Following its well-established tradition of having a list of ‘World's Greatest Bands, Songwriters, Singles, Gigs, Singers or Albums' Q Magazine has now announced its Top 50 Bands Of All Time list.

Q Magazine's regular lists seem to be designed specifically to enrage people and promote furious rages whenever they arrive (U2's ‘One' as the World's Greatest Song anyone?) but with their Top 50 Bands Of All Time list the magazine has tried to be more scientific.

Each band's placing has been allocated according to a points system that measured sales of their biggest album, the scale of their biggest headlining show and the total number of weeks spent on the UK album chart.

As such Pink Floyd nab the top spot. Their 1979 concept album 'The Wall' has sold 23.3 million copies so far (figures for their 1973 opus 'Dark Side of the Moon' – which has almost definitely sold more - were rejected because of inaccurate records), their largest live show was 125,000 at Knebworth Park in 1975 and they spent 911 weeks in the UK charts.

"I must say I suspected it might have been Queen at number one,” Q editor Paul Rees confessed, “But then when you think of the huge sales of 'The Wall' and 'Dark Side of the Moon' it would have to be Pink Floyd. If you look at the top 10 you would expect those bands to be in there. It's slightly more surprising that the champagne corks are popping for bands such as Erasure [ranked 47] and Hootie & the Blowfish [40]. I was genuinely stunned to see them in there."

Surprisingly The Beatles only got to eighth place behind the Rolling Stones, U2, Dire Straits and Bruce Springsteen And The E Street Band, a result put down to a lack of recent gigs (ahem) and a finite number of album releases.

While the list contained all the expected acts (The Eagles, Oasis, Red Hot Chili Peppers) there are a couple of surprises. Wham! get a creditable 38 placing, The Backstreet Boys are at 22, the 42 spot is filled by Status Quo and The Shadows are at 48.

Q Magazines full Top 50 Bands Of All Time list is as follows:

Pink Floyd
Led Zeppelin
Rolling Stones
U2
Queen
Dire Straits
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band
The Beatles
Bob Marley and the Wailers
Fleetwood Mac
The Eagles
The Beach Boys
Oasis
Bon Jovi
Guns N' Roses
Nirvana
Genesis
Bee Gees
Metallica
Boston
R.E.M.
Backstreet Boys
Red Hot Chili Peppers
AC/DC
The Police
Steve Miller Band
ABBA
Santana
Simply Red
Supertramp
The Carpenters
Journey
Spice Girls
Def Leppard
Deep Purple
UB40
Aerosmith
Wham!
Pearl Jam
Hootie & the Blowfish
Status Quo
Simple Minds
Wet Wet Wet
'N Sync
Eurythmics
Duran Duran
Erasure
The Shadows
Boyz II Men
Van Halen