After
Rock & Roll saw a relative decline in popularity during the early 1960s, new acts that had this genre as their main template as well as influences such as
Surf Rock,
Rhythm & Blues, British
Beat Music and early
Pop/Rock would emerge. Their musical approach was distinguished for being relatively raw and energetic, generally employing simple, fuzzbox-distorted guitar melodies and many times even shouting or screaming. Since many of these groups featured rather untrained musicians, aimed for an amateurish approach to their music and/or tended to practice in their garages, the style has been retroactively dubbed as Garage Rock. Notable exponents of the genre during the 60s include
Paul Revere & The Raiders,
The Kingsmen,
The Trashmen,
Los Saicos,
The Sonics,
The Standells,
Them,
The Knickerbockers,
The Seeds,
Monks and
The Troggs, as well as
Psychedelic Rock bands such as
The 13th Floor Elevators and
The Electric Prunes.
Garage Rock has been considered as one of the most important precursors and influences to the
Punk Rock explosion of the second half of the 1970s and the genre is strongly related to the so-called
Proto-Punk phenomenon that predicted the style. While Garage Rock would suffer a decline of popularity during the last years of the 60s, bands from the Detroit Rock scene, including
The Stooges and
MC5 would continue with the legacy of the genre, playing an even more hard-edged and aggressive style than earlier artists did. This would also contribute not only to the development of Punk, but also of
Hard Rock. The 1972 release of the first
Nuggets compilation has also been credited for a continued popular interest in the genre.
After the appearance of Punk Rock and its subsequent derivative genres, Garage Rock gained newer followers, to the extent that it paved the way for a second wave of the genre, now commonly know as a so-called
Garage Rock Revival. This was an underground music movement related to bands such as
DMZ,
The Chesterfield Kings,
The Fleshtones,
Lyres and
The Milkshakes that garnered a mostly cult following in its heyday. Furthermore, a
Garage Punk fusion style, mixing aspects of both Garage and Punk Rock, has been developed since the late 1970s, sharing close ties with the newer Garage Rock sound.
In the early 2000s, several
Alternative Rock-associated bands became commercially successful. Since the likes of
The White Stripes,
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club,
The Hives,
The (International) Noise Conspiracy,
The Von Bondies and
The Libertines were influenced by certain aspects of Garage Rock and/or had a certain consistency with the original sound, the media eventually re-christened this new movement as a new "Garage Rock Revival". However, many purists have opposed to this use of the term, and while the popular usage of Garage Rock Revival to refer to these bands has stuck, the subject of whether most of these acts can be considered as part of the genre or not has been highly debatable.
It's Garage Rock Week!
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