The Power Of Rock - Television Tropes & Idioms

alt title(s): Power Of Rock

"Death took a stance Crash would have died to achieve, and raised one hand..."

"I wish they'd bring back those 80s hair bands that rock so hard, they change the physical properties of things!"

Patton Oswalt

"His chops are too righteous! The helmets can't handle this level of ROCK AND ROLL!!!"

Plankton, The Spongebob Squarepants Movie

In which the world is saved and the Big Bad defeated, not only through The Power Of Love or The Power Of Friendship, but through ROCK!!!

Yes, for some reason, music is the most capable form of creative expression when it comes to defeating the forces of evil. The battle often takes the form of a rock concert or music video. That in itself helps to explain why it's almost always music that saves the world. It'd take a very imaginative writer/director to defeat the villain with the power of Modern Expressionism.

Incidentally, it's only "The Power of Rock" because 99 percent of the time rock is the musical genre of choice for this Trope. Rock tends to be loud and theatrical, and therefore more powerful. As the examples below show, other kinds of music work too. ("Power of Music" sounded way too banal.)

The more evil the Big Bad is, the more potent musical attacks will be against him. In particular, Satan can't handle a good rocking. Ironic, no?

Can also refer to the many, many works of fiction in which characters fight for their right to rock (or party, or dance, or whatever as long as it involves music). Expect any video game involving musicians to have the "rocking heroes fight Culture Police" plot.

Seen quite a lot in shows that feature a literal Five Man Band or a Fake Band, and associated performances.

Note: Not to be confused with Musical Assassin. This trope involves actual music playing that the audience can appreciate, not just characters playing instruments with the sonic power to kick ass. There are essentially no video game examples of The Power Of Rock outside of music-based games.

A form of Magic Music. Very often involves The Power Of Love and/or The Power Of Friendship. See also Autobots, Rock Out!, A Little Something We Call Rock And Roll, Great Balls Of Fire, Brown Note, and Make Me Wanna Shout. May cross over with Clap Your Hands If You Believe and Rule Of Cool. Very often crosses over with Crowning Music Of Awesome.

As for the Power of Paper and the Power of Scissors... you'll have to wait.

Examples

Anime

Macross 7 is all about a spacefaring J Rock band that fights giant space vampires by rocking them so hard they have orgasms (at least, Sivil does). In transforming fighter planes controlled by guitars. It works.
- One of the Space Vampires rocks out so hard it blows up a planet.
- For that matter, the rest of the Macross series is about The Power Of Idol Singer Music (and of reaction warheads).
  - It should be noted, it usually has a different justification every time. In the original Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Minmei's song revealed the concept of "culture" to the war-waging Zentradi, which caused them either to defect to protect their creators' legacy, or shocked them with abject terror. However, in Macross Frontier, it's not so much the song as the passionate feelings behind it which affect the empathic Vajra, who communicate through song (and across the galaxy, if the singer has the ability) themselves. Only in Macross7 is singing an actual source of superdimensional energy.
Nerima Daikon Brothers.
Subverted and inverted somewhat by Interstella 5555. While rock itself is not that powerful, the Gold Records from an award show are powerful enough to allow a man to conquer the universe.
Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch combines this with Magic Music. Later in the series, the villains fight back with their own songs, too.
Mic Sounders the 13th of Gao Gai Gar uses rock music from discs, microphones, and a key-tar from his flying soundstage to attack, disable enemies, and power up his allies. His Disc X is actually able to rip enemies apart at the molecular level or shoot a gigantic laser beam at them.
- And destroy Radam trees from Tekkaman Blade in Super Robot Wars W.
- Never mind Disc F, which is apparently so potent that it takes two members of the Mic Force to play it (actually a song sung by Masaki Endoh and Hironobu Kageyama). Mic Sounders the 13th does it on his own, by unleashing two extra arms to hold two microphones. The awesome can only be beaten by playing a suspension bridge like a giant harp, so naturally, he does that just for the encore.
The Wave Motion Gun in Black Heaven is powered by a heavy metal guitarist's "groove". However, it's also partial to evil techno.
The drama CD of Suzumiya Haruhi had four-fifths of the Five Man Band face a musical monster, which first has to be weakened by singing badly at it, before commencing to rock out.
The Science Ninja Team Gatchaman episode "Murder Music" had Galactor capturing a rock band, drugging and forcing them to play music personally created by Sosai X. With the recordings, a special ship with super speakers plays the music at a zillion decibels to create a devastating sound wave that can drive people insane and shatter matter.
Haruhara Haruko, the resident alien of FLCL, wields an electric guitar as a blunt instrument in her battles with the show's Humongous Mecha. Said battles are also accompanied by appropriate rock music.
In Ah! My Goddess, the demon Marller/Mara — on top of her weakness to good luck charms — can be forced to dance nonstop, and thus defeated, when she is exposed to Disco music.
- In like manner, Belldandy's half-demon sister Urd, who is otherwise one of the most Bad Ass characters in anime, can be put to sleep by the Japanese music genre of enka. She hates this.
One episode of Keroro Gunsou featured combating a "bad funk virus" with the power of an idol singer trio.

