By the early 1990s, rock was dominated by commercialized and highly produced pop, rock, and "hair metal" artists. MTV had arrived and promoted excessive focus on image and style. Disaffected by this trend, in the mid-1980s, bands in Washington state (particularly in the Seattle area) formed a new style of rock music which sharply contrasted the mainstream rock of the time. The developing genre came to be known as "grunge", a term meaning "dirt" or "filth". The term was seen as appropriate due to the dirty sound of the music and the unkempt appearance of most musicians, who actively rebelled against the over-groomed images of popular artists. Grunge fused elements of hardcore punk and heavy metal into a single sound, and made heavy use of guitar distortion, fuzz and feedback.[13] The lyrics were typically apathetic and angst-filled, and often concerned themes such as social alienation and entrapment, although it was also known for its dark humor and parodies of commercial rock.

Bands such as Green River, Soundgarden, the Pixies, the Melvins and Skin Yard pioneered the genre, with Mudhoney becoming the most successful by the end of the decade. However grunge remained largely a local phenomenon until 1991, when Nirvana‘s Nevermind became a huge success thanks to the lead single "Smells Like Teen Spirit". Nevermind was more melodic than its predecessors, but the band refused to employ traditional corporate promotion and marketing mechanisms. During 1991 and 1992, other grunge albums such as Soundgarden's Badmotorfinger and Alice in Chains' Dirt, along with the Temple of the Dog album featuring members of Pearl Jam and Soundgarden, became among the 100 top selling albums of 1992. The popular breakthrough of these grunge bands prompted Rolling Stone to nickname Seattle "the new Liverpool." Major record labels signed most of the remaining major grunge bands in Seattle, while a second influx of bands moved to the city in hopes of success.

While grunge remains a very limited musical genre in range of orchestration and tone, the depth of its influence was felt across many geographic and musical boundaries. Grunge generally inspired a new DIY ethos at the time. It's true legacy was the impetus it gave to artists who were disaffected with the direction of commercial rock music finally found record companies and audiences willing to listen, with dozens of disparate acts positioning themselves as alternatives to mainstream music. Ironically, this helped pave the way for bands such as the Smashing Pumpkins and Pearl Jam, both of which were lumped in with the popular alternative groups of the time, to enjoy substantial commercial and critical success independent of the grunge genre. Groups such as Dinosaur Jr., The Pixies, and Sonic Youth gained cult status as respected elder statesmen instrumental in the development in alternative rock music, also leading to the development of a lo-fi rock music with such bands as Guided By Voices and Pavement. Other alternative bands at the time such as Soul Asylum, The Lemonheads and Gin Blossoms true to the zeitgeist of the era took their music in a more folk influenced direction akin to Paul Westerberg. Popular grunge band Pearl Jam emerged as a rock and roll band, paying homage to pioneering rock artists with such covers as Wayne Cochran's "Last Kiss" as well as classic rock songs written by Neil Young and The Who.

While the American mainstream was focused on grunge, post-grunge, and hip hop, numerous British groups launched a 1960s revival in the mid-1990s, often called Britpop, with bands such as Oasis, Suede, Supergrass, Manic Street Preachers, Pulp and Blur among the front-runners. These bands drew on myriad styles from the 80s British rock underground, including twee pop, shoegazing and space rock as well as traditional British guitar influences like the Beatles and glam rock. For a time, the Oasis-Blur rivalry was similar to the Beatles-Rolling Stones rivalry, or the Nirvana-Pearl Jam rivalry in America. While bands like Blur tended to follow on from the Small Faces and The Kinks, Oasis mixed the attitude of the Rolling Stones with the melody of the Beatles. The Verve and Radiohead, though not Britpop but at the forefront of the British revival of the rock, took inspiration from performers like Elvis Costello, Pink Floyd and R.E.M. with their progressive rock music, manifested in Radiohead's most heralded album, OK Computer.

Britpop's popularity in America was short, with the exception of Oasis, whose second album sold 19 million copies worldwide, but the movement slowed down after numerous band breakups and publicity disasters weakened popular support in the US. The Verve disbanded after on-going turmoil in the band between singer Richard Ashcroft and guitarist Nick McCabe, and Radiohead has since gone in a more experimental, less radio-friendly direction.

By the mid-1990s, the term "alternative music" had lost much of its original meaning as rock radio and record buyers embraced increasingly slick, commercialized, and highly marketed forms of the genre. At the end of the decade, hip hop music had pushed much of alternative rock out of the mainstream, and most of what was left played pop punk and highly polished versions of a grunge/rock mishmash. Many acts that, by choice or fate, remained outside the commercial mainstream became part of the indie rock movement. Indie rock acts placed a premium on maintaining complete control of their music and careers, often releasing albums on their own independent record labels and relying on touring, word-of-mouth, and airplay on independent or college radio stations for promotion. Linked by an ethos more than a musical approach, the indie rock movement encompasses a wide range of styles, from hard-edged, grunge influenced bands like The Cranberries, Superchunk to do-it-yourself experimental bands like Pavement to punk-folk singers such as Ani DiFranco. Currently, many countries have an extensive local indie scene, flourishing with bands with much less popularity than commercial bands, just enough of it to survive inside the respective country, but virtually unknown outside them.

