and AOR hits like "Another Tricky Day". Three videos from the album played on MTV the day it took to the air in August 1981. While both albums sold fairly well and It's Hard received a five-star review in Rolling Stone, some fans were not receptive to the new sound. "Athena" was a US top thirty hit and "Eminence Front" charted as well and became a favorite. However Townshend's life was a mess - his marriage had fallen apart due to his drinking and he had become a heroin user, something which shocked his friends due to his previous anti-drug stance. He cleaned up in early 1982, but Daltrey told him he would stop touring if it meant keeping Townshend alive. Shortly after It's Hard, The Who embarked on a farewell tour after Townshend said he wanted one more tour with The Who before turning it into a studio band. It was the highest grossing tour of the year, with sellout crowds in stadiums and arenas throughout North America. Townshend spent part of 1983 trying to write material for the studio album still owed to Warner Bros. Records from a contract in 1980. By the end of 1983, however, Townshend declared himself unable to generate material appropriate for The Who and announced the breakup of the band in December. He then focused on solo projects such as White City: A Novel, The Iron Man (which featured Daltrey and Entwistle and two songs on the album credited to "The Who"), and Psychoderelict, a forerunner to the radio work Lifehouse. On 13 July 1985, The Who—including Kenney Jones—reformed for a one-off at Bob Geldof's Live Aid concert at Wembley. The BBC transmission truck blew a fuse at the beginning of "My Generation", meaning the picture was lost completely, but the band kept playing. This caused most of "My Generation" and all of "Pinball Wizard" to be missed by the rest of the world. Transmission resumed with "Love, Reign O'er Me" and "Won't Get Fooled Again". In February 1988 the band was honoured with the British Phonographic Industry's Lifetime Achievement Award. The Who played a short set at the ceremony (the last time Jones worked with The Who). In 1989 they embarked on a 25th anniversary The Kids Are Alright reunion tour which emphasised songs from Tommy. Simon Phillips played drums with Steve "Boltz" Bolton playing lead guitar, as Townshend relegated himself to strumming acoustic guitar in order to protect his hearing. Townshend did play electric guitar for several songs in the latter non-Tommy half of the shows. A horn section and backing singers were also added. Newsweek said, "The Who tour is special because, after the Beatles and the Stones, they're IT." There were sellouts throughout North America, including a four-night stand at Giants Stadium. In all, over two million tickets were sold. The tour included Tommy at Radio City Music Hall in New York and at the Universal Amphitheatre in Los Angeles, with several guest stars at the latter performance. A 2-CD live album Join Together was released in 1990, stalling at #188 in the US. A video of the Universal Amphitheatre show was also released and went platinum in the US. In 1990, their first year of eligibility, The Who were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by U2, Bono saying, "More than any other band, The Who are our role models." The Who's display at the Rock Hall describes them as prime contenders for the title of "World's Greatest Rock Band". Only The Beatles and The Rolling Stones receive a similar accolade at the Rock Hall. In 1991 The Who recorded a cover of Elton John's "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting" for a tribute album. This was the last time they released any studio work with Entwistle. In 1994 Daltrey turned 50 and celebrated with two concerts at Carnegie Hall. These included guest spots by Entwistle and Townshend. Although all three surviving original members of The Who attended, they did not appear on stage together except for the finale, "Join Together", with the other guests. Daltrey toured that year with Entwistle and with John "Rabbit" Bundrick on keyboards, Zak Starkey on drums and Simon Townshend filling in for his brother. Pete Townshend allowed Daltrey to call this band The Who, but Daltrey declined. The live album recorded during these concerts, Daltrey Sings Townshend, was not a commercial success. Also in 1994 The Who released the box set Thirty Years of Maximum R&B. In 1996 Townshend, Entwistle and Daltrey performed Quadrophenia with guest stars at a concert in Hyde Park. Starkey was the drummer. The performance was narrated by Phil Daniels who played Jimmy the Mod in the film. Despite technical difficulties the show was a success and led to a six-night residency at Madison Square Garden. Townshend played acoustic guitar exclusively. These shows were not billed as The Who. The success of the Quadrophenia shows led to a U.S. and European tour through 1996 and 1997. Townshend played mostly acoustic guitar, but also electric guitar on select songs. In 1998 VH1 ranked The Who ninth in their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of Rock 'n' Roll. In late 1999, The Who performed as a five-piece for the first time in concert since 1985, with Bundrick on keyboards and Starkey on drums. The first show took place 29 October 1999 in Las Vegas at the MGM Grand Garden. From there, they performed acoustic shows at Neil Young's Bridge School Benefit at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, CA on 30 and 31 October. Next, they played on 12 and 13 November at the House of Blues in Chicago, as a benefit for the Maryville Academy. Finally, two Christmas charity shows on 22 and 23 December at the Shepherds Bush Empire in London. These were the first full-length concerts with Townshend playing electric guitar for the duration of the show since 1982. The 29 October show in Las Vegas was partially on TV as well as the internet and would later see release as the DVD The Vegas Job. Reviews for the shows were good. The success of 1999 led to a U.S. tour in 2000 and a UK tour in November. The tour started on 6 June at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York to benefit the Robin Hood Foundation and ended with a charity show on 27 November at the Royal Albert Hall for the Teenage Cancer trust. With good reviews, all three members of The Who discussed a new album. Also that year, VH1 placed The Who eighth in the 