# Talk:Garage rock

This article suffers from overlinking, in violation of WP:LINKING. I spent time fixing most of the issues but Dimadick reverted me wholesale because they didn't like my infobox changes. I'm not going to re-do all my work, so I'm just leaving a note here about the MoS problems. They will have to be fixed if the article is ever nominated at FAC. --Laser brain (talk) 18:13, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
You even removed links from the see also section. That is way overboard. Dimadick (talk) 18:18, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

@Garagepunk66:
I know that garage rock isn't a parameterized subgenre, but there are stylistic criteria we go by in addition to "knowing it when you hear it". We shouldn't include everything (whether psychedelia, pop, folk) unless the song in question shares more than half of its characteristics with the generally accepted characteristics of garage rock. One that does not, for example, is "Laugh Laugh" by the Beau Brummels...not musically nor as a recording. Why it was included on the re-edition of Nuggets baffles me. If you took a poll among garage-rock fans and critics alike, I believe most would concur it isn't garage rock. Just because a source says it is, doesn't necessarily means it's true. Someone could write an article/blog post claiming The Fifth Estate pioneered garage rock, and you could list it as a source, but obviously we both know that isn't true. Allmusic is not considered an authoritative source. Nor are the critics. A critic's opinions are no better than a loyal fan's opinions, unless the critic is unanimously considered an expert on the subject. 
Anyhow, I know a lot about garage rock. And I know you do. I see you've contributed a great deal of information to this topic and numerous wiki pages, gone through all that protracted talk-page conflict, so I commend your hard effort. I wouldn't have the patience for all that. We just seem have a different view of what constitutes garage rock. (I for one wouldn't call "Incense and Peppermints" garage.) Ah well, sorry for this rather digressive post. I wish there were a team of us obscure 60s buffs here to provide consensus rulings. 
--'60sMusicMan (talk) 16:38, 31 December 2019 (UTC)


##### More comments
@garagepunk66
The Fifth Estate aren't mentioned anywhere in the article, so I replaced their photo with The Seeds, who were well-known and influential. 
The Fifth Estate also weren't as pivotal as some critics would have you believe. "Love is all a Game" was the only single they released in 1966, and it certainly wasn't a prototype of garage. Most of their 1967 stuff was barely garage rock, with "That's Love" being one of the few exceptions. It's a shame they aren't more known for that song as it's clearly their best, especially in comparison to that novelty cut they had a top 20 hit with. Their D-Men singles in '65 weren't really garage rock either (mostly beat music), unless you want to count the amateur songwriting and recording quality. 
I would additionally downplay the "influence" of "96 Tears" on the development of the genre. Yes, it was a short-time hit, but contrary to Dave Marsh calling it a "landmark exposition", it was actually late to the party (August release). The only thing it could've done is inspire more prominent use of electric organ, even though other bands were concurrently using them. But organ usage really didn't kick off until 1967. So I just don't see the connection. For example, Strawberry Alarm Clock, whose music relies heavily on electric organ, never claimed to be inspired by "96 Tears" to include organs in their music. To my ears, "96 Tears" also somewhat rips the tune and organ riff of "Double Shot of My Baby's Love" by The Swingin' Medallions, which came out a few months prior. I think the inclusion of "96 Tears" on Nuggets, which was merely Lenny Kaye's personal collection/favorites, is the reason people pay so much attention to it and overpraise it. It's also pretty funny as the rest of their output leaves much to desire. It seems they couldn't stray much from the formula of "96 Tears".
--'60sMusicMan (talk) 18:22, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Hello, '60sMusicMan, I really appreciate your passion for the genre.  Keep it up!  I do agree with you, by the way.  I do wish that there were more garage enthusiasts here like you and myself, but for the sake of trying to make the article paletable to a consensus of editors, I have to separate myself from my enthusiasm, and be a "good Wikipedian".  I do understand your point about the Fifth Estate.  Their picture has been in the article for a long time—preceding my existence here.[1]  You may find this crazy, but back then, it was only one of three pictures in the whole article--the only one of an actual 60s band!
Back then, it was my feeling—and I had heard others on the talk page express it too—that the article was way too short and did not capture the fullness and richness of this genre, that was so desperately deserved.  So, eventually, I began to work on helping expand the article.  The expansion offered a chance to add a lot more text and pictures covering a lot of bands.  So, I was eventually able to take the previous statements describing the stylistic characteristics of the genre, and grow them into a full section of their own (that also captures the social milieu).
I asked myself, too, whether the picture of the Fifth Estate should be retained.  But, by now having the new Stylistic Characteristics section, the photo gave a perfect opportunity to illustrate what a typical 60s garage band looked like.  The reader can see this little unknown band with the Farfisa organ, etc.  Perfect!  Because, the idea of the section was not to highlight the most important bands (that comes later), but to capture the homegrown essence of the genre as a first impression.  So, the picture of the Fifth Estate photo works perfectly in that context as a "case in point", not an actual feature of the band itself.  As, for the Seeds, I made sure to put their picture in the California section, but someone deleted the picture file, and a bot came over and removed it's last vestige there.  Well, I tried.  Incidentally, I'd like to get a couple of "guitar-oriented" sound files in here (they are now mostly organ-centric).
I also see your point about "96 Tears", (I agree about the Beau Brummell's too, but other editors would object if I took the statement out).  The main purpose of mentioning Dave Marsh's quote there was not to prove how groundbreaking "96 Tears" was, but to illustrate the first time a major rock critic referred to the music as "punk rock", the original name for the genre.  I could try change the statement from a quote to a paraphrase, but the quote may need to be retained for the sake of its historical value (in relation to how the genre came to be classified).  Best wishes to you! Garagepunk66 (talk) 05:14, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
I removed the word "landmark..." in the quote.  That is not in any way to denigrate the the band, but rather to put focus on classification of the genre, which is the purpose of the section (not ranking of acts).  I hope this was a good way to address your concern and better serve the needs of the section.  Garagepunk66 (talk) 05:45, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

