The Best Garage Punk Albums: Fifteen Records, Ranked

The best garage punk album ever made came out of Tacoma in 1965 on a small regional label, and everything since has been fighting for second place. Below are fifteen records, ranked, running from the 60s originals through Detroit and Memphis in the 90s to San Francisco in the 2010s. Every placement comes with a reason. Argue with them.

How we made the list

One album per artist. Compilations sit unranked at the bottom, because ranking Nuggets against a band’s own record is not a fair fight. The album had to work as an album, not as one great single with eleven passengers.

Then three questions. How hard does it hit? How much did later bands take from it? Does it still sound dangerous? A record had to score on at least two.

We have not heard every pressing, mix or reissue of these, so we are ranking the music and not the vinyl. New to the genre? Read what garage punk is first.

One piece of evidence from our own shelf. Across sixteen underground radio shows recovered for the lost network archive, 7,663 tracks in all, the Ramones were played on 9 shows, the Sonics and the 13th Floor Elevators on 7 each, the Cramps on 6. That is airplay, not a vote. It does line up with the top of this list closely enough to mention.

The top five

1. The Sonics, Here Are the Sonics (Etiquette, 1965)

Five guys from Tacoma, Washington, playing as if somebody had told them rock and roll was about to be banned. Gerry Roslie does not sing so much as shred his throat. The guitars are fuzzed past what was considered acceptable recording practice, and the drums thump like they are coming through a wall. “The Witch”, “Psycho” and “Strychnine” are all here. So are covers of “Have Love, Will Travel” and “Money” that leave the originals looking well-mannered. Every garage punk band since has been trying to make this record again. Most managed one song’s worth.

2. The Stooges, Fun House (Elektra, 1970)

The debut has the hits. Fun House has the band. Don Gallucci, who had played keyboards in the Kingsmen, recorded the Stooges close to how they played live, and it shows: Iggy Pop howling, Ron Asheton’s guitar grinding, Scott Asheton hitting like a piston. On the second side Steve Mackay’s saxophone tears the whole thing open. This is where garage rock stops being teenage and starts being frightening. Play “Down on the Street” first.

3. The Cramps, Songs the Lord Taught Us (I.R.S., 1980)

Recorded in Memphis with Alex Chilton producing, and it sounds like a rockabilly record dug up after twenty years in wet ground. Lux Interior and Poison Ivy took the sleaziest corners of the 50s and 60s and played them with two guitars, no bass and total conviction. Their version of “Strychnine” is a straight line from the Sonics to everything that came after. “TV Set” opens the record. If it does not make you grin, nothing on this list will.

4. Ramones, Ramones (Sire, 1976)

Fourteen songs in under half an hour. Purists leave it off garage lists because it is not a 60s record and the Ramones were building something new. We think that misses the point: this is garage rock with every optional part removed. It ranks fourth and not higher only because the three records above it are this music in its rawest state, and Ramones is already a step toward something tidier. “Blitzkrieg Bop” is the obvious door, and it is obvious for a reason.

5. The Oblivians, Popular Favorites (Crypt, 1996)

Memphis, three people, swapping instruments between songs. Greg Cartwright, Jack Yarber and Eric Friedl wrote the rulebook for 90s garage punk: blown out, fast, funny, soaked in blues and soul without ever sounding like a museum piece. Popular Favorites is their sharpest set of songs. If you only know the 60s records, this is the one that shows you what the music turned into.

Six to ten

6. The Gories, I Know You Fine, but How You Doin’ (New Rose, 1990)

Detroit. Two guitars, drums, no bass, nothing you could call polish. Mick Collins, Dan Kroha and Peggy O’Neill sound like a band that learned Bo Diddley and John Lee Hooker from scratchy singles and never wanted to learn anything else. Half the 90s bands on this list owe them a drink. Collins went on to the Dirtbombs and Kroha to the Demolition Doll Rods, but this is where the Detroit revival starts.

7. The Reatards, Teenage Hate (Goner, 1998)

Jay Reatard was still a teenager when Goner put this out, and it sounds exactly like that: shrieking, cheap, furious and catchier than it has any right to be. His later solo record Blood Visions (In the Red, 2006) is the cleaner, smarter version of the same instinct. Teenage Hate ranks higher because it is the source, and because nobody has made a garage record this ugly sound this much fun since.

8. The 13th Floor Elevators, The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators (International Artists, 1966)

An Austin band on a Houston label. The word “psychedelic” in the title hides how hard this hits. Roky Erickson’s scream on “You’re Gonna Miss Me” belongs next to Roslie’s, and Tommy Hall’s amplified jug bubbles under everything like a broken machine. It sits at eight rather than in the top five because it is a psych record as much as a punk one, and the jug is not for everyone.

9. MC5, Kick Out the Jams (Elektra, 1969)

Recorded live at the Grande Ballroom in Detroit. The sound is enormous: two guitars going at each other, a crowd that seems to be part of the band. The speeches between songs have dated badly. The noise has not. It ranks here as the bridge from 60s garage to high-energy punk.

10. The Saints, (I’m) Stranded (EMI, 1977)

Brisbane, about as far from New York and London as a punk band could get. Chris Bailey’s sneer and Ed Kuepper’s wall of guitar arrived at the same place as the Ramones without, as far as anyone can tell, needing them. It is on the list because it proves the point the whole genre rests on. You do not need a scene. You need a garage and an amplifier that is too loud.

Eleven to fifteen

11. Black Lips, Let It Bloom (In the Red, 2005)

Atlanta. Sloppy, gleeful, half flower-punk and half drunk Saturday night. Later records found bigger audiences. This is the one we reach for, because the songs are short and the band sounds like it is having a better time than you.

12. The Monks, Black Monk Time (Polydor, 1966)

American GIs stationed in West Germany who shaved tonsures into their heads and played an electric banjo like a drum. Nothing else from 1966 sounds like it. It ranks this low only because it is a dead end: nobody could follow it, and nobody really tried.

13. Ty Segall, Melted (Goner, 2010)

The best way into the Bay Area fuzz wave of the 2010s. Big riffs, blown-out vocals, songs that end before they wear out. Segall went on to release records faster than anyone can keep up with. Start here.

14. Thee Oh Sees, Floating Coffin (Castle Face, 2013)

John Dwyer’s band on his own label, at its most locked-in. Relentless, repetitive in the good way, louder than it needs to be. It leans toward psych, which costs it a few places, but the 2010s produced no tighter garage band.

15. The Seeds, The Seeds (GNP Crescendo, 1966)

Los Angeles. Sky Saxon’s sneer, a cheap organ and “Pushin’ Too Hard”, one of the essential garage singles of the decade. As an album it says the same thing a dozen times. It says it well enough to make the cut.

The compilations, unranked

If you buy nothing else, buy these alongside the albums. Nuggets (Elektra, 1972), compiled by Lenny Kaye, gathered the mid-60s American singles bands into one place and gave a forgotten decade a canon. Crypt’s Back from the Grave series, which Tim Warren started in 1983, digs rougher and deeper, and it is the better guide to how primitive this music really was. Greg Shaw’s Pebbles series sits between the two. The history of garage punk explains how those records shaped the 80s revival.

Where to go next

Play Here Are the Sonics and Popular Favorites back to back tonight. Thirty years apart, same music. If that works, move on to the garage punk bands we rank highest and pick the ones on this list you have not heard yet.