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock. The band performed at The Concert for New York City on 20 October 2001, during which they played "Who Are You","Baba O'Riley", "Behind Blue Eyes", and "Won't Get Fooled Again" for the fire and police departments of New York City. The Who were also honoured with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award that year. The Who played five shows in England in 2002; in Portsmouth on 27 and 28 January and Watford on 31 January, in preparation for two shows for the Teenage Cancer Trust Benefit at the Albert Hall on 7 and 8 February. These were Entwistle's last shows with The Who. On June 27, just before their US tour was due to commence, Entwistle was found dead at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas. The cause was a heart attack in which cocaine was a contributing factor. After a brief delay, the tour commenced in Los Angeles with bassist Pino Palladino. Most shows from the tour were released officially on CD as Encore Series 2002. In September, Q magazine named The Who as one of the "50 Bands to See Before You Die". In November 2003, The Who landed seven albums in Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, more than any other artist with the exceptions of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen. In 2004 The Who released "Old Red Wine" and "Real Good Looking Boy" (with Pino Palladino and Greg Lake, respectively, on bass guitar), as part of a singles anthology (The Who: Then and Now), and went on an 18-date tour playing Japan, Australia, the UK and the U.S. All shows were released on CD as part of Encore Series 2004. The band also headlined the Isle of Wight Festival. Also that year, Rolling Stone ranked The Who #29 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. The Who announced that spring 2005 would see their first studio album in 23 years (tentatively titled WHO2). Townshend continued working on the album, however, and posted a novella called The Boy Who Heard Music on his blog. This developed into a mini-opera called Wire & Glass which formed the kernel for the new Who album, and later a full opera which Townshend presented at Vassar College. The Who performed on the London stage of the Live 8 concert in July 2005. The Who were also inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame that year. In 2006, The Who were first recipients of the Freddie Mercury Lifetime Achievement Award in Live Music at the Vodafone music awards. Endless Wire was released on 30 October 2006 (31 October in the U.S.). It was the first full studio album of new material since 1982's It's Hard and contained the band's first mini-opera since "Rael" on 1967's The Who Sell Out. Endless Wire debuted at #7 on Billboard and #9 in the UK Albums Chart. On the eve of its release (29 October), The Who performed part of the mini-opera and several songs from the new album live as the closing act of the BBC Electric Proms at the Roundhouse in London. In advance of the album, and to support it, The Who embarked upon their 2006-2007 tour. Shows were released on CD and DVD as part of Encore Series 2006. Starkey was invited to join Oasis in April 2006, and The Who in November 2006, but he declined, preferring to split his time between the two. On 24 June 2007, The Who topped the bill at the Glastonbury Festival. In November 2007, the documentary Amazing Journey: The Story of The Who was released. The documentary includes footage not in earlier documentaries, including film from the 1970 Leeds University appearance and a 1964 performance at the Railway Hotel when they were The High Numbers. Amazing Journey was nominated for a 2009 Grammy Award. The Who were honoured at the 2008 VH1 Rock Honors in Los Angeles. Taping of the show took place 12 July, followed by a network broadcast on 17 July. That same week, a 12-song best-of collection was released for the music video game Rock Band. The Who performed at the Rock Band party at the Orpheum Theater during the 2008 E3 Media and Business Summit. In October 2008, The Who embarked on a tour of four Japanese cities and nine North American cities. In December, The Who were recognised at the Kennedy Center Honors. After other musical celebrities performed their music, the finale was a surprise chorus of police and rescue first responders who had been touched by The Who's performance at The Concert for New York City after the shock of 9-11. An Australia and New Zealand tour was completed in early 2009. In August, Townshend announced on The Who's website that he is working on a new musical titled Floss which follows the story of an aging rocker known as "Walter", some songs of which will debut on a new Who album proposed for 2010. Daltrey has announced that he plans to tour with The Who in 2010. The National Football League announced during the November 26, 2009 CBS Sports broadcast of the Oakland Raiders-Dallas Cowboys game that The Who would perform at the halftime show of Super Bowl XLIV at Dolphin Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida on February 7, 2010. The Who discography 1965 "I Can't Explain" - #93 1965 "My Generation" - #74 1966 "The Kids Are Alright" - #106 1966 "Happy Jack" - #24 1967 "Pictures of Lily" - #51 1967 "I Can See for Miles" - #9 1968 "Call Me Lightning" - #40 1968 "Magic Bus" - #25 1969 "Pinball Wizard" - #19 1969 "I'm Free" - #37 1970 "The Seeker" - #44 1970 "Summertime Blues" - #27 1970 "See Me, Feel Me" - #12 1971 "Won't Get Fooled Again" - # 15 1971 "Behind Blue Eyes" - #34 1972 "Join Together" - #17 1972 "The Relay" - #39 1973 "Love Reign O'er Me" - #76 1974 "The Real Me" - #92 1975 "Squeeze Box" - #16 1978 "Who Are You" - #14 1979 "Long Live Rock" - #54 1979 "5:15" - #45 1981 "You Better You Bet" - #18 - Rock #1 1981 "Don't Let Go the Coat" - #84 1982 "Athena" - #28 - Rock #3 1982 "Eminence Front" - #68 - Rock #5 1983 "It's Hard" - Rock #39 2006 "It's Not Enough"- Rock #37 Factoid: Zak Starkey, Ringo Starr's son, is the touring drummer for The Who. He was invited to officially join the band in 2004, but declined. "Bargain" http://media-convert.com/convert/?xid=7-qppzolbw

ND will get rejected as long as they are so strict with their athlete academic requirements.

http://www.rockhall.com/induction2010 Still no Alice Cooper.

