The Power Of Rock / Fan Works

• 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.
  • Saruman also rocks pretty hard.◊
  • Voldemort can't stop... THE ROCK!
  • No one ever won a war by dying for his country.
  • It's comforting to know that no matter what you do in life, it will never be as awesome as this picture.
• There’s a trio of AMVs which remix tracks from the Neon Genesis Evangelion soundtrack with Tenacious D songs. They portray Tenacious D as angels that uses the Power of Rock to fight the Evangelion characters. Must be seen (and heard) to be believed.
• Used in one Touhou Project Fan Vid that re-tells the seventh game, Touhou Youyoumu ~ Perfect Cherry Blossom. Link.
• Subverted in Ghosts of the Past, sequel of Child of the Storm, where the Lemony Narrator at one point complains that Maddie lifting Mjolnir is not accompanied by Thunderstruck by AC/DC.
  • Later in Ghosts of the Past, Professor Gwion Bach a.k.a. Doctor Strange a.k.a. Taliesin discusses this and the Magic Music trope at length, teaching a class on it. This all makes a lot more sense when you realise he's perhaps the greatest bard ever to live.
  • Then, later in Ghosts, Tony Stark, at Doctor Strange's instigation, heralds a particularly badass battle by hacking the speakers of MI13's helicarrier and having it play Thunderstruck.
  • And then Strange does it again, in the side-story, Unfinished Business. This time, he does it himself. How? By turning the entire city of New Orleans into a giant amp and playing We Will Rock You. The results are clearly audible, over the roar of a Quinjet's engines, from at least twenty miles away. When everything goes quiet, he then switches to a rather famous cover of Holding Out For A Hero. He then spends the entire finale weaving Magic Music across the world to counter the Arc Villain... and to annoy the shit out of her. Which includes switching to dramatically appropriate (and inappropriate) music whenever he feels like it. This includes everything from what is very heavily implied to be Duel of the Fates, REM's It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine), and The Ghostbusters Theme.
• Parodied in Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series in a Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds one-shot parody, where Godwin is depicted as a Corrupt manager who knows trying to conquer the world with the power of darkness never works... so he intend to use the power of Rock'n Roll instead.
• A Fanfic example 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".
• Subverted in With Strings Attached; though the entire book is about The Beatles, they play music just a few times, with only the effects one would expect from music on Earth. They even sneer a bit at the notion that their music might be magical.
• In the Pokémon fic Latias' Journey, we have the Pokerockers. Their use of the Power of Rock has assisted in killing an Eldritch Abomination, a walking Diabolus ex Machina, and was co-opted by the local goddess in the climactic fight. In the sequel, the Pokerockers return to compete in the Tournament Arc, and make it pretty far via this trope (and a vast army of roadies) — they then stop a volcano with music.
• The My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fic Element Seven has the main character Josh Larson, whose guitar gains the power to fire energy blasts, among other things. The climax sees Josh and the Mane Six send off Queen Chrysalis with Dragonforce's "Fury of the Storm."
• Thirty Hs is a Harry Potter fanfic in which "Harry" wields the mighty guitar Fuckslayer and "Scrumblegort" has the immortal line, "HARRY, YOU MUST ROCK THE FUCK OUT." Too epic to be believed.
• Wesker's New Life
  "Isn't it obvious? We're breaking out of here.With the power of ROCK AND ROLL."
• Manchester Lost has the protagonists defeat Satan and everyone else by singing Don't Stop Believing.
• Douglas Sangnoir of Robert Schroeck's Drunkard's Walk saga gains various magic powers from different songs, usually lasting as long as the song does: Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start The Fire" lets him (and anyone else in the vicinity) relive the second half of his world's twentieth century; "Konya Wa Hurricane" from Bubblegum Crisis, unsurprisingly, lets him summon and control a powerful cyclonic storm; and "I'm a Pioneer" from Tenchi Muyo! makes him impervious to vacuum and capable of superluminal flight.
• The Deconstructive Parody "The Conversion Bureau: Metal Ripper" has Celestia being purged of an demon by Sabaton's Primo Victoria.
• In The Jaded Eyes Series, wizarding students learn to harness this power at Noctiluca Academy.
• Early stories in the Calvinverse featured this a lot.
  • The original version of Calvin and Hobbes: The Movie was the first to feature this, as Calvin performs a rather out-of-place homage/rip-off of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (which the remake thankfully leaves out).
  • The aliens ends up defying it in the sequel, however.
  • Meanwhile, the above scenario ends up happening again in Trouble Island.
  • Finally, Calvin uses the same guitar from before to break out of his prison in Retro Chill.
• In L's Rock Band Light Yagami picks up a "Death Note" as in a magic Shinigami guitar that grants Godlike powers.
• In The Cadanceverse , Burning Sun and Nightmare Moon are defeated by playing Voltaire's "Riding a Black Unicorn..." at them with Elements of Harmony-infused instruments. A Golem is also defeated by singing Eye of the Tiger while casting spells at it.
• Higher Learning:
  • Shinji uses his cello's music during Instrumentality to draw many souls back to the physical world and guide Asuka back to him.
  • The Power of Classical Music is one of the factors in Rei's decision to start living for herself.
• In The Tabula Avatar Universe, Dungeons & Dragons bards can channel popular Earth music a la Spellsinger for very effective, often unpredictable, results.
• The My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic Fan Animation "Epic Wub Time" features an electronic music variant in lieu of rock; the sheer power of Vinyl Scratch's bass cannon generates a gigantic energy blast that proves capable of dispatching Discord with astonishing ease.
• Paragons of Virtue and Glory has Jiro Kyoka, who is an accomplished musician and loves rock-and-roll, go for this idea with her mechashift weapon, a literal guitar axe. Combining it with her Quirk and Air Dust, she can create sonic bullets.

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