Queen. There a a lot of factoids about this group. All members earned degrees, and the fields were pretty diverse - physics, biology, electronics, & illustration. Freddie Mercury, whose degree was in illustration, designed the band's crest, an amalgamation of the band members' zodiac signs.
Brian May's guitar, dubbed the Red Special, is iconic in the guitar world. Hand built with his dad in the late 60's from salvaged materials, its tone is utterly unique. This flavored the band's music with a sound that was impossible to produce any other way.
Every member of the band was a songwriter, with each person penning at least one of their hits. Because of this, Queen was the first to be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame as a band rather than as individuals.
They also wrote and performed the soundtrack for the campy 1980 sci-fi cult classic Flash Gordon. I was 10 years old at the time and saw this one in the theater. Since this movie and the band's single, "Another One Bites the Dust", both released in the fall of 1980, I'm not sure which was my first exposure to the band. I know, "Bohemian Rhapsody" was released in 1975. I just don't remember hearing it until much later.
While they have many more songs that charted higher, my favorite from Queen is "Under Pressure". This song was sampled heavily by Vanilla Ice ten years after its release. Amusingly, to this day, whenever I hear the opening bass line for "Under Pressure" there are a few moments of trepidation when I fear it might be "Ice Ice Baby".
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