Starting Saturday May 19th, BBC2 is going to take us on a journey in music with the Seven Ages of Rock. In an extensive series, we'll get to explore the music that has been the soundtrack to our pop culture and defined each generation since the 1960's.

Thrillingly, this series is from the producers of award winning series Dancing in the Street, Walk on By, Lost Highway and, most recently, Soul Deep. Including everything from the iconic 45 to the sleekness of the iPod, we'll be accompanied on the journey by legendary performers, singers, writers and producers in an attempt to see how rock'n'roll emerged, grew, strengthened and gave a voice to each new generation. We'll get to see the impact of the UK electric blues boom, the heady psychedelic rock of the late 60's; from the punk explosion and on to the rise of grunge and indie rock in the 1980’s and beyond. No stone is going to be left unturned. This is not to be missed. Read over for a breakdown of the shows.

The Road to Woodstock – The rock revolution of the 1960’s as seen through the life and music of Jimi Hendrix. We see how he became the first, ultimately doomed, icon of rock;  from delta blues man, Dylan-esque poet and the technological prophet, Hendrix was the synthesis of everything that had gone before him and all that was to come. This episode also explores the influence of rhythm & blues on a generation of British musicians such as The Rolling Stones, Cream and The Who and how the song-writing of Bob Dylan and studio developments of The Beatles transformed the possibilities and ambitions of rock.

Between Rock And an Art Place – How rock became a vehicle for artistic ideas and theatrical performance. From the pop-art multi-media experiments of Andy Warhol and the Velvet Underground to the sinister gentility of Peter Gabriel’s Genesis, this episode will trace the story of how artistic and conceptual expression permeated rock. We follow Pink Floyd from the fated art school genius of Syd Barrett via the global success of Dark Side of the Moon to the ultimate rock theatre show – The Wall. Along the way, the film will explore the retro-futurism of Roxy Music and the protean world of David Bowie.

Blank Generation – A tale of two cities, London and New York and the bands that emerged from the dispossessed, the lost, the angry: the blank generation. Each city gave birth to a bastard child that would be the biggest and fundamental shift in popular music since Elvis walked into Sun Studios 20 years previously - punk.  Through the scorched earth music of The Sex Pistols, 'Blank Generation' will unpick the relationship between the bankrupt New York and the class and race-riven London of the mid-1970’s and explores the music of The Clash, Ramones, Television, Patti Smith, The Damned and Buzzcocks.

Never Say Die – The longest surviving genre in rock, certainly the loudest, Heavy Metal is a worldwide phenomenon.  With no intention of going away, metal has been the most controversial and misunderstood of all rock genres.  Emerging at the tail end of the hippy dream, from the rust belt of industrial  England, heavy metal would go on to conquer the world, securing in the process the most loyal fan base of all.  With Black Sabbath as the undisputed Godfathers, we follow their highs and lows, and, along the journey, meet Deep Purple, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden and Metallica.

Global Jukebox – The film follows the development of some the biggest names in Rock in the 70s and 80s (among them Queen, Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, The Police and Dire Straits) and examines how - with events such as Live Aid and the rise of MTV  - Rock achieved a global influence on culture and politics.  The film will show how, in the early 90s, U2 effectively brought this era to a close, re-imagining what it meant to be a successful rock band, and reinventing the big rock show so completely that fifteen years later most major rock tours are still pale facsimiles of Zoo TV and Popmart.

The Last Rock Star – the rise of alternative rock in the USA. We trace the history of the American underground music scene that launched the careers of bands like REM, Nirvana and The Pixies and explore the influence of unsung pioneers like Black Flag and Husker Du. We explore why the bands that emerged from the underground offered an alternative both to the established music industry and the prevailing politics of the Reagan era and why their music resonated with the Generation X audience in search of songs that reflected their lives and articulated their hopes and fears. We’ll see how alternative bands began to enjoy greater popularity in the early 90s, with REM breaking into the mainstream charts with ‘Losing My Religion’, and we’ll take a fresh look at the explosion of the Seattle ‘grunge’ scene, culminating in the success of Nirvana’s ‘Nevermind’ and the short life and tragic death of Kurt Cobain – an artist whose triumph and tragedy continues to cast an inescapable shadow.

What the World is Waiting For – British Indie music was once seen as the bastion of the over earnest ‘High Fidelity’ snob who would sneer at chart success.  Often political in its stance, indie was a way of defining oneself in a sea of ersatz pop and vapid chart fodder. Not tied to the corporate dollar of the majors, the indie label was the redoubt against the forces of mediocrity and was a precious source of integrity and honesty. A generation would find meaning in the misery of The Smiths, and move onto the sounds of the Stone Roses, the heir of the indie music crown. We'll check in on Suede, Brit-pop's Blur v Oasis furore and how indie became a marketing device, ultimately losing any of it’s once cherished intimacy and integrity. Indie was mainstream. Indie was dead. Or was it? [Mof Gimmers]