Comic Books

More than once, the eponymous protagonist of the Scott Pilgrim series has used the power of rock against his enemies, most notably at the ends of volumes one and three. Since he himself isn't that great a musician, usually other people are helping him out. And the music alone isn't enough to truly defeat the opponent, but it does weaken him sufficiently for Scott to take him out with some good old-fashioned fisticuffs.
- Additionally, Michael Patel could summon hordes of minion girls with his Bollywood style fighting, and Clash and the Boys, rival group to Scott's band Sex Bob-Omb, can put audiences into a literal daze with their music.
And, among the steaming pile of crap it was, Countdown had one good thing: when the Pied Piper uses The Power of Rock to destroy an entire planet.
Occasional X-Men member Dazzler's powers work by converting sound to light (which she can then use as laser beams). Naturally, she picked a musical career. Fighting evil with the power of... erm... Disco.
- Apparently she's been rewritten as a punk rocker... Imagine: instead of many sparkly lights it's just one giant Beam Spam!
In Twentieth Century Boys, this song saves the world.

Film

In the short film that forms the climax of his movie Moonwalker, Michael Jackson fights... bad people... or something... and he turns into a Transforming Mecha (No Seriously)... point is, it involves music somehow.
- He also saves an entire planet with music in the 3-D film Captain EO.
- He also has magical, musical powers in the totally insane short film Ghosts.
- We could go on for a very long time here, as Michael seems to like this trope a lot. But we can't forget the "Fight For Your Right" sequence that opened the original version of the Black or White short film.
Jack Black loves this trope too. His onscreen persona (especially in the band Tenacious D) is most often of a Genre Blind believer in The Power Of Rock. To wit:
- The D's battle against "a shiny demon" in "Tribute":
"He asked us, "Be ye angels?" and we said, "Nay, we are but men. ROCK!""
- Revisited in Tenacious D The Pick Of Destiny, but subverted when the devil tells them that their music sucks and tries to kill them anyway. It crosses over into The Power Of Friendship, since Jack Black leaps in front of the blast. His guitar, given to him by Kyle, reflects it back at the devil.
- Pick of Destiny actually subverts it twice (but doesn't double subvert it) in that Satan has The Power Of Rock in spades.
- And don't forget School Of Rock on the "fight for your right" side!
As far as movies that play the "fight for your right" angle totally straight, Footloose is easily the ultimate example. "Dancing is not a crime!"
Repossessed (a spoof of The Exorcist) has the devil being exorcised through rock and roll. With Professional Wrestling commentators "Mean" Gene Okerlund and Jesse "The Body" Ventura providing play-by-play.
Bill And Teds Excellent Adventure begins because the titular garage band leaders will eventually save the world through their music.
- In Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey, they are targeted by the bad guy for having saved the world through their music.
At the end of the Ralph Macchio film Crossroads, it came down to a blues guitar duel with the devil's Steve Vai clone.
- Actually, that guy WAS Steve Vai, playing a character called Jack Butler. In an oddly meta twist, he was the one who composed the piece that Ralph Maccio uses to 'defeat' Jack, and dubbed the guitar part over Ralph's miming. So, essentially, Steve Vai defeated Steve Vai in a guitar duel.
Back To The Future suggests that a competent performance of the song Earth Angel on guitar, combined with The Power Of Love, is enough to heal a rift in the space-time continuum which is slowly obliterating a time traveller from 1985.
- Having said that, The Power of Rock is most effectively parodied only moments later, when Marty McFly's 1980s-style guitar solo is met with indifference, apprehension and even fear from its 1955 audience.
- On the other hand, The Power of Rock — specifically the Van Halen variety — is also demonstrated in this movie as a most forceful method of compelling individuals to your will (and against theirs).
Toys has a sequence where two of the protagonists distract the Quirky Miniboss Squad with a performance in front of one of their security cameras.
And, of course, there's KISS Meet The Phantom Of The Park! No, really.
In Trick or Treat, Sammi Curr returns from the dead by the power of playing his record backwards.
Wild Zero! Japanese rock band Guitar Wolf fights off zombies and UFOs with the power of ROCK AND ROLL! It is awesome! ROCK!!!!!
Parodied in Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes. The mutant fruit are finally subdued by the Narm-tastic Silly Love Song, "Puberty Love."
- This tactic was (ahem) "borrowed" to defeat the Martians of Mars Attacks. In this case, the song "Indian Love Call" made the aliens' heads explode violently.
  - I think that would fall under "The Power Of Yodeling"...
In Young Einstein, an atomic beer keg is going to go off because it has reached supercritical mass! What can our hero do? Why, plug an experimental electric guitar into it and rock out! What else?
Add heaps and heaps of The Power Of Love to this, top it off with a Bittersweet Ending, and you've got yourself Once — and, at that, it's honestly a very good movie!
- Mostly because they play it completely straight.
Casablanca. Victor Laszlo overhears Those Wacky Nazis singing a patriotic (and anti-French) German song around the piano, goes over to the band, and gets them to play La Marseillaise, with Rick's approval. The entire bar joins in, drowning out the Germans and emphasizing the passionate political undertones of the refugees and is the beginning of Rick's redemption. This one is Older Than Television.
Rock And Roll High School. The Ramones using rock and roll to take over a high school? It doesn't get much cooler than that.
The climatic end of Ghostbusters II won by use of "Higher And Higher" and the Statue of Liberty.
Probably the end of The Blues Brothers 2000, but it was a very confused movie, so maybe not.
- It does happen. When the Blues Brothers do "Ghost Riders in the Sky," they summon bad weather, the devil's herd, and the ghost riders; lightning even strikes down a sniper. And the "In the Blood/John the Revelator" sequence certainly is doing something.
- The end of the movie didn't have anything that dramatic—unless you count the voodoo queen committing magic to prevent the music from being stopped by survivalists and the Russian mafia. But getting everyone to sing or play "New Orleans" did help Elwood slip away.
In Evolution, singing "You are so beautiful to me" brings the flying monster to the main characters in the mall, only for the poor thing to be gunned down.
In Mars Attacks, the power of Slim Whitman causes the Martians brains to explode.
As you'd expect, Six String Samurai is loaded with this, capping in an epic duelling duet between a katana-wielding Buddy Holly and Death (who looks suspiciously like Slash).
Shrek 2 perhaps. While the Fairy Godmother sings "Holding out for a Hero" and Fiona and Prince Charming dance Shrek is storming the castle with the aid of the giant Gingerbread man Mongo. Not quite sure if singing a song into a magic wand about a hero coming to save the day is what you want to do as the villainess, just in case the wand does more than simply act as a microphone.
Apocalypse Now. Ride of the Valkyries. 'Nuff said.