One result of the 1970s punk explosion was pop punk. Championed by bands such as The Buzzcocks and The Ramones, the genre was never as commercially successful as the name may have suggested, but its influence can be still be heard in many artists today; the fusion of pop melodies, rapid-fire playing of instruments, and the raw and visceral lyrics and sound of punk rock is apparent in everyone from Nirvana to Oasis. In the 2000s, pop punk is used to describe modern rock bands with a heavy pop influence such as Green Day and The Offspring are common examples of the sub-genre, while Blink-182 and Sum 41 brought the sub-genre to new commercial heights in the late nineties to early 2000s.

In the wake of Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain's death, a new style of music called post-grunge evolved. Similar to the relationship between pop punk and punk rock, post-grunge differed from grunge in its more radio-friendly pop-oriented sound. After Australia's Silverchair achieved international success with their debut album Frogstomp record labels began to actively search for the "next Nirvana". Former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl's new band the Foo Fighters helped further popularize the genre, and other bands such as Bush, Creed, Candlebox, Collective Soul, Everclear and Live helped cement post-grunge as one of the most commercially viable sub-genres of the late 1990s. Female solo artist Alanis Morissette also found success while being labeled under the post-grunge tag. In 1995, her album Jagged Little Pill became a major hit by featuring blunt, revealing songs such as "You Oughta Know". Combining the confessional, female-centered lyrics of artists such as Tori Amos with a post-grunge, guitar-based sound created by producer Glen Ballard, it succeeded in moving the introspection that had become so common in grunge to the mainstream. The success of Jagged Little Pill influenced successful more pop-oriented female artists during the late 90s including Fiona Apple, Jewel and Liz Phair.

In 1990, Faith No More broke into the mainstream with their success of the single 'Epic', which combined heavy metal with rap. This paved ways for bands like Rage Against the Machine and later Limp Bizkit, Korn and Slipknot. This brought a fresh sound by combining the turntable scratching of rap and with the distorted guitars of metal-oriented rock. Later in the decade this style, which contained a mix of grunge, metal, and hip-hop, became known as rap rock and spawned a wave of successful bands like Linkin Park and P.O.D.. Many of these bands also considered themselves a part of the similar genre nu metal.

Through the turn of the century, more bands broke out like Papa Roach whose major label debut Infest became a platinum hit. Other bands like P.O.D and Disturbed also had mainstream success. By 2001 nu metal reached its peak as record labels signed many nu metal bands. Though new bands were breaking out, established bands who started the genre had massive successful hit albums like Staind (Break the Cycle), P.O.D (Satellite), Slipknot (Iowa) and Linkin Park (Hybrid Theory).

By 2002, signs that nu metal's mainstream popularity was weakening were apparent. Korn's long awaited fifth album Untouchables and Papa Roach's second album Lovehatetragedy didn't sell as well as their previous albums. Nu metal bands became less played on rock radio stations and MTV began focusing less on these bands and more on pop punk/Emo bands. Since then, many bands have changed their sound to more conventional Rock music/Heavy metal music.

In the early 2000s the entire music industry was shaken by claims of massive piracy using online music file-sharing software such as Napster, resulting in lawsuits against private file-sharers by the recording industry group the RIAA. During much of the 2000s, rock has not featured as prominently in album sales in the US as in other countries such as the UK and Australia. Another reason for the decline in album sales is the rise in popularity of Hip Hop on many music charts.

The biggest factor that affected the production and distribution of rock music was the rise of paid digital downloads in the 2000s. During the 1990s, the importance of the buyable music single faded when Billboard allowed singles without buyable, album-separate versions to enter its Hot 100 chart (charting only with radio airplay). The vast majority of songs bought on paid download sites are singles bought from their albums; songs that are bought on a song-by-song basis off artist's albums are considered sales of singles, even though they have no official buyable single.

In the mid-1980s, the term emo described a subgenre of hardcore punk which stemmed from the Washington, D.C. music scene. In later years, the term emocore, short for "emotional hardcore", was also used to describe the emotional performances of bands in the Washington, D.C. scene and some of the offshoot regional scenes such as Rites of Spring, Embrace or Moss Icon. In the mid-1990s, the term emo began to refer to the indie scene that followed the influences of Fugazi, which itself was an offshoot of the first wave of emo. Bands including Sunny Day Real Estate, Fall Out Boy, Jimmy Eat World, and Texas Is the Reason had a more indie rock style of emo, more melodic and less chaotic.

While Jimmy Eat World had played emocore-style music early in their career, by the time of the release of their 2001 album Bleed American, the band had downplayed its emo influences, releasing more pop-oriented singles such as "The Middle" and "Sweetness". Newer bands that sounded like Jimmy Eat World (and, in some cases, like the more melodic emo bands of the late 90s) were soon included in the genre.

