The 100+ Best Garage Rock Artists, Ranked

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Updated April 15, 2024 45.3K views
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25.3K votes
1.1K voters
4 reranks
Voting Rules
Upvote your favorite garage rock bands

Rock music, at its purest, rawest form is exciting, dangerous and energetic. That's why garage rock and garage rock bands resonate with so many fans. The fuzzy, lo-fi sound made through the use of distortion that these bands made was a contrast from the slicked up pop sounds, and even were more challenging to listen to than the rock bands of the time. Though garage rock's heyday was in the 1960s, there are many garage rock bands that still are as important as some of the groups that came after them. Garage rock, and the best garage rock bands, thus, has been one of the most influential genres to cast it's umbrella over rock music during those formative years.

So, who are the best garage rock bands? This list of garage rock bands includes all garage rock bands from music history, so that means garage rock revival bands like The White Stripes and Arctic Monkeys are included on here with the likes of The Stooges, The Kinks and MC5. You'll also see popular garage rock bands like The Black Keys on this poll of top garage bands. All garage rock bands should be on this list, including new ones and ones you may not have heard of.

That said, it's up to you to pick the best garage rock bands. This list  answers the questions "who are the best garage rock bands of all time?" and "who is the greatest garage rock musician ever?" The best garage rock bands should be carefully chosen, so you need to vote on the greatest garage rock bands and not just the popular ones. If you know enough about the genre, please vote based on the quality of the band's music instead of just voting for the most popular garage rock bands that you might've heard of. {#nodes}
Most divisive: Ty Segall
Over 1.1K Ranker voters have come together to rank this list of Garage Rock Bands