The 20 Best Garage Punk Songs, Ranked

The best garage punk song is “Psycho” by the Sonics. Tacoma, from Here Are the Sonics!!! on Etiquette, 1965. Gerry Roslie sings it like he is being dragged out of the room, the drums sound like they were recorded in a stairwell, and the whole thing is over before you have decided whether you approve.

Here is the defence. Garage punk is one idea played with total commitment, and “Psycho” commits harder than anything from its decade. The Kingsmen were sloppy. The Standells were catchy. The Sonics were violent, on purpose, with a saxophone. Every band below is chasing that sound or running from it. Play “Psycho” first. If it does nothing for you, the other nineteen will not either.

How we picked them

Taste first: these are the songs we would put on for a friend, in the order we would defend them. Then a check against something harder to argue with. This site holds playlists recovered from sixteen underground radio shows, 7,663 tracks in total. The Ramones turn up on 9 of those 16 shows, the Sonics and the 13th Floor Elevators on 7 each, the Cramps on 6. Those counts are by band, not by song, so they settle who belongs here rather than which track wins. Where our taste and the shows agreed, the band went in. Where we could not agree on a single song, we left the band out rather than fudge it. The numbers are the overall rank. The sections sort the songs by the job they do.

The first-listen songs

For somebody who has never heard any of this. Each one is famous for a reason.

3. Ramones, “Blitzkrieg Bop” (1976). The opening track of the first Ramones album and the cleanest argument ever made for four chords played fast. Strictly it is punk, not garage. The shows did not care, and neither do we. The chant is two words long and everybody already knows it.

4. The 13th Floor Elevators, “You’re Gonna Miss Me” (1966). Austin. Roky Erickson’s scream, and Tommy Hall’s electric jug bubbling under the song like something leaking. The jug sounds absurd on paper and essential on record.

7. Count Five, “Psychotic Reaction” (1966). San Jose teenagers in Dracula capes who took the Yardbirds’ rave-up and made it dumber and better. The speed-up in the middle is the entire point.

9. The Standells, “Dirty Water” (1966). A Los Angeles band singing about Boston, and Fenway Park still plays it after Red Sox wins. Mid-tempo, sneering, impossible to dislike.

17. The Seeds, “Pushin’ Too Hard”. Sky Saxon whining over an organ and not much more than two chords. It turns hypnotic somewhere in the second minute. We would rank it higher if it were shorter.

The fast ones

Put these on when the room needs to move or leave.

6. The Saints, “(I’m) Stranded” (1976). Brisbane, released on the band’s own label because nobody else wanted it. Ed Kuepper’s guitar is a wall with no door in it. Chris Bailey sounds bored and furious at the same time, which is harder than it looks.

12. Dead Boys, “Sonic Reducer” (1977). A Cleveland band that moved to New York, playing a song carried over from Rocket from the Tombs. Stiv Bators snarls, the riff hits like a door slammed on your hand, and nobody slows down.

14. The Pagans, “What’s This Shit Called Love?” Also Cleveland. Two entries from one rust-belt city in the late 70s tells you something about the city. Mike Hudson sounds like he is arguing with his own band and winning.

20. Jay Reatard, “It Ain’t Gonna Save Me” (2006). Memphis, from Blood Visions. Power-pop hooks played at the speed of early Oblivians. The proof that this form was still alive forty years after “Psycho”.

The strange ones

Songs that make people ask what on earth you are playing. That is the correct reaction.

5. The Cramps, “Human Fly” (1978). The first single on their own Vengeance label. No bass player, Poison Ivy’s guitar twanging like a surf record left in the sun, Lux Interior playing an insect with complete conviction. Rockabilly after something went badly wrong in the lab.

8. The Monks, “I Hate You” (1966). American GIs stationed in Germany who shaved tonsures and played an electric banjo. From Black Monk Time. It sounds like nothing else from 1966 and not much since.

11. The Trashmen, “Surfin’ Bird” (1963). A Minneapolis surf band stitched two Rivingtons songs together and lost their minds in the middle. It became a national hit, which still seems unlikely.

13. The Music Machine, “Talk Talk” (1966). Sean Bonniwell’s band dressed in black, one glove each. Fuzz, a vocal that sounds cornered, and barely two minutes from start to finish. Pure nerves.

19. Hasil Adkins, “She Said”. A West Virginia one-man band, playing guitar and drums at once. Most people found him through the Cramps’ cover. Start with his version anyway; it is far stranger.

The ones that sound like a car park fight

Not fast, necessarily. Just threatening.

2. The Stooges, “I Wanna Be Your Dog” (1969). Ann Arbor. John Cale produced it and hammers a single piano note through the whole song. Three chords that never resolve and Iggy Pop sounding like a problem nobody can solve. Only “Psycho” beats it.

10. The Gun Club, “Sex Beat” (1981). Los Angeles, from Fire of Love. Jeffrey Lee Pierce drags the blues through punk and does not apologise. The Cramps’ closest cousins, meaner and drunker.

15. Oblivians, “Christina”. Memphis, on Crypt. Three men swapping instruments, no bass, a recording that sounds like it cost nothing. This is what 90s garage punk was for.

16. Link Wray, “Rumble” (1958). An instrumental, and some radio stations banned it anyway. Distorted power chords played slowly enough to feel like a threat. Every song on this list owes it rent.

18. The Kingsmen, “Louie Louie” (1963). The FBI investigated whether the lyrics were obscene and concluded it could not tell what was being sung. The most garage punk thing a government has ever done.

Where to go next

Make a playlist of the first-listen section, add “Psycho” on top, and try it on someone new. If they ask for more, go straight to the strange ones. The fast section is for later.

A few bands we love sit just off this list because we could not settle on one song. The garage punk band ranking is where they get their due. If you want the line between the 60s bands and the 90s ones drawn properly, read garage punk vs garage rock. The garage punk guide covers the rest of the genre. And if you would rather hear this than read about it, our radio is on.