3. Led Zeppelin 14 of 24 lists - 198 points - Highest ranking # 3 TheGooch, Sox1422 Led Zeppelin were an English rock band formed in 1968 by Robert Plant (vocals), Jimmy Page (guitar), John Paul Jones (bass guitar, keyboards, mandolin) and John Bonham (drums). With their heavy, guitar-driven sound, Led Zeppelin are regarded as one of the first heavy metal bands, helping to pioneer the genre. However, the band's individualistic style drew from many sources and transcends any one genre. Their rock-infused interpretation of the blues and folk genres also incorporated rockabilly, reggae, soul, funk, classical, Celtic, Indian, Arabic, pop, Latin and country. The band did not release the popular songs from their albums as singles in the UK, as they preferred to develop the concept of "album-oriented rock". Close to 30 years after disbanding following Bonham's death in 1980, the band continues to be held in high regard for their artistic achievements, commercial success, and broad influence. The band has sold an estimated 200 million albums worldwide, including 111.5 million certified units in the United States and they have had all of their original studio albums reach the top 10 of the Billboard album chart in the U.S., with six reaching the number one spot. Led Zeppelin are ranked #1 on VH1's 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock. Rolling Stone magazine has described Led Zeppelin as "the heaviest band of all time", "the biggest band of the '70s" and "unquestionably one of the most enduring bands in rock history".Similarly, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame describes Led Zeppelin being "as influential in that decade (70s) as the Beatles were in the prior one". On 10 December 2007 the surviving members of Led Zeppelin reunited (along with deceased drummer John Bonham's son, Jason) for the Ahmet Ertegün Tribute Concert at The O2 Arena in London. The beginning of Led Zeppelin can be traced back to the English blues-influenced rock band The Yardbirds. Jimmy Page joined The Yardbirds in 1966 to play bass guitar after the original bassist, Paul Samwell-Smith, left the group. Shortly after, Page switched from bass to lead guitar, creating a dual-lead guitar line up with Jeff Beck. Following the departure of Beck from the group in October 1966, The Yardbirds, tired from constant touring and recording, were beginning to wind down. Page wanted to form a supergroup with himself and Beck on guitars, and The Who's rhythm section—drummer Keith Moon and bassist John Entwistle. Vocalists Donovan, Steve Winwood and Steve Marriott were also considered for the project. The group never formed, although Page, Beck and Moon did record a song together in 1966, "Beck's Bolero", which is featured on Beck's 1968 album, Truth. The recording session also included bassist-keyboardist John Paul Jones, who told Page that he would be interested in collaborating with him on future projects. The Yardbirds played their final gig in July 1968. However, they were still committed to performing several concerts in Scandinavia, so drummer Jim McCarty and vocalist Keith Relf authorised Page and bassist Chris Dreja to use the Yardbirds name to fulfil the band's obligations. Page and Dreja began putting a new line-up together. Page's first choice for lead singer, Terry Reid, declined the offer, but suggested Robert Plant, a West Bromwich singer. Plant eventually accepted the position, recommending a drummer, John Bonham from nearby Redditch. When Dreja dropped out of the project to become a photographer (he would later take the photograph that appeared on the back of Led Zeppelin's debut album), John Paul Jones, at the suggestion of his wife, contacted Page about the vacant position.[26] Being familiar with Jones' credentials, Page agreed to bring in Jones as the final piece. The group came together for the first time in a room below a record store on Gerrard Street in London. Page suggested that they try playing "Train Kept A-Rollin'", a rockabilly song popularised by Johnny Burnette that had been given new life by the Yardbirds. "As soon as I heard John Bonham play," recalled Jones, "I knew this was going to be great... We locked together as a team immediately." Shortly afterwards, the group played together on the final day of sessions for the P. J. Proby album, Three Week Hero. The album's song "Jim's Blues" was the first studio track to feature all four members of the future Led Zeppelin. Proby recalled, "Come the last day we found we had some studio time, so I just asked the band to play while I just came up with the words. ... They weren't Led Zeppelin at the time, they were the New Yardbirds and they were going to be my band." The band completed the Scandinavian tour as The New Yardbirds, playing together for the first time in front of a live audience at Gladsaxe Teen Clubs in Gladsaxe, Denmark on 7 September 1968. However, it was clear to the band that performing under the old Yardbirds tag was akin to working under false pretences, and upon returning from Scandinavia they decided to change their name. One account of the band's naming, which has become almost legendary, has it that Keith Moon and John Entwistle, drummer and bassist for The Who, respectively, suggested that a possible supergroup containing themselves, Jimmy Page, and Jeff Beck would go down like a lead zeppelin, a term Entwistle used to describe a bad gig. The group deliberately dropped the 'a' in Lead at the suggestion of their manager, Peter Grant, to prevent "thick Americans" from pronouncing it "leed". Grant also secured for the new band an advance deal of $200,000 from Atlantic Records in November 1968, then the biggest deal of its kind for a new band. Atlantic was a label known for a catalogue of blues, soul and jazz artists, but in the late 1960s it began to take an interest in progressive British rock acts, and signed Led Zeppelin without having ever seen them, largely on the recommendation of singer Dusty Springfield. Under the terms of the contract secured by Grant, the band alone would decide when they would release albums and tour, and had final say over the contents and design of each album. They also would decide how to promote each release and which (if any) tracks to release as singles, and formed their own company, Superhype, to handle all publishing rights. With their first album not yet released, the band made their live debut under the name "Led Zeppelin" at the University of Surrey, Guildford on 25 