Literature

In Mercedes Lackey's Urban Fantasy novel Music To My Sorrow, the protagonists stop a riot and defeat the villain by staging an emergency magical rock concert. It helps that the main character is an elven-trained Bard who can rip holes in local spacetime with his music and their lead singer is gifted with the ability to influence the emotions of anyone who hears her sing.
- Her earlier novel Jinx High contains a magirock battle between two demon-infested electric guitars supported by a dark sorceress and a hippie-infested guitar and a guardian/witch. It ends when the speakers, not intended for arcane use, explodes.
War For The Oaks is another Urban Fantasy novel in which the main character is a bard, though in this case she is an out-of-work rock band leader putting together a new band when she is recruited as the required mortal for the titular Faery war. In the course of things she discovers her magical powers and ends up challenging the Queen of the Unseelie Court to a musical duel to determine the outcome of the war.
In the Spellsinger series by Alan Dean Foster, the most powerful force in the world is Fly Like An Eagle.
In Gael Baudino's Gossamer Axe, the heroine's lover has been taken by the Fair Folk, and for centuries she's been trying to use her Magic Music to get her back. The trouble is, her enemies' greater age and experience always makes them ready for anything she tries... until she discovers heavy metal.
Terry Pratchett. Discworld. Soul Music. Page pic. 'Nuff said.
- Although it also saves the day at the end, Soul Music is more or less about something coming to the Disc that the Disc isn't quite ready for.
In John Dies At The End, the heroes disguise themselves as a band to get past security at a Las Vegas hotel in order to confront a demon. They end up facing a swarm of monsters that are "natural dischordians", meaning they can't stand melody due to their hellish origin. The heroes proceed to play an original song written by the titular John himself: Camel Holocaust!
- To which the lyrics go. "I knew a man No / I made that part up / Hair! Hair! Haaaairrr! / Camel Holocaust! Camel Holocaust!"
  - However, in the original version of John Dies at the End, the heroes perform Guns and Roses' "Sweet Child O' Mine." This was changed for copyright reasons when the story was physically published.
A Fan Fic example, if that goes here, is found in the Symphony of the Sword arcs of Undocumented Features. The main character has a rock band that plays a cover of Rockin' in the Free World during a big, onesided space battle, broadcasting their music over the bad guy's comm frequencies. Another arc of the same setting has a group of mercenaries who use a similar tactic that they call the "Goldfish Warning".
The "Yahtzee" Croshaw short story The Spirit of Rock.
In Songs of Earth and Power by Greg Bear, any sufficiently great piece of music (or art in general) has inherent magical properties. In particular, there's a piece called the Infinity Concerto which legendarily transported a group of people to another world; later in the book, Mozart (yes, the real one) improvises another piece to transport them all back.
What about the Disaster Area concert in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe? Calculated to turn the planet Kakrafoon into, well, a disaster area, the inhabitants are only hosting it as a last-ditch distraction from their curse of telepathy. The effects are rather more wide-ranging. The band's agent afterwards labels it "a good gig".
In World War Z, The Americans set up in a defensive formation, then blast Iron Maiden as loud as they can to attract the Zombies and fire up the troops.
In 1632, the uptime forces get a spanish army to surrender by demoralizing them with rock. Also country, opera, Shostakovich and a small amount of napalm.
The extreme example is probably the opening of the Silmarillion, in which the Ainur create the entire universe by singing. The third theme of their song (humanity) is clearly rock. It probably helps that they're gods.
- If rock was played in the Ainulindalë, it was Melkor's doing. The Third Theme which introduced mortal Men to Arda was 'soft and sweet, a mere rippling of delicate sounds in gentle melodies; but it could not be quenched, and it took to itself power and profundity'. Melkor's music on the other hand was 'loud, and vain, and endlessly repeated; and it had little harmony, but rather a clamorous unison as of many trumpets braying upon a few notes'.
  - So the Third Theme was Stairway to Heaven, then?
- The power returns when Luthien raises Beren from the dead (usually impossible) by singing so movingly that Mandos (god of death) relents. The genre of the music is unspecified.
- This is basically the Greek legend of Orpheus and Euridice — it's Older Then Feudalism .
- None has ever caught him yet, for Tom he is the master / His songs are stronger songs and his feet are faster
- Also in the Silmarillion: The Sorcerous duel between Sauron and Finrod Felagund takes the form of a song contest.
In The Magician's Nephew, Aslan sings Narnia into existence.
In John Ringo and Travis S. Taylor's newest book, Claws That Catch, the crew of the Vorpal Blade II discover a giant artifact in a very strange star system that turns out to be a giant concert venue, they then proceed to defeat an attacking alien fleet with songs such as Freebird and Black Unicorn used to control the star system scale laser lightshow.