2003 saw the success of Chris Carrabba, the former singer of emo band Further Seems Forever, and his project Dashboard Confessional. Carraba found himself part of the emerging "popular" emo scene. Carrabba's music featured lyrics founded in deep diary-like outpourings of emotion. While certainly emotional, the new "emo" had a far greater appeal amongst adolescents than its earlier incarnations.

At the same time, use of the term "emo" expanded beyond the musical genre, which added to the confusion surrounding the term. The word "emo" became associated with open displays of strong emotion. Common fashion styles and attitudes that were becoming idiomatic of fans of similar "emo" bands also began to be referred to as "emo." As a result, bands that were loosely associated with "emo" trends or simply demonstrated emotion began to be referred to as emo.

In a strange twist, screamo, a more aggressive sub-genre of emo that began in the early 1990s, also had a reformulation of sound and has found greater popularity in recent years through bands such as Glassjaw. The difficulty in defining "emo" as a genre may have started at the very beginning.

After existing in the musical underground in the 1960s, the raw, stripped-down sounds of garage rock saw a resurgence of popularity with a resurgence of interest in the garage rock revival. Bands like The White Stripes, Jet, The Strokes, The Vines, The Libertines, Kings of Leon, and The Hives all released successful singles and albums. This wave is also sometimes referred to as back-to-basics rock because of its raw sound. Popular bands that fall under garage rock revival are Wolfmother, The Raconteurs, Arctic Monkeys, The Black Keys, Broken Social Scene, Silversun Pickups and My Morning Jacket.

Additionally, the retro trend has led to a post-punk revival with bands like The Hives, The Libertines, The Killers, Bloc Party, Franz Ferdinand, Interpol, and Editors, which were often heavily influenced by 1990s bands such as Radiohead and Nirvana, as well as the punk genre, and post-punk bands such as Joy Division.

Originally, the term "post-punk" was coined to describe those groups which in the late seventies and early eighties took punk and started to experiment with more challenging musical structures, lyrical themes, and a self-consciously art-based image, while retaining punk's initial iconoclastic stance, such as Public Image Ltd., Gang of Four, and Joy Division. At the turn of the century, the term "post-punk" began to appear in the music press again, with a number of critics reviving the label to describe a new set of bands that shared some of the aesthetics of the original post-punk era. The Rapture, Interpol, The Killers, and Franz Ferdinand were the first commercially successful projects to revive media interest in the movement.. This second wave of post-punk incorporates elements of dance music and genres that are part of the dance punk movement in much the same way that the original post-punk movement was influenced by the Krautrock, Dub, and Disco music of the 1970s. Music critic Simon Reynolds notes that these bands generally draw influence from the more angular strain of post-punk bands such as Wire and Gang of Four.

Metalcore, an originally American hybrid of thrash metal and hardcore punk, emerged as a commercial force in the mid-2000s. It is rooted in the crossover thrash style developed two decades earlier by bands such as Suicidal Tendencies, Dirty Rotten Imbeciles, and Stormtroopers of Death. Through the 1990s, metalcore was mostly an underground phenomenon. By 2004, melodic metalcore—influenced as well by melodic death metal—was popular enough that Killswitch Engage's The End of Heartache and Shadows Fall's The War Within debuted at numbers 21 and 20, respectively, on the Billboard album chart. Bullet for My Valentine, from Wales, broke into the top 5 in both the U.S. and British charts with Scream Aim Fire (2008). In recent years, metalcore bands have received prominent slots at Ozzfest and the Download Festival. Lamb of God, with a related blend of metal styles, hit the Billboard top 10 in 2006 with Sacrament. The success of these bands and others such as Trivium, which has released both metalcore and straight-ahead thrash albums, and Mastodon, which plays in a progressive/sludge style, has inspired claims of a metal revival in the United States, dubbed by some critics the "New Wave of American Heavy Metal.

The term "retro-metal" has been applied to such bands as England's The Darkness and Australia's Wolfmother. The Darkness's Permission to Land (2003), described as an "eerily realistic simulation of '80s metal and '70s glam," topped the UK charts, going quintuple platinum. One Way Ticket to Hell... and Back (2005) reached number 11. Wolfmother's self-titled 2005 debut album had "Deep Purple-ish organs," "Jimmy Page-worthy chordal riffing," and lead singer Andrew Stockdale howling "notes that Robert Plant can't reach anymore." "Woman," a track from the album, won for Best Hard Rock Performance at the 2007 Grammy Awards. Slayer's "Eyes of the Insane" won for Best Metal Performance in 2007; their "Final Six" won the same award in 2008.

In continental Europe, especially Germany and Scandinavia, metal continues to be broadly popular. Well-established British acts such as Judas Priest and Iron Maiden continue to have chart success on the continent, as do a range of local groups. In Germany, Western Europe's largest music market, several continental metal bands placed multiple albums in the top 20 of the charts between 2003 and 2008, including Finnish melodic death metal band Children of Bodom, Norwegian symphonic extreme metal act Dimmu Borgir, and two power metal groups, Germany's Blind Guardian and Sweden's HammerFall. The Swedish melodic death metal act In Flames took both Come Clarity (2006) and A Sense of Purpose (2008) to number 6 in Germany; each album topped the Swedish charts.