What is rock music about?

Feel free to narrow this question down to a certain segment of rock, or to the rock music you like or don’t like. Although if anyone wants to tackle the issue of what rock, overall, is about, compared to say classical or jazz, or whatever else you want to compare it to, that would be just fine.

I asked my wife this yesterday, and she said it was about the beat. It was about dancing. Personally, I find a lot of rock music to be about rawness and a certain kind of insistent energy (was listening to The Boss at the time).

Some of it is about the story. Some of it is about the music, even, although not much, I don’t think, because it is mostly too simple to be about music. Perhaps you disagree. Sometimes simplicity is very important in music, but I think that if you listen to rock for music, you’re going to get bored awfully fast. Which means you must be listening for something else.

But I’m a jazz musician, and I look for complexity. Simplicity can breed complexity, but I don’t usually find that in rock music. Usually it seems to be there to support something else, like dancing, or feeling, or a story or a specific energy. For me, anyway. I trust others will find other things in it.