Live Action TV

Subverted in the Buffy The Vampire Slayer episode "Hush", in which only a human voice will kill the bad guys, which have taken away everyone's voices to prevent this. Willow offers to play a CD, but Giles informs her it won't do the trick.
- But played upon in the literal sense in 'Once more with feeling' where everything happens according to the power of rock.
As in The Devil And Daniel Mouse above, The Monkees episode "The Devil and Peter Tork" uses a Deal With The Devil plot (which, of course, derives from The Devil And Daniel Webster in the first place). Demonic pawn shop owner Mr. Zero claims he gave Peter the talent to play a golden harp in exchange for Peter's soul. However, Zero is defeated when Peter demonstrates that the true source of his ability to play the harp is his love of music.
MTV's Sifl and Olly had several of these. One, "Hellfire" ('it rocketh you!') had the titular heros in a song-vs-song challenge against the Devil. (Subversion: The last words of the song are "Dude, that sucked, RUN!")
A The Kids In The Hall sketch had an aspiring young guitarist face off in a rock duel with Satan, ultimately defeating him with a barrage of Power Chords. While Satan is portrayed as being a much better guitarist than the hero, using six arms to play a blistering solo, the youth nonetheless manages to blow the Devil's mind simply by playing the opening riff of "Smoke on the Water".
- But Bobby had... a wa-wa pedal.
Sapphire And Steel loved to do this, although they mostly used traditional songs such as sea shanties, army chants, and murder ballads. No Cosmic Horror can resist a rousing rendition of "Drunken Sailor" with the Soul Brotha on lead vocals and the Emo Teen The Scrappy on backup!
I was working in the lab, late one night, when my eyes beheld an eerie sight, for my monster from his slab began to rise, and suddenly, to my surprise he did the mash! He did the Monster Mash!
In the Doctor Who story Revelation of the Daleks, the DJ turns his rock albums into an intense sonic beam that he blasts Daleks with.
Horribly subverted in a failed VH1 show (even The Other Wiki doesn't remember it's title) that was basically The Twilight Zone/Outer Limits with MUSIC! It was a good source of Narm (John Taylor vs. a hotel room! The cast of That Seventies Show vs. an evil disco!) for the week or two it was on. But there was one genuinely eerie episode: a rock star attempts to get out of a Deal With The Devil by playing an impossible score that is being written by his own falling blood drops as his ill-gotten guitar's strings snap and slice at his fingers. He barely manages to finish the song when the (very irritated) devil points out that he missed a tiny symbol at the end which means "repeat from the beginning". Cue evil laughter/Big No

Music

U2: Elevation video shows Bono and The Edge fighting the Big Bad from the first Tomb Raider movie with a shockwave created by Edge's guitar.
The Darkness: I Believe in a Thing Called Love has the band fighting off a tentacled alien monster on their spaceship using the power of Rock.
Jason Forrest: War Photographer both uses and then ultimately subverts this trope by having a duel between humongous transforming viking mecha with laser-shooting electric rock guitars being decided by an acid-spewing marching band.
DragonForce: Operation Ground and Pound shows the band fighting off a fleet of enemy spaceships with the power of metal. (Yes, that guy did just shoot a bolt of lightning from his keytar.) There's also a guitar duel. Subverted, because most of the actual fighting takes place inside a video game played by guitarists Herman Li and Sam Totman.
- Also, in the video for Heroes of Our Time, the band appears to power a fleet of rockets with their music.
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion: "Burn It Off" has the band members using The Power of Blues-Influence Rock 'n' Roll to defeat various Ray Harryhausen monsters.
Using the power of rock to lead humanity into Nirvana would have been the plot of Pete Townshend's Lifehouse film had it been produced when he first conceived of it in 1970. The project was ultimately released as a radio play in 1999, but its story was vastly different.
During live performances of "Octavarium" and "The Dark Eternal Night", Dream Theater shows short films of their animated selves fighting monsters with their musical prowess (or in the case of drummer Mike Portnoy, the power of his saliva).
The Styx rock opera/concept album "Kilroy Was Here" featured a dystopian future where the Culture Police have outlawed rock and roll. Dissident Robert Orwin Charles Kilroy, newly freed from prison, sets out to spark a revolution the help of an electric guitar, a synthesizer, and an arsenal of 80s power chords.
Subverted in "Fashion Zombies" by the Aquabats. The superhero band is chased around by teenager gangs dressed in various fashion trends: 80's, goth, punk, prep school, etc. When cornered they whip out their instruments and proceed to rock. Once they've finished with the song, the teenagers descend upon them. When the crowd recedes the Aquabats have been transformed into fashion zombies.
Let's not forget the Charlie Daniels Band song "The Devil Went Down to Georgia"!
Rush's 2112. Slightly subverted in the fact that the protagonist doesn't succeed himself and ends up killing himself before seeing the Solar Federation overthrown.
In Hammerfall's video for the song 'Hearts on Fire' they defeat an army of skeletons by using their music to summon a circle of runestones and cast a rather apocalyptic looking spell.
Finnish band Lordi in the video for their song "Hard Rock Hallelujah" use the Power of Rock to knock down part of a school gymnasium, transform a cute Goth girl into a sorceress, and, most importantly, kill people and resurrect them as zombies.
Rock the Casbah by the Clash is about a rock band inspiring a military coup in a middle-eastern country very similar to Iran.

Mythology

Orpheus, who had music to soothe the savage beast. And Persephone.

