A natural evolution of rock 'n' roll, rock music pushed the volume levels to the extreme and the musical style to new heights of creativity. 'Rock Music' as a term was first used to describe bands like the The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppellin. Using heavily overdriven guitars, loud pounding drums and raucous vocals, rock bands took the bluesy rock 'n' roll sound and added dirt, grit, and attitude. Leaving the 12 bar blues chord progression behind and replacing it with the guitar riff, rock music became characterised by guitar hooks and the increasingly wild antics of the bands that played them. Musically anything went, with bands taking influence from all styles of music in the pursuit of new sounds and rhythms. Lyrics contained a far more shocking version of the teenage angst previously sung about by Eddie Cochran and Elvis Presley, developing later into full on rock operas such as Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody.

Balance the riff from Led Zeppelin's Whole Lotta Love against the scruffy misfit image and drunken hotel trashing of The Rolling Stones, and rock music was soon to become a term used to describe not just a band's music but also their outlook on life, their image and behaviour. Today rock music has gone through hundreds of changes and diversified into many, many sub categories: Progressive Rock, Acoustic Rock, Alternative Rock, Glam Rock, Blues Rock, Hard Rock, Folk Rock, the list goes on.

• The Music: raucous sound with distorted or overdriven guitars, loud pounding drums usually in a 4:4 time and plenty of volume from the whole band.
• The Lyrics: anti social or rebellious lyrics, sung with more emphasis on expression than perfect melody.
• The Guitar Solo: based around the pentatonic and blues scale with lots of string bending, overdrive and facial expressions.
• The Equipment: Marshal Stacks, Gibson Les Paul's, Fender Stratocastor's, Wah Wah/ Phaser pedals.
• The Image: long hair, scruffy image, and rebellious attitude.
• The Bands: Led Zepplin, The Rolling Stones, Deep Purple, The Who, AC-DC, Stereophonics, Radiohead, Van Halen, Bon Jovi.