October 1968. This was followed by a US concert debut on 26 December 1968 (when promoter Barry Fey added them to a bill in Denver, Colorado) before moving on to the west coast for dates in Los Angeles, San Francisco and other cities. Led Zeppelin's eponymous debut album was released on 12 January 1969, during their first US tour. The album's blend of blues, folk and eastern influences with distorted amplification made it one of the pivotal records in the creation of heavy metal music. However, Plant has commented that it is unfair for people to typecast the band as heavy metal, since about a third of their music was acoustic. On their first album Plant receives no credit for his contributions to the songwriting, a result of his previous association with CBS Records. In an interview for the Led Zeppelin Profiled radio promo CD (1990) Page said that the album took about 36 hours of studio time to create (including mixing), and stated that he knows this because of the amount charged on the studio bill. Peter Grant claimed the album cost £1,750 to produce (including artwork). By 1975, the album had grossed $7,000,000. Led Zeppelin's album cover met an interesting protest when, at a 28 February 1970 gig in Copenhagen, the band were billed as "The Nobs" as the result of a threat of legal action from Countess Eva von Zeppelin (granddaughter of Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, the creator of the Zeppelin airships), who, upon seeing the logo of the Hindenburg crashing in flames, threatened to have the show pulled off the air. She is reported to have said: "They may be world famous, but a couple of shrieking monkeys are not going to use a privileged family name without permission". In their first year, Led Zeppelin managed to complete four US and four UK concert tours, and also released their second album, entitled Led Zeppelin II. Recorded almost entirely on the road at various North American recording studios, the second album was an even greater success than the first and reached the number one chart position in the US and the UK. Here the band further developed ideas established on their debut album, creating a work which became even more widely acclaimed and arguably more influential. It has been suggested that Led Zeppelin II largely wrote the blueprint for heavy metal bands that followed it. Following the album's release, Led Zeppelin completed several more tours of the United States. They played often, initially in clubs and ballrooms, then in larger auditoriums and eventually stadiums as their popularity grew. Led Zeppelin concerts could last more than four hours, with expanded, improvised live versions of their song repertoire. Many of these shows have been preserved as Led Zeppelin bootleg recordings. It was also during this period of intensive concert touring that the band developed a reputation for off-stage excess. One alleged example of such extravagance was the shark episode, or red snapper incident, which is said to have taken place at the Edgewater Inn in Seattle, Washington, on 28 July 1969. Led Zeppelin's popularity in the early years was dwarfed by their triumphant mid-seventies successes and it is this period that continues to define the band. The band's image also changed as members began to wear elaborate, flamboyant clothing. Led Zeppelin began travelling in a private jet airliner (nicknamed The Starship), rented out entire sections of hotels (most notably the Continental Hyatt House in Los Angeles, known colloquially as the "Riot House"), and became the subject of many of rock's most famous stories of debauchery. One escapade involved John Bonham riding a motorcycle through a rented floor of the Riot House, while another involved the destruction of a room in the Tokyo Hilton, leading to the band being banned from that establishment for life. However, although Led Zeppelin developed a reputation for trashing their hotel suites and throwing television sets out of the windows, some suggest that these tales have been somewhat exaggerated. Music journalist Chris Welch argues that "[Led Zeppelin's] travels spawned many stories, but it was a myth that [they] were constantly engaged in acts of wanton destruction and lewd behaviour." For the composition of their third album, Led Zeppelin III, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant retired to Bron-Yr-Aur, a remote cottage in Wales, in 1970. The result was a more acoustic sound (and a song, "Bron-Yr-Aur Stomp", misspelled as "Bron-Y-Aur Stomp" on the album cover), which was strongly influenced by folk and Celtic music, and revealed the band's versatility. The album's rich acoustic sound initially received mixed reactions, with many critics and fans surprised at the turn taken away from the primarily electric compositions of the first two albums. Over time, however, its reputation has improved and Led Zeppelin III is now generally praised. It has a unique album cover featuring a wheel which, when rotated, displays various images through cut outs in the main jacket sleeve. The album's opening track, "Immigrant Song", was released in November 1970 by Atlantic Records as a single against the band's wishes. It included their only non-album b-side, "Hey Hey What Can I Do". Even though the band saw their albums as indivisible, whole listening experiences—and their manager, Peter Grant, maintained an aggressive pro-album stance—some singles were released without their consent. The group also increasingly resisted television appearances, enforcing their preference that their fans hear and see them in live concerts. Led Zeppelin's fourth album was released on 8 November 1971. There was no indication of a title or a band name on the original cover, as the band disdained being labeled as "hyped" and "overrated" by the music press, and in response wanted to prove that the music could sell itself by giving no indication of who they were. The album remained officially untitled and is most commonly referred to as Led Zeppelin IV, though it is variously referred to by the four symbols appearing on the record label, as Four Symbols and The Fourth Album (both titles were used in the Atlantic Records catalogue), as Untitled, Zoso, Runes, or IV. Led Zeppelin IV further refined the band's unique formula of combining earthy, acoustic elements with heavy metal and blues emphases. The album included examples of