Tabletop RP Gs

Warhammer 40000. Slaaneshi Noise Marines. Power armored Super Soldiers armed with daemonic killer guitars, who blow people apart with their power chords. More accurately, Power Armored Super Soldier sex fiends on combat drugs. They are literally "Sex, Drugs, and Rock N' Roll" taken to lethal extremes.
Starchildren: the Velvet Revolution has glam rock aliens come to the future where the danger of emotions means that Rock has been suppressed by the Culture Police. The titular Starchildren want to free the mass of humanity from their emotional blinders with the power of rock, and their alien magic powers.

Theater

We Will Rock You! If you've guessed that the protagonists fight an oppressive government using the music of Queen, you win a cookie.
- The Big Bad of the show, Killer Queen, was defeated by having the band play an instrumental version of Tie Your Mother Down.
The lovable gang in Rent brings Mimi back from death by HIV, exposure and drugs through the power of song.

Video Games

Naturally, Rock Band and Guitar Hero are all over this trope like jam on toast:
- The intro movie for Rock Band involves a band singing and keeping their balance on top of a moving car that appears to take turns at a near right angle on 2 wheels. The sheer power of rock kicks up debris in an old west ghost town the car flies through, and the band members fly off a cliff only to land on another vehicle.
  - Hell, you should see the intro to Rock Band 2. Rock band duel on speeding cars, anyone? The one dude has a mike attached to a flail.
- Guitar Hero III has you battle the devil with, of course, "The Devil Went Down to Georgia". The intro has a guitarist literally climming Mt.Olimpus and defeating the gods of rock.
  - And the intro movie of "Guitar Hero World Tour" has that same devil, this time in league with a Lawyer Friendly (aside from the out-of-nowhere Take That aspect) caricature of Kenny G (?!), defeated by an all-star rock band.
Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan!, or its American counterpart, Elite Beat Agents. Elite Beat Agents ends with the Agents blowing up the aliens by having everyone on Earth dance to The Rolling Stones' Jumpin' Jack Flash. So. Freakin'. Cool. Music lives!
Devil May Cry 3. Dante uses a guitar as a weapon to send electric bats flying at demons everytime he shreds on it!
- On that subject, in Gungrave Overdose, you could play as Rocketbilly Redcadillac (no really, that's his name), a ghost haunting a guitar, who could fry enemies with it.
Let's not forget the video game based upon the aforementioned Moonwalker. In it, Michael could turn into a Mecha using Bubbles the Chimp as a power-up, and he defeated enemies by leading them in a dance sequence and by Moonwalking. In case you doubt us (and we wouldn't blame you, really) watch this. Ah, the 90s.
In The Eye, the main character rebels to the tune of Queen.
Bust A Groove.
Space Channel Five.
The Puzzle Boss battles in Brave Fencer Musashi, Final Fantasy X-2, and Kingdom Hearts 2.
And then there was Aerosmith's arcade shooter, Revolution X, which featured a more practical example of this trope by including a gun that shoots exploding CDs. Needless to say, it was So Bad Its Good.
This trope pretty much forms the basis of the obscure but well received game Gitaroo Man, a game in which you play a prophesised legendary hero from the planet Gitaroo and have to fight various quirky adversaries by rocking out.
In the little-known PC game Total Distortion, the entire plot is revolved around making rock music videos in a Dimension based on Rock. Combat with your evil Guitar Warrior enemies is also carried out via sonic blasts from electric guitars.
Somewhat inverted in the music-themed Guilty Gear series, where everything under the sun is named after or in reference to a rock band, artist, or song, the antagonist and part-time boss I-no uses an electric guitar as a weapon by both physically smacking her enemies around with it and using it to make a number of musical special attacks.
Link in The Legend Of Zelda has used music to work magic ever since the series began, but in Majora's Mask he saves the universe from annihilation by summoning four gods with his ocarina? When he's wearing a Zora mask, he literally uses an electric guitar instead.
The upcoming Brütal Legend, starring the aforementioned Jack Black. He has an axe-guitar that shoots lightning.
Each of the five characters in Donkey Kong 64 has a musical instrument that can be used to instantly defeat all lesser enemies in the ape's vicinity. Naturally, this power comes up in the Final Exam Boss battle, although it's used more realistically as a way to get K. Rool's attention.
In Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc, Globox, having swallowed Andre, visits Dr. Otto to have him removed. Otto plays what sounds like a rock guitar solo using Globox's arm instead of a guitar but this has no effect. The second doctor they visit, Romeo, plays a drum solo on Globox's belly, but this doesn't work either. The third doctor Globox visits conducts a classical piece, performed by Otto and Romeo (again, using Globox as an instrument). This is too much for Andre, who finally leaves.

