Led Zeppelin

     Led Zeppelin were an English rock band that formed in 1968. Led Zeppelin consisted of Jimmy Page (guitar), Robert Plant (vocals), John Paul Jones (bass guitar, keyboards) and John Bonham (drums). With their heavy, guitar-driven sound, Led Zeppelin are regarded as one of the first heavy metal bands. However, the band’s individualistic style draws 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.
     Zeppelin took the blues and injected it with satanism, horniness, and light-speed guitars, the result became heavy metal. The name Led Zeppelin came from the Who’s Keith Moon, who joked that the band would go down like a lead balloon. In 1980, Zeppelin drummer John Bonham died at guitarist Jimmy Page’s home after getting drunk and choking in his sleep. The fictional band Stillwater in the film “Almost Famous” are partly based on Led Zeppelin. After Bonham’s death, the first time the surviving band members played together was with Power Station drummer Tony Thompson.
     Close to 30 years after disbanding following Bonham’s death in 1980, Led Zeppelin continue to be held in high regard for their artistic achievements, commercial success and broad influence. The band have sold more than 300 million albums worldwide, including 111.5 million sales in the United States and they have had all of their original studio albums reach the U.S. Billboard Top 10. Led Zeppelin are ranked No. 1 on VH1’s 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock. Rolling Stone magazine has described Led Zeppelin as “the heaviest band of all time” and “the biggest band of the 70s”.

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The Police

    The Police are a three-piece rock band consisting of Sting (vocals, bass guitar), Andy Summers (guitar, vocals) and Stewart Copeland (drums, percussion, vocals). The band became globally popular in the early 1980s, playing a style of rock that was influenced by jazz, reggae, ska, and punk music. Their 1983 album, Synchronicity, was number one in the UK and the US and sold over 8,000,000 copies in the US. The band broke up in the mid-1980s, but reunited in early 2007 with the announcement that they were undertaking a world tour. The tour was scheduled from the middle of that year on until mid-2008, in celebration of the 30th anniversary of their hit single “Roxanne” and also, to a lesser extent, that of their formation as a group. To date The Police have sold over 50 million albums worldwide. Rolling Stone ranked The Police number 70 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
     They came from the punk-inspired, DIY scene in the late ’70s, but carefully crafted, reggae-tinged pop made them superstars. Since quietly calling it quits in 1986, the Police reunited for Sting’s wedding in 1992 and again in 2007 for a world tour. Guitarist Andy Sumners played with Eric Burdon’s New Animals in the late ’60s, way before he joined the Police. Sting was a former teacher and liked to drop literary references (from Nabakov to Carl Jung) into his pop songs. Before they recorded their debut, they were all asked to dye their hair blonde for a Wrigley’s gum advert. The color stuck.

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