hard rock, such as "Black Dog" and an acoustic track, "Going to California" (a tribute to Joni Mitchell). "Rock and Roll" is a tribute to the early rock music of the 1950s. In 2007, the song was used prominently in Cadillac automobile commercials—one of the few instances of Led Zeppelin's surviving members licensing songs. The album is one of the best-selling albums in history and its massive popularity cemented Led Zeppelin's superstardom in the 1970s. To date it has sold 23 million copies in the United States. The track "Stairway to Heaven", although never released as a single, is sometimes quoted as being the most requested, and most played album-oriented rock FM radio song. In 2005, the magazine Guitar World held a poll of readers in which "Stairway to Heaven" was voted as having the greatest guitar solo of all time. Led Zeppelin's next album, Houses of the Holy, was released in 1973. It featured further experimentation, with longer tracks and expanded use of synthesisers and mellotron orchestration. The song "Houses of the Holy" does not appear on its namesake album, even though it was recorded at the same time as other songs on the album; it eventually made its way onto the 1975 album Physical Graffiti. The orange album cover of Houses of the Holy depicts images of nude children climbing up the Giant's Causeway (in County Antrim, Northern Ireland). Although the children are not depicted from the front, this was controversial at the time of the album's release, and in some areas, such as the "Bible Belt" and Spain, the record was banned. The album topped the charts, and Led Zeppelin's subsequent concert tour of the United States in 1973 broke records for attendance, as they consistently filled large auditoriums and stadiums. At Tampa Stadium, Florida, they played to 56,800 fans (breaking the record set by The Beatles at Shea Stadium in 1965), and grossed $309,000. Three sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden in New York were filmed for a motion picture, but the theatrical release of this project (The Song Remains the Same) would be delayed until 1976. Before the final night's performance, $180,000 of the band's money from gate receipts was stolen from a safety deposit box at the Drake Hotel. It was never recovered. In 1974, Led Zeppelin took a break from touring and launched their own record label, Swan Song, named after one of only five Led Zeppelin songs which the band never released commercially (Page later re-worked the song with his band, The Firm, and it appears as "Midnight Moonlight" on their first album). The record label's logo, based on a drawing called Evening: Fall of Day (1869) by William Rimmer, features a picture of Apollo. The logo can be found on much Led Zeppelin memorabilia, especially t-shirts. In addition to using Swan Song as a vehicle to promote their own albums, the band expanded the label's roster, signing artists such as Bad Company, Pretty Things, Maggie Bell, Detective, Dave Edmunds, Midnight Flyer, Sad Café and Wildlife. The label was successful while Led Zeppelin existed, but folded less than three years after they disbanded. 24 February 1975 saw the release of Led Zeppelin's first double album, Physical Graffiti, which was their first release on the Swan Song Records label. It consisted of fifteen songs, eight of which were recorded at Headley Grange in 1974, and the remainder being tracks previously recorded but not released on earlier albums. A review in Rolling Stone magazine referred to Physical Graffiti as Led Zeppelin's "bid for artistic respectability," adding that the only competition the band had for the title of 'World's Best Rock Band' were The Rolling Stones and The Who. The album was a massive fiscal and critical success. Shortly after the release of Physical Graffiti, all previous Led Zeppelin albums simultaneously re-entered the top-200 album chart, and the band embarked on another U.S. tour, again playing to record-breaking crowds. In May 1975, Led Zeppelin played five highly successful, sold-out nights at the Earls Court Arena in London, footage of which was released in 2003, on the Led Zeppelin DVD. Following these triumphant Earls Court appearances Led Zeppelin took a holiday and planned a series of outdoor summer concerts in America, scheduled to open with two dates in San Francisco. These plans were thwarted in August 1975 when Robert Plant and his wife Maureen were involved in a serious car crash while on holiday in Rhodes, Greece. Robert suffered a broken ankle and Maureen was badly injured; a blood transfusion saved her life. Unable to tour, Plant headed to the channel island of Jersey to spend August and September recuperating, with Bonham and Page in tow. The band then reconvened in Malibu, California. It was during this forced hiatus that much of the material for their next album, Presence, was written. By this time, Led Zeppelin were the world's number one rock attraction, having outsold most bands of the time, including the Rolling Stones. Presence, released in March 1976, marked a change in the Led Zeppelin sound towards more straightforward, guitar-based jams, departing from the acoustic ballads and intricate arrangements featured on their previous albums. Though it was a platinum seller, Presence received mixed responses from critics and fans and some speculated the band's legendary excesses may have caught up with them. The recording of Presence coincided with the beginning of Page's heroin use, which may have interfered with Led Zeppelin's later live shows and studio recordings, although Page has denied this. Despite the original criticisms, Jimmy Page has called Presence his favourite album, and its opening track "Achilles Last Stand" his favourite Led Zeppelin song. In an interview with a Swedish TV program, Plant stated that Presence is the album that sounds the most "Led Zeppelin" of all their LPs. Plant's injuries prevented Led Zeppelin from touring in 1976. Instead, the band finally completed the concert film The Song Remains The Same, and the soundtrack album of the film. The recording had taken place during three nights of concerts at Madison Square Garden in July 1973, during the band's concert tour of the United States. The film premiered in New York on 20 October 1976, but was given a lukewarm reception by critics and fans. The film was particularly unsuccessful in the UK, where, after