Webcomics

Erfworld has a literal rock battle. Between Italian vampires and death metal midgets riding ~~dragons~~ dwagons.
My Name Is Might Have Been is the story of The Power Of Rock After The End.

Western Animation

Quite a few of George Pal's Puppetoons. "Tulips Shall Always Grow" ends with a folk dance that reverses the effects of an invasion of goose-stepping robots!
This is essentially the plot of Yellow Submarine.
And Rock And Rule. One editor said it best in her review of the movie: "A dark magician old-arse rock star's wicked plans are thwarted by Furries who sing early 80's rock music. Yes, that is the actual plot." To be more specific, the Power of Rock can summon a demon, and the Power Of Love can send it back.
And the series Kidd Video. The whole show, deftly summarized in this article, is also a cavalcade of I Am Not Making This Up.
Appropriately enough for one of the best singers in the Disney Animated Canon, Ariel defeats a Big Bad through singing in The Little Mermaid series.
- Parodied in Enchanted, where Princess Giselle can summon friendly animals and kick off an elaborate Crowd Song in Central Park just by singing.
On The Simpsons, The Who were able to use their amps to blow up a huge wall.
- In a similar vein, the velvet-smooth bass of Barry White is used to lure snakes to safety during "Whacking Day".
Bubbles, in an episode of The Powerpuff Girls, reversed the evil effects of Mr. Mime's color and happiness draining magic by kicking off a cheery concert in the Townsville park.
In The Devil And Daniel Mouse, the protagonists used rock to win a legal case against the Devil.
Used spectacularly in The Spongebob Squarepants Movie, complete with a Twisted Sister parody and Patrick in suspenders.
- The series also has a good relationship with this trope. Note the episode where Sandy rampages through Bikini Bottom, accompanied by Pantera!
- Not to mention the hair-metal in the surreal ending of "Band Geeks".
- One of Plankton's evil plans involved a rock band and unedited music.
Parodied in Family Guy. Three words: KISS Save Santa.
Parodied in South Park, where Korn relied on Scooby Doo-style detective work to solve the mystery. The one time they tried using thematic powers, it failed miserably. ("Korn Powers Activate! Form of... CORN!!!")
- In "Mecha-Streisand", Barbara Streisand used a magical crystal to turn into a huge robot-dragon. That she was defeated by Robert Smith of The Cure (he turned into a parody of Mothra) certainly warrants a mention here.
- And then there was the "World-Wide Recorder Concert" episode. Let's just say it's the one where Cartman learns about the original Brown Note...
- Something tells This Troper that Korn's power would have done far better had they adopted the form of Khorne.
The Real Ghostbusters episode "Play Them Ragtime Boos" involved the guys facing off with a bunch of ghosts whose swing music turned time back to The Roaring Twenties... Yes, the boys played Rock and Roll. With specially-programmed instruments and a visual trip from fifties to eighties. (Yes, folks, Egon's hair got more insane.)
The Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theatres has Neil Peart, the legendary drummer/songwriter of Rush, raise Meatwad from the dead by performing the "Solo of Life". Tongue-in-cheek promotional material published before the movie's release suggested that the solo would be the climax of the film and would run 45 minutes long. In fact, it's closer to 45 seconds.
- There's also the episode "Revenge of the Mooninites", where the Mooninites trick Meatwad into helping them acquire the Foreigner Belt, which gives the wearer super-powers based on songs by the rock group Foreigner. For example, Ignignokt freezes Carl alive by singing a snippet of "Cold As Ice" and brainwashes Meatwad into acting like a "Dirty White Boy". Carl gets his hands on the belt near the end, and drives the Mooninites away by nearly boiling them alive with "Hot Blooded".
