Yoko Ono

Pilloried by the press as the woman who broke up The Beatles, Yoko Ono's relationship with John Lennon led to a music career that pushed boundaries, caused controversy and, at times, completely baffled people. The daughter of a rich Japanese banker, Ono was raised in Tokyo but moved to New York after the Second World War and became involved in the City's conceptual art scene led by John Cage. Meeting Lennon when exhibiting her art in London, the pair recorded experimental album Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins (1968) in a night of passion, before marrying in 1969 and spending their honeymoon with their famous "bed-in" protest. Her solo career was widely written off as unlistenable, avant garde, noise but, in time, albums such as Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band (1970), Approximately Infinitely Universe (1973) and Season Of Glass (1981) gained wider acceptance and were cited by Beth Ditto, L7, Ana Matronic and Lady Gaga as great feminist statements of experimental rock and roll. Later albums Starpeace (1985), Rising (1995) and Between My Head And The Sky (2009) continued her campaigns for peace and experiments with off-the-wall sound. More recently she teamed up with Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon on album YOKOKIMTHURSTON (2012).