Rock

Rock music still retains a large level of popularity, although the genre is not as prominent in the Top 40 as it was in the previous decades.The decline has been attributed to the falling sales of the recording industry.

Alternative rock and indie rock

In the early 2010s, several alternative rock and indie rock bands such as Vampire Weekend, MGMT, and Arcade Fire released albums that top the Billboard Top 200. Blues-rock band The Black Keys has achieved mainstream success with the release of El Camino which debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 and being certified gold in the US. Coldplay debuted at number one with Mylo Xyloto, spawning the Top 40 hits "Paradise" and "Every Teardrop Is a Waterfall". Other currently successful indie rock acts include Foster the People, fun., Gotye, Lana Del Rey, Bon Iver, Sleigh Bells, Cage the Elephant and Young the Giant. The city of Toronto, Canada has been described as a center of music in the 2010s in much the same way Seattle was in the 1990s as it has produced hit artists such as Feist and Austra.

Hard rock and heavy metal

In the earlier part of the decade, hard rock and heavy metal have been dominated by metalcore, alternative metal and progressive metal with bands such as Evanescence, Nickelback, Chevelle, Avenged Sevenfold, Disturbed, Five Finger Death Punch, Trivium, Dream Theater, Linkin Park, Van Halen and Stone Sour releasing successful albums. One of the most successful hard rock/heavy metal albums to be released in the 2010s in the US thus far is Linkin Park's A Thousand Suns, which topped the Billboard 200 for one week. Progressive rock and Progressive metal, has seen an upsurge of popularity since the last few years of the 2000s; the most since the early-mid 1970s. Bands such as Dream Theater, Opeth, and Steven Wilson have hit Top 40 positions on album charts in many countries (Dream Theater hit #8 in the U.S. and #1 in many other countries with their 2011 album A Dramatic Turn Of Events. Dream Theater's 2011 single "On the Backs of Angels" was nominated for a Grammy Award in the "Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance" category, the first Dream Theater song ever to do so; and a rarity in the progressive music world.

2011 saw the return of System of a Down, who has been embarking on their first tour since their 4-year hiatus from 2006 to 2010 but they do not have plans to record new material.

Punk rock

Punk rock/pop punk music has decreased in mainstream popularity since the late 2000s, though a number of acts such as The Story So Far, Social Distortion, Bad Religion, NOFX, Paramore, Green Day, The Offspring, Rancid, MxPx, AFI, Rise Against and Pennywise have continued to enjoy some success, while emo, popular between about 2002 and 2008, has declined in popularity and relevance compared to its mid to late 2000s peak.

Many bands that ended around the 1990s or 2000s have been making comebacks in the 2010s, including Refused and At the Drive-In, who both played at Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in April 2012. Other bands have continued to put out material such as Bad Religion's The Dissent of Man (2010), Social Distortion's Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes (2011), Rise Against's Endgame (2011), The Misfits' The Devil's Rain (2011), Blink-182's Neighborhoods (2011), Dropkick Murphys' Going Out in Style, (2011), Sum 41's Screaming Bloody Murder (2011), Flogging Molly's Speed of Darkness (2011), The Adolescents' The Fastest Kid Alive (2011), Anti-Flag's The General Strike (2012), MxPx's Plans Within Plans (2012), Pennywise's All or Nothing (2012), The Offspring's Days Go By (2012) and Green Day's ¡Uno!, ¡Dos! (both 2012) and ¡Tré! (2013). NOFX and Rancid are also planning to release new albums in 2012.