Here is the confusion at the heart of rock and roll: it is a musical genre confused with a teen demo. And since it gave birth to the teen demo it is considered one and the same thing .
But it isn't.
Youth rebelling against age wasn't invented with rock and roll but what was invented was the buying power of youth. And that post-WW2, Baby Boom era was marked by a new freedom. To put it another way, jazz did the same thing but jazz's demo was mid-20s to early-30 year olds and rock and roll was marketed at 13 to 18 year olds.
With the 1960s, the teen demo went from niche to primary demo for pop music, and because of that things that weren't necessarily rock and roll, say Soul, were fitted into the rock and roll umbrella.
Despite hills and valleys, rock remained a predominant FORM of music till punk morphed into new Wave and it has steadily lost market share ever since. Rightfully so. There is no excuse for taking Gaslight Anthem, Daughtry, Creed, Three Doors Down, System Of A Down… Geez, the list of lousy rock bands is just about endless, any of them, with the slightest seriousness. Tghere is great genre rock but exceedingly little mainstream rock worth a damn.
But rock isn't dead because that isn't what rock is: rock is the spirit of youth personified and renewing itself endlessly, in perpetuity, through sound.
.