  - "I don't need no instructions to know how to Rock!"
And then there's Rock A Doodle (which Don Bluth fans normally do NOT like to talk about but it suits the No Seriously aspect of this trope to a T). The movie is a very loose re-imagining of the tale of Chanticleer, the singing rooster who believes he alone summons the sunlight with his voice. In this case, Chanticleer is an Elvis Expy who (very) gradually learns that his golden tones are the only thing that can stop an evil wizard owl who wants to plunge the world into eternal nighttime. Yeah.
Metalocalypse is ALL about this here trope. Dethklok rock so hard they can raise ancient Finnish trolls and cause volcanoes to erupt.
- This editor believes that if Dethklok were ever to play a double bill with ~~DragonForce~~ Rhapsody of Fire, the sheer amount of awesome unleashed would cause the entire universe to explode. As Dethklok has undergone Defictionalization, this now has a non-zero probability of occuring.
  - Dethklok is backing DragonForce up on their Ultra Beatdown tour. I Am Not Making This Up on the album title.
In Storm Hawks, the villainess Ravess built a massive sonic cannon that channeled the sound of her orchestra into blasts that could blow ships out of the sky. The heroes countered this by converting their hangar into an amp that similarly channeled Finn's electric guitar. The result can only be described as a Rock vs. Classical Beam O War. No Seriously.
In Chuck Jones' lovely adaptation of George Seldon's A Cricket in Times Square, Chester, the titular musical Orthopteran, saves a tiny newstand after he learns he has a talent for playing classical music. In the finale, Chester plays his last "concert", a musical farewell to the city. All of the jaded New York City residents, every one of them, stops to listen. The sequence is illustrated almost entirely with Jones' own sensitive sketches of the City, and it's one of the most downright moving moments in animation.
Lest we forget, Hammerman. (In this case, it's the power of dancing, but it still counts.)
Val Hallen, from the Dexters Laboratory Show Within A Show "Justice Friends," is based around this concept. He's the Viking god of Rock, and the local parody of the Marvel Comics version of Thor. Too bad he can't actually make it work.
Four words for you: Jem And The Holograms!
In the WITCH episode "S is for Self", Matt is able to fight off a Demonic Possession by blasting his possessor Shagon with a series of love-fueled guitar chords.
Hi Hi Puffy Ami Yumi 'Nuff Said.
In the Duck Dodgers episode "In Space No-One Can Hear You Rock", the Martians use the power of easy-listening jazz against Earth. Dodgers enlists the help of Dave Mustaine of Megadeth to destroy their saxaphone-ray. See for yourself.
British TV series Freefonix is set in the future where, apparently, The Power Of Rock can be used to make the musician fly, control people's minds, and reverse time.
The Re Boot episode "Talent Night" featured a guitar battle, probably intended to fake the viewers out. Megabyte enters the stage and pops out of a coffin, sinister-looking musical equipment unfolds seemingly out of nowhere, and he turns his guitar to eleven. Bob confronts him, with Glitch taking the form of a guitar, and they have an epic rock fight. Then, after it's over... Megabyte hands his guitar to Enzo, says "I've always wanted to do that," and leaves peacefully.
The all-but-forgotten Stone Protectors were a toy line and short-lived cartoon series released on the heels of the troll doll revival in the mid-90's. These trolls were a literal Four Man Band who protected the Stones of Power from an evil troll using The Power Of Rock.
Two words: The Backyardigans.