As a 40-year veteran of both professional, and many, many garage bands, "garage band" has always meant a band that spent more time rehearsing than gigging -- and typically rehearsing in a make-shift space, like some band-member's garage.
I never heard the term "garage rock" used to refer to an alleged genre of music prior to about 2010.  It is not clear from the article when the term actually began to be used as a genre descriptor, but is is surely not correct to apply it to commercial music of the 1960s. 1970s, or 1980s.  When I first heard the term used in this way it was by a music commentator who seemingly misheard (or thought he misheard) "grunge", and turned it into "garage".
In any event, the term is still used among musicians to refer to essentially amateur wannabe bands, who spend most or all of their time rehearsing for the gigs that never seem to come.  Despite all the verbiage in this article, I question whether this "genre" exists at all.  It seems to be a very recent collective term for a wide variety of music that someone seems to think should be a distinctive genre -- but which really isn't.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.95.43.253 (talk) 21:53, 13 April 2022 (UTC) 

With all due respect, you are confusing the terms "garage bands" and "garage rock", which though largely co-dependent, are not necessarily the same thing.  "Garage bands" has a broader meaning.  You are correct to note that the term "garage bands" can be applied irrespective of genre—after all, there are plenty of garage bands out there today attempting to do amateur versions of heavy metal riffs.  But, such acts would not be called "garage rock."
The term "garage rock" designates a style of rock music that emerged in the 1960s that was eventually identified in the early 1970s as a genre by a handful of influential rock critics and collectors.  The article goes into detail about this development in the "Recognition and classification" section and cites numerous reliable sources.  The review for the Nuggets LP in the January 1973 issue of Rolling Stone speaks of this form literally as a "genre" (at that time, the term "punk rock" was the favored term for the genre, pre-dating the more familiar use of that term for the later post-1974 phenomenon).  The "Recognition" section goes on to explain how the term "Garage rock" became the favored term for this genre in the 1980s.  The genre name can also be applied to later movements that have attempted to re-enact or update this style.
The music of this genre, while by no means exclusively amateur, is nonetheless typified by a generalized simplicity and brevity of form, and has nurtured a whole cottage industry of several thousand LP and CD compilations that has a worldwide following—and has been written about continually in rock magazines for the last 50 years.  So, this is indeed a genre, as I hope that you will have the immense pleasure to discover through listening to the music—I'd recommend to start with the 4-disc Nuggets box set on Rhino Records and then go on the plethora of others such as the the Pebbles series.  By the way, there is a chapter devoted to this genre in the Rolling Stone History of Rock & Roll.
And, while though the term "garage bands" can certainly be used to designate acts outside of this genre, it takes on a special meaning when applied to the 1960s acts of this style, because the music then was so prevalent, and its many recordings of such surprisingly enduring quality—it was the glorified era of the garage band, particularly in America, and it was then that the whole thing crystallized into a recognizable form. Garagepunk66 (talk) 17:39, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

Punk rock was initially the term for garage rock as an AKA. But because it became used as a term to describe contemporary bands in the late 70s that's been kind of erased I think that should be included here but make the distinction. read this from 1973 and states "Punk Rock: The Story of Garage Bands" again this is 1973! It's revisionist to state it was called "'60s punk", when it was originally called punk rock. Writer Greg Shaw also calls it punk rock years earlier in 1971: https://www.worldradiohistory.com/UK/Radio-One-Pop/Radio-One-Story-of-Pop-12.pdf Aradicus77 (talk) 02:40, 14 November 2025 (UTC)

The article doesn't say it was called '60s punk in the 1970s. It has been called '60s punk by some in later times. Wikipedia is written for present-day readers and, at most, future readers. Anyway, it would be OK to remove it from the first sentence in my opinion. However, then the alternative name "punk rock" in the infobox would need an explanatory footnote or removal from the infobox. The fact that this was called punk rock before this term acquired a different (and much more widespread) meaning, is explained with much needed prose in the article's body. Again, I don't think Wikipedia is written for readers that somehow live in 1973 and somehow can read Wikipedia. AwerDiWeGo (talk) 11:33, 16 November 2025 (UTC)