Seven Ages of Rock

When Hendrix moved to New York City he came under the influence of British blues music, especially that of Jeff Beck of The Yardbirds and Eric Clapton, who had become famous with John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers.

With a roughness and a high octane sound, they created the modern stage presence with the theatrics of destroying their equipment, such as playing the guitar by ramming it against the floor and speakers.

Jimi Hendrix came to London in late 1966 after having been discovered and invited by his future manager Chas Chandler of The Animals, on the sole condition that he would be introduced to his guitar heroes.

The Who played first, with an aggression never before seen in the United States, Hendrix stunned the crowds further with his explosive sound and showmanship culminating in setting fire to his guitar.

The music of blues singers such as John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf was powerful and rebellious and had come out of struggle in a way that spoke to the British Working Class, who were not politically constrained as they were in white America.

Their space at the Crawdaddy Club was taken by The Yardbirds, who attempted to produce their own twist on the blues, helped by their guitarist Eric Clapton, who was considered by some[who?]

In 1965, year zero of rock, the Who released a song that the program postulates defined the era, "My Generation", and was incredibly innovative in both its sound and rebellious message.

The Animals had first opened the path for these bands with the reimagining of "The House of the Rising Sun", which they came across when it was covered by Bob Dylan from the New York City folk scene.

Back in Britain, Eric Clapton had found creative freedom in his own band Cream, which were much more musically skilled than most other groups at the time.

When The Who went to the Monterey International Pop Festival, they innovated the live performance by channelling aggression, playing at high volume and destroying their instruments.

However, they were plunged into their own darkness with the death of Brian Jones and the chaos of Altamont, where, according to Al Kooper, the innocence of the Sixties finally died.

With Peter Jenner seeing Pink Floyd as the English version of the Velvet Underground, they decided to use this medium to illustrate the songs they were singing, projecting what effectively were the first music clips on a large screen behind the band.

David Bowie was inspired by the weirdness of Velvet Underground and the madness of Pink Floyd's Syd Barrett (as exemplified by his Jugband Blues).

And when Pink Floyd wondered what a piano would sound like through a Leslie speaker, they came up with the intro to "Echoes", a piece that lasted the entire second side of the album Meddle.

The Sex Pistols started with covers of mod classics by The Who, but of course, they soon also went DIY in that respect, although that did not prevent Glen Matlock from letting ABBA's "SOS" inspire him for the guitar riff in "Pretty Vacant".

Also there was no mention of The Buzzcocks, Tommy James talking about "New Rose", the Punk girl bands or Public Image Limited, instead the episode playing out to "London Calling" by the Clash.

When he tried to solve this problem by melting a washing up liquid bottle, and forming two 'thimbles' for his fingers, he found that by tuning his guitar down three semitones (to C#), he could play just as easily, and also get a very different, altogether much darker sound (although this was not used until their third album).

In 1971, when Deep Purple were in Montreux to record the album Machine Head, they were themselves scared by a fire in the casino when "some stupid with a flare gun burned the place to the ground" during a concert by The Mothers of Invention.

After the death of Randy Rhoads, instead of playing I Don't Know from Live in Salt Lake City, it features Shot in the Dark, there is also no mention Ozzy Osbourne's off stage antics such as decapitating birds and bats or urinating on the Alamo.

The VH1 version of this episode did not mention Peter Grant or 90/10 deal with concert promoters, the "designer bands" of Aerosmith, Guns N' Roses, and Bon Jovi, nor having any of them playing.

Home to grunge, teen spirit and the kings of alternative rock, Nirvana, the band that brought the sound of the American underground to a mass audience."

Nirvana's Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic were part of this generation and inspired by groups such as Black Flag, who played a more fitting musical style, hardcore punk.

The founding band of alternative rock, R.E.M., toured non-stop from 5 April 1980 to the end of 1989, so they laid down their guitars and Peter Buck picked up a mandolin, resulting in the song "Losing My Religion", that would be the start of the sound that gave them worldwide fame.

Another inspiration for their new sound was the way they started every recording session, taking half an hour for a free-style jam, in which they experimented with how soft or how loud they could play.

Nirvana created a sound that blended the fury of grunge with a new feel for melody and the mass commercial appeal of R.E.M., leading to what would become alternative rock's anthem, "Smells Like Teen Spirit".

and Mudhoney, Alternative Rock and Grunge went mainstream and record companies bought up as many of these small bands as possible, leading to the commercial success of groups such as Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, The Smashing Pumpkins and Pearl Jam.

Manchester was transformed by The Smiths, through Morrissey's lyrics into a place of epic romance as part of a critique of the hard northern working class life under Margaret Thatcher.

The Stone Roses, combined indie, house and a "west-coast" psychedelic feel, with rhythms at the forefront of the music and instrumentals crossing into the world of dance.

In 1989, they played the Empress Ballroom in Blackpool, popularising the new scene and led to the media spotlight falling on "Madchester", containing groups such as Happy Mondays and Inspiral Carpets.

Multiple new guitar bands have risen to prominence in recent years, such as Franz Ferdinand and Kaiser Chiefs, with some, such as Arctic Monkeys, displaying their influence from the Libertines.