Garage Rock | 45 rpm Records
Garage rock records is a genre that remained nameless until garage rock records critics retroactively identified it as its own genre, an early form of what would eventually be known as punk. First hitting the scene in 1963 and lasting until around 1967, garage rock is a raw form of rock and roll.
Garage rock gets its name because many of the bands that performed were from middle-class suburbs, and got their start as professional musicians at a young age inside of their parent’s garages. Due to this setting, the genre has a heavy influx of songs about the dramas of being a teenager or a young adult, featuring songs about high school and women problems.
The electric guitar was heavily used with a distortion effect to accompany the more violent vocalization style that would typically end up as screaming into the microphone. Due to the age of the musicians, the style and musical technical skills varied heavily in the genre. Ranging from one chord songs from The Seed up to higher quality music from the Fifth Estate, the genre saw many regional sounds from across the United States and Canada.
Due to the large number of rock records bands forming during the era, many went on to sign label deals, but the majority of them ended up being commercial failures. A lot of the bands only had an influence in their own regions, being better fit as local bands.
In the waning days of the genre’s popularity, most of the bands saw little success and the ones that were being hailed as popular ended up being labeled as punk rock or protopunk. Many argue that the last garage rock band of that era was Iggy Pop and The Stooges.
Since that time there have been some revival efforts from committed fans and musicians of the genre, with some such as The White Stripes reaching moderate success.