I've seen almost every one of these acts live, some more than once.

The Beatles, of course, top the list. Rubber Soul, Sgt Peppers, Abbey Road. The complete albums are on the ipod. Plus selections from other albums. Something like 50 total tracks on two playlists.

Pink Floyd. I have the complete Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here, plus tracks from Animals, The Wall, and The Final Cut. Wish You Were Here is my favorite Floyd album and, IMHO, their best. But I think Final Cut is under-rated.

Bruce Springsteen.The quintessence of USian Rock in the 80's. Two playlists, Springsteen and Springsteen Live. I probably have more B-Sides of his on my playlists than of any other act.

Led Zep (and follow on's by the surviving members). Stairway to Heaven, possibly the Greatest Rock Song Ever, is 37 years old...

The Who. Maximum R&B.

The Eagles. Along with The Steve Miller Band, they defined the "California Sound" of the 70's.

Talking Heads were one of the best New wave acts. Stop Making Sense is a great concert film.

Dire Straits. Great guitar work, great songwriting. Songs were mainly character studies. Lots of their stuff is great for nighttime road trips.

Yes was the big time prog rock act. When you think prog rock, you think Yes. The playlist has been whittled down over the years...

Jethro Tull. Rock and Roll Flute Music. Another one where the playlist has grown smaller over time.

Moody Blues.

Huey Lewis and the News Pure 80's pop. Fun stuff. No real attempt at depth or meaning, and no pretension either. Great background music at a party.

AC/DC Deep down inside, you really love their work. Masters of the double single entendre.

Elton John and Billy Joel for the piano as a rock instrument, and (Billy Joel) the lounge singer as rock star.

Approx. a dozen or so mid-listers (Queen, Mellencamp, etc.) deleted...

Then there are the acts that I have playlists of because I just imported everything from the old mix tapes/cds/mp3s. They're Ok, but I don't listen to them often. Hardly at all, in fact.

This list may be more interesting than the above, just for what it says about my changing tastes.

David Bowie

The Cars

Supertramp

The Kinks

U2

So why is U2 on that list? I think because they've been overplayed so much since I was in high school. The U2 tracks I like the best are the ones that get little airplay. "Paint it Black", "All Along the Watchtower", "October". But 3 songs aren't really enough for a playlist.

Most interesting list: Acts that I listened to intensely in high school, tracked down rare albums or tracks from, had every album they produced up to that time, and had stopped listening to by the time I hit 30. Most of them I didn't bother buying CDs to replace the LPs.

Foreigner. Must've been massively overplayed, as looking through the wikipedia entry I see several songs I haven't heard in years, but actually remember a bit fondly. I wonder if they're on iTunes?

Journey

Boston

Styx

Rush. I actually stopped listening to them after Signals. I just lost interest.

Chicago. I have a first pressing of Live at Carnegie Hall, with all the inserts. An artifact of early 70's hippiedom.

Kansas.