Proto-punk

Proto-punk (or protopunk) is music that foreshadowed the punk rock genre, particularly rock music artists during the 1960s and early-to mid 1970s. A retrospective label, the musicians involved were generally not originally associated with each other and came from a variety of backgrounds and styles; together, they anticipated many of punk's musical and thematic attributes.

The tendency towards aggressive, raw, simplistic rock songs is a trend rooted in the earliest forms of rock and roll. The American garage rock movement of the mid-1960s is a key influence in the development of punk rock. By the late 1960s, Detroit bands the Stooges and MC5 had taken the influence of garage groups to form a distinct prototypical punk sound. In the following years, this sound spread both domestically and internationally, alongside glam rock and pub rock, into several regional early underground punk scenes in New York, Ohio, Australia and England.