A form of 20th-century club dance music. As ‘garage’ rock, the term had earlier been used to denote movement primarily outside the commercial rock mainstream, predominantly in the USA and beginning in the 1960s, and with a philosophy somewhat akin to later Indie music. It originated at the Paradise Garage nightclub in New York City, from where the genre takes its name. Like house music, it was derived from and shares many of disco’s characteristics, with simple, rigid 4/4 rhythm tracks and pulsating basslines (often influenced by dub reggae). However, while disco used large orchestras to add texture to the music, garage is nearly all electronic. It is slower than house, with 115-20 beats per minute as opposed to 122-6, and, in contrast to the more rhythmic arrangements found in more generic house music, is smoother, more melodic and frequently contains a female soul vocal. Early garage records included D-Train’s You’re the One for Me and the Peech Boys’ Don’t Make Me Wait (both 1981). By the late 1990s, it found a new popularity in the UK as ‘speed garage’, sometimes inappropriately called ‘underground garage’, which increased the tempo to that of house, and became the dominating club sound for several years.
WILL FULFORD-JONES