being unwilling to tour since 1975 due to a taxation exile, Led Zeppelin were facing an uphill battle to recapture the public spotlight at home. In 1977, Led Zeppelin embarked on another major concert tour of North America. Here the band set another attendance record, with 76,229 people attending their Pontiac Silverdome concert on 30 April. It was, according to the Guinness Book of Records, the largest attendance to date for a single act show. However, though the tour was financially profitable it was beset with off-stage problems. On 3 June a concert at Tampa Stadium was cut short because of a severe thunderstorm, despite tickets printed with "Rain or Shine". A riot broke out amongst the audience, resulting in several arrests and injuries. After a 23 July show at the "Day on the Green" festival at the Oakland Coliseum in Oakland, California, John Bonham and members of the band's support staff (including manager Peter Grant and security coordinator John Bindon) were arrested after a member of promoter Bill Graham's staff was badly beaten during the performance. A member of the staff had allegedly slapped Grant's son when he was taking down a dressing room sign. This was seen by John Bonham, who came over and kicked the man. Then, when Grant heard about this, he went into the trailer, along with Bindon and assaulted the man while tour manager Richard Cole stood outside and guarded the trailer. The following day's second Oakland concert would prove to be the band's final live appearance in the United States. Two days later, as the band checked in at a French Quarter hotel for their 30 July performance at the Louisiana Superdome, news came that Plant's five year old son, Karac, had died from a stomach virus. The rest of the tour was immediately cancelled, prompting widespread speculation about the band's future. November 1978 saw the group recording again, this time at Polar Studios in Stockholm, Sweden. The resultant album was In Through the Out Door, which exhibited a degree of sonic experimentation that again drew mixed reactions from critics. Nevertheless, the band still commanded legions of loyal fans, and the album easily reached #1 in the UK and the U.S. in just its second week on the Billboard album chart. As a result of this album's release, Led Zeppelin's entire catalogue made the Billboard Top 200 between the weeks of 27 October and 3 November 1979. In August 1979, after two warm-up shows in Copenhagen, Denmark, Led Zeppelin headlined two concerts at the Knebworth Music Festival, where crowds of close to 120,000 witnessed the return of the band. However, Plant was not eager to tour full-time again, and even considered leaving Led Zeppelin. He was persuaded to stay by Peter Grant. A brief, low-key European tour was undertaken in June and July 1980, featuring a stripped-down set without the usual lengthy jams and solos. At one show on 27 June, in Nuremberg, Germany, the concert came to an abrupt end in the middle of the third song when John Bonham collapsed on stage and was rushed to a hospital. Press speculation arose that Bonham's problem was caused by an excess of alcohol and drugs, but the band claimed that he had simply overeaten, and they completed the European tour on 7 July, at Berlin. On 24 September 1980, Bonham was picked up by Led Zeppelin assistant Rex King to attend rehearsals at Bray Studios for the upcoming tour of the United States, the band's first since 1977, scheduled to commence on 17 October. During the journey Bonham had asked to stop for breakfast, where he downed four quadruple vodkas (450 ml), with a ham roll. After taking a bite of the ham roll he said to his assistant, "Breakfast". He continued to drink heavily when he arrived at the studio. A halt was called to the rehearsals late in the evening and the band retired to Page's house — The Old Mill House in Clewer, Windsor. After midnight, Bonham had fallen asleep and was taken to bed and placed on his side. At 1:45 pm the next day Benji LeFevre (who had replaced Richard Cole as Led Zeppelin's tour manager) and John Paul Jones found him dead. Bonham was 32 years old. The cause of death was asphyxiation from vomit, and a verdict of accidental death was returned at an inquest held on 27 October. An autopsy found no other drugs in Bonham's body. Bonham was cremated on 10 October 1980, and his ashes buried at Rushock parish church in Droitwich, Worcestershire, England. Despite rumours that Cozy Powell, Carmine Appice, Barriemore Barlow, Simon Kirke or Bev Bevan would join the group as his replacement, the remaining members decided to disband after Bonham's death. They issued a press statement on 4 December 1980 confirming that the band would not continue without Bonham. "We wish it to be known that the loss of our dear friend, and the deep sense of undivided harmony felt by ourselves and our manager, have led us to decide that we could not continue as we were." In 1982, the surviving members of the group released a collection of out-takes from various sessions during Led Zeppelin's career, entitled Coda. It included two tracks taken from the band's performance at the Royal Albert Hall in 1970, one each from the Led Zeppelin III and Houses of the Holy sessions, and three from the In Through the Out Door sessions. It also featured a 1976 John Bonham drum instrumental with electronic effects added by Jimmy Page, called "Bonzo's Montreux". On 13 July 1985, Page, Plant and Jones reunited for the Live Aid concert at JFK Stadium, Philadelphia, playing a short set featuring drummers Tony Thompson and Phil Collins and bassist Paul Martinez. Collins had contributed to Plant's first two solo albums while Martinez was a member of Plant's current solo band. However, the performance was marred by the lack of rehearsal with the two drummers, Page's struggles with an out-of-tune Les Paul and poorly-functioning monitors, and by Plant's hoarse voice. Page himself has described the performance as "pretty shambolic", while Plant was even less charitable, characterising it as an "atrocity". When Live Aid footage was released on a four-DVD set in late 2004 to raise money for Sudan, the group unanimously agreed not to allow footage from their performance to be used, asserting that it was not up to their standard. However, to demonstrate their ongoing support for the campaign Page and Plant pledged proceeds from their