Bump.
The Beatles
Zeppelin
Floyd
King Crimson
Queen
Genesis
Yes
Black Sabbath
Judas Priest
Radiohead
I'll revise this list
The Beatles(First of their kind- self explanatory)
Pink Floyd(space rock, soft, mellow, progressive with electronic echoes - think dark side of the Moon)
King Crimson( atonal, dissonant at times but with very melodic choices of notes as well - experimental/avant garde)
Black Sabbath - dark, gloomy music that probably inspired a host of metal bands across Europe
The Mahavishnu Orchestra - where rock was played by primarily jazz musicians (They are the most famous example of this)
Rush - Progressive rock with 20 minute masterpieces( There are others but these guys have outlasted everyone)
Deep Purple - Hard rock through and through - wailing singer, flashy solos, fast and loud music
Metallica - While Sabbath inspired horror styled themes and sounds, they brought in the aggressive riffing, harsh vocals etc )
Radiohead - modern rock
Journey - radio - friendly arena rock music that was 'pop' enough for mainstream audiences with harmonies, choruses etc. Plenty of these but i just chose Journey because of Steve Perry
These are not necessarily the most popular bands but i think if you listen to all of them you will have a fair idea of the history of rock music from the 60's -00's. I've not listed bands and genres , and good ones at that, who derive from more than one of these styles.
Punk rock is essentially british kids stripping rock music back to it's roots ( think 'Jailhouse rock, without any of Elvis' musical ability). Ramones were greater than any useless British punk band anyway
Also a band like Van Halen was terrific but combined hard rock with an arena rock style so I have excluded them. //ly, glam metal, extreme metal(death,black metal genres) combine two or more of these styles with folk/classical or in rarer cases - jazz or electronic influences.
My humble opinion
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