Other

Used in the student film God Slayer; in the end, the title superhero, driven mad by self-doubt and an evil talking moon, shatters the earth with a high note.
This trope has found purchase in quite a few internet meme macros, such as a .gif taken from The Empire Strikes Back with Darth Vader clenching his fist, captioned with "I wanna ROCK!"; a photoshop of Gimli holding his axe backwards, the weapon itself turned into an instrument, captioned "And you shall have my axe!"; a screencap of Boromir from the extended edition of The Two Towers during his speech to the troops at Osgiliath, altered so he's holding a guitar and throwing up the horns, subtitled, "One does not simply ROCK into Mordor"; and a picture of Doctor Strange firing a blast of magical energy, photoshopped so it's being shot from the neck of a guitar.
- Voldermort can't stop... THE ROCK!
- No one ever won a war by dying for his country.
This song has the power to annoy anyone.

Real Life

During the US military's invasion of Panama to oust Manuel Noriega, psychological warfare specialists blasted acid rock at the building he was holed up in, which ran counter to Noriega's personal taste for opera. He eventually surrendered.
During the 1997 Tupac Amaru hostage-taking at the Japanese Embassy in Peru, police blasted martial music and opera around the clock to hide the sound of their teams tunneling into the embassy.
During both Gulf Wars, American tank crews would blast heavy metal with their loudspeakers, generally causing the Iraqis to run away or surrender.
At the siege of Waco, Texas, the National Guard blasted the holed-up terrorists with Barry Manilowe songs. Presumably, their later assault was launched after it was deemed that this was inhumane.
Heavy Metal in Baghdad

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