Paul Elliott

Their ‘you couldn’t make it up’ story is a mini-soap opera, with a soundtrack that includes some of rock's very best moments – here we unpack the Mac's most essential albums

Saxon were one of NWOBHM's spearheads, producing at least two genre-defining albums

How Guns N’ Roses made Welcome To The Jungle – the song that lit the fuse on the explosion that followed

The Brian Johnson era may have kicked off with the unsurpassable Back In Black, but there's plenty of other fodder in his canon

Lynyrd Skynyrd blended southern soul and hard rock to define southern rock better than anyone, and came up with a few classics along the way

After the kind of success most can only dream about, former Journey singer Steve Perry said it was all over. Then he started believin’ again…

Throughout his career with Rainbow and beyond, Ritchie Blackmore helped define what it was to be a guitarist

Ronnie James Dio's albums with Elf, Rainbow, Black Sabbath and Dio helped define what a hard rock singer can be

From the late 60s through to the late 80s, some of the greatest and most influential albums ever made were doubles

Since forming in 1971, Eagles have produced some of rock’s most timeless and enduring music... and some of its biggest-selling albums

The original members of Guns N' Roses will always be defined by the music they made with the band, but they’ve fired some other good shots too

What Queen lead singer Freddie Mercury was really like, by Peter Hince – a roadie for Queen for 12 years

The best Queen songs Freddie Mercury didn't sing

Rehashing a psychedelic tune from the days of Alice Cooper (the band), the man himself fashioned an OTT accompaniment to the 1972 presidential election

Proving there's much more to life than Love In An Elevator

A dozen unsung classic tracks that show there's much more to Jimmy Page than Stairway To Heaven. Much, much more

Iron Maiden reveal the stories behind their sixteenth album The Book Of Souls

The world domination of Guns N’ Roses began not in LA, but with three chaotic weeks in London in June 1987. They came, they drank, they fought, they conquered

Graham Bonnet recalls that legendary moment with the Michael Schenker Group when he rocked out with his cock out

In 1992, reeling from the death of their guitarist Steve Clark, Def Leppard were determined to keep the party going. The result was Adrenalize – hard rock’s last great blockbuster album

"Just out of this world" – that’s how his life in Queen is summed up by Brian May – or rather, Doctor Brian May, CBE, for whom 2017 has been another memorable year in a career of many

Saxon were cruising the New Wave of British Heavy Metal... and their signature tune celebrated it