forthcoming Page and Plant DVD release and John Paul Jones pledged the proceeds of his then-current US tour with Mutual Admiration Society to the project. The three members reunited again in May 1988, for the Atlantic Records 40th Anniversary concert, with Bonham's son, Jason Bonham, on drums. However, the reunion was again compromised by a disjointed performance, particularly by Plant and Page (the two having argued immediately prior to coming on stage about whether to play "Stairway to Heaven"), and by the complete loss of Jones' keyboards on the live television feed. Page later described the performance as "one big disappointment", and Plant said unambiguously that "the gig was foul". The first Led Zeppelin box set, featuring tracks remastered under the supervision of Jimmy Page, introduced the band's music to many new fans, stimulating a renaissance for Led Zeppelin. This set included four previously unreleased tracks, including the Robert Johnson tribute "Travelling Riverside Blues". The song peaked at number seven on the Billboard Album Rock Tracks chart, with the video in heavy rotation on MTV. 1992 saw the release of the "Immigrant Song"/"Hey Hey What Can I Do" (the original b-side) as a CD single in the US. Led Zeppelin Boxed Set 2 was released in 1993; the two box sets together containing all known studio recordings, as well as some rare live tracks. In 1994, Page and Plant reunited in the form of a 90 minute "UnLedded" MTV project. They later released an album called No Quarter: Jimmy Page and Robert Plant Unledded, which featured some reworked Led Zeppelin songs, and embarked on a world tour the following year. This is said to be the beginning of the inner rift between the band members, as Jones was not even told of the reunion. When asked where Jones was, Plant had replied that he was out "parking the car". On 12 January 1995, Led Zeppelin were inducted into the United States Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by Aerosmith's vocalist, Steven Tyler and guitarist Joe Perry. Jason and Zoe Bonham also attended, representing their late father. At the induction ceremony, the band's inner rift became apparent when Jones joked upon accepting his award, "Thank you, my friends, for finally remembering my phone number", causing consternation and awkward looks from Page and Plant. Afterwards, they played a brief set with Tyler and Perry (featuring Jason Bonham on drums), and with Neil Young and Michael Lee replacing Bonham. On 29 August 1997, Atlantic released a single edit of "Whole Lotta Love" in the U.S. and the UK, making it the only Led Zeppelin UK CD single. Additional tracks on this CD-single are "Baby Come On Home" and "Travelling Riverside Blues". It is the only single the band ever released in the UK. It peaked at #21. 11 November 1997 saw the release of Led Zeppelin BBC Sessions, the first Led Zeppelin album in fifteen years. The two-disc set included almost all of the band's recordings for the BBC. Page and Plant released another album called Walking into Clarksdale in 1998, featuring all new material. However, the album wasn't as successful as No Quarter, and the band slowly dissolved. On 29 November 1999 the RIAA announced that the band were only the third act in music history to achieve four or more Diamond albums. In 2002, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones reconciled after years of strife that kept the band apart. This was followed by rumours of reunion, quickly quashed by individual members' representatives. 2003 saw the release of a triple live album, How the West Was Won, and a video collection, Led Zeppelin DVD, both featuring material from the band's heyday. By the end of the year, the DVD had sold more than 520,000 copies. Led Zeppelin were ranked #14 on Rolling Stone's 2004 list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time", and the following year the band received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In November 2005, it was announced that Led Zeppelin and Russian conductor Valery Gergiev were the winners of the 2006 Polar Music Prize. The King of Sweden presented the prize to Plant, Page, and Jones, along with John Bonham's daughter, in Stockholm in May 2006. In November 2006, Led Zeppelin were inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame. The television broadcasting of the event consisted of an introduction to the band by various famous admirers, a presentation of an award to Jimmy Page and then a short speech by the guitarist. After this, rock group Wolfmother played a tribute to Led Zeppelin, performing the song "Communication Breakdown". Despite having gained a reputation with the band for "raising hell" in the 1970s, Robert Plant was awarded a CBE by Prince Charles for "Services to Music" in July 2009, which followed Jimmy Page's OBE four years previously. On 27 July 2007, Atlantic/Rhino, & Warner Home Video announced three new Led Zeppelin titles to be released in November, 2007. Released first was Mothership on 13 November, a 24-track best-of spanning the band's career, followed by a reissue of the soundtrack to The Song Remains the Same on 20 November which includes previously unreleased material, and a new DVD. On 15 October 2007, it was reported that Led Zeppelin were expected to announce a new series of agreements that make the band's songs available as legal digital downloads, first as ringtones through Verizon Wireless then as digital downloads of the band's eight studio albums and other recordings on 13 November. The offerings will be available through both Verizon Wireless and iTunes. On 3 November 2007, a UK newspaper the Daily Mirror announced that it had world exclusive rights to stream six previously unreleased tracks via its website. On 8 November 2007, XM Satellite Radio launched XM LED, the network's first artist-exclusive channel dedicated to Led Zeppelin. On 13 November 2007, Led Zeppelin's complete works were published on iTunes. On 10 December 2007 the surviving members of Led Zeppelin reunited for a one-off benefit concert held in memory of music executive Ahmet Ertegün, with Jason Bonham taking up his late father's place on drums. It was announced on 12 September 2007 by promoter Harvey Goldsmith in a press conference. The concert was to help raise money for the Ahmet Ertegün Education Fund, which pays for university scholarships in the UK, US and Turkey. Music critics praised the band's performance. Hamish MacBain of NME proclaimed, "What they have done here tonight is proof they can still perform to the level that originally earned them their legendary reputation...We can only hope this isn't the last we see of them." Page suggested the band may start work on new material, and stated that a world tour may be in the works. Meanwhile, Plant made his reluctance regarding a reunion tour known to The Sunday Times, stating: "having to live up to something is terribly serious." However, he also made it known that he could be in favour of more one-off shows in the near future: "It wouldn't be such a bad idea to play together from time to time." Following the reunion concert and the press coverage it generated, speculation on the future of the band and the possibility of a tour with Jason Bonham on drums increased to a level not seen in several years. In an interview promoting the release of the Mothership compilation in Tokyo early in 2008, Jimmy Page revealed that he was prepared to embark upon a world tour with Led Zeppelin, but due to Robert Plant's tour commitments with Alison Krauss, such plans will not be announced until at least September. Showing enthusiasm for continued performing, in late spring Page and Jones joined Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl and drummer Taylor Hawkins onstage at Wembley Stadium to perform Led Zeppelin tracks "Rock and Roll" (Hawkins on vocals and Grohl on drums), followed by "Ramble On" (Grohl on vocals and Hawkins on drums). Plant however continued to remain focused on his recent work and tour with Krauss. Their duet album Raising Sand became certified platinum in March, and their recordings received awards including a Grammy for the song "Gone, Gone, Gone (Done Moved On)" and Album of the Year from the Americana Music Association. Along with concentrating on the duo's American tour, Plant remained evasive on the subject of a Led Zeppelin reunion tour, and expressed displeasure at the process leading up to the 2007 reunion show during an interview with GQ Magazine, saying "The endless paperwork was like nothing I've experienced before. I've kept every one of the emails that were exchanged before the concert and I'm thinking of compiling them for a book, which I feel sure would be hailed as a sort of literary version of Spinal Tap." After the BBC reported in late August that Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, and Jason Bonham had been recording material which could become a new Led Zeppelin project, the rumours of a reunion began to accumulate through the remaining summer. On 29 September Plant released a statement in which he called reports of a Led Zeppelin reunion "frustrating and ridiculous". He said he would not be recording or touring with the band, before adding, "I wish Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and Jason Bonham nothing but success with any future projects." Following Plant's statement, authoritative but divergent views of the possibility of a Led Zeppelin reunion tour the next year were offered by John Paul Jones and promoter Harvey Goldsmith. In late October, Jones confirmed to BBC Radio Devon in Exeter that he, Page, and Bonham were seeking a replacement for Plant. The bassist remarked: "We are trying out a couple of singers. We want to do it. It's sounding great and we want to get on and get out there." The next day, Goldsmith commented on the prospect of a Led Zeppelin reunion, casting doubt on the possibility or wisdom of such a venture. In an interview with BBC News, Goldsmith stated "I think that there is an opportunity for them to go out and present themselves. I don't think a long rambling tour is the answer as Led Zeppelin." The Ertegün Concert promoter felt the result of the ongoing plans of Jones, Page, and Bonham would not be "called Led Zeppelin". A spokesman for guitarist Jimmy Page later confirmed this, telling RollingStone.com that a new band featuring Page, bassist John Paul Jones and drummer Jason Bonham would not go by the name Led Zeppelin due to the absence of singer Robert Plant. On January 7, 2009, MusicRadar reported that Jimmy Page's manager Robert Mensch said that the band had "tried out a few singers, but no one worked out, that was it. The whole thing is completely over now. There are absolutely no plans for them to continue." In a radio interview, Plant cited a fear of disappointment as a major factor for not continuing a reunited Zeppelin. "The disappointment that could be there once you commit to that and the comparisons to something that was basically fired by youth and a different kind of exuberance to now, it's very hard to go back and meet that head on and do it justice." On 28 October 2009 it was reported by NME that Robert Plant had revealed that he is in talks with Michael Eavis to perform at the 2010 Glastonbury festival in England. Plant said he did not know who he would perform with, thus sparking rumours that Led Zeppelin may perform. Led Zeppelin discography 1969 "Good Times Bad Times" - #80 1969 "Whole Lotta Love" - #4 1970 "Living Loving Maid (She's Just a Woman)" - #65 1970 "Immigrant Song" - #16 1971 "Black Dog" - #15 1972 "Rock and Roll" - #47 1973 "Over the Hills and Far Away" - #51 1973 "D'yer Mak'er" - #20 1975 "Trampled Underfoot" - #38 1979 "Fool in the Rain" - #21 1982 "Darlene" - Main #4 1982 "Ozone Baby"- Main #14 1982 "Poor Tom"- Main #18 1990 "Traveling Riverside Blues" - Main #7 1993 "Baby Come On Home" - Main #4 1997 "The Girl I Love She Got Long Black Wavy Hair" - Main #4 Factoid: In April 2007, Hard Rock Park (now Freestyle Music Park) in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, announced it had secured an agreement with the band to create "Led Zeppelin - The Ride", synchronised to the music of Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love". The coaster stands 155 feet (47 m) tall, features six inversions, and spirals over a lagoon. The ride officially opened with the park on May 9, 2008. The ride is currently "Standing but not operating" (SBNO) due to Hard Rock Park filing for bankruptcy. In February 2009, the park was sold to new owners FPI MB Entertainment. On May 4, 2009, the ride was renamed "The Time Machine," with hit songs from five decades replacing Led Zeppelin. "Immigrant Song" http://media-convert.com/convert/?xid=7-qufgsamy