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Proto-punk 1967

Garage rock turned hostile and repetitive, with noise and nihilism. Nobody called it punk yet, but everyone at CBGB copied from it.

Heaviness
5
Speed
7
Melody
5
Where from
Detroit / New York, USA
Tempo
140-180 bpm
Song length
2.5-6 min
Written about
Boredom, The body, Nihilism, Drugs, unromantically
Vocals
Sung

Why this one

You saidProto-punkMatchWeight
There, but not the point How much weight do you want behind it? 5 out of 10 100% ×2
Quick and driving What pace? 7 out of 10 100% ×2
Something to hold on to Do you want a tune you could hum afterwards? 5 out of 10 90% ×1
Weighted mean 98%

Ranked over all 150 genres in the encyclopedia, on the 3 answers you gave, weighted heaviness 2, pace 2, melody 1 out of 5. Proto-punk leads the next by 2 points. Where two genres score the same the broader one wins, because a genre with subgenres under it is somewhere to carry on from and a leaf is a full stop.

Five records, in this order

  1. 1Start one step outside
    Cover of Here Are The Sonics!!!

    The Sonics, Here Are The Sonics!!! 1965

    Garage rock

    The Sonics - Psycho. Gerry Roslie's voice is a decade ahead of punk.

    The pick names a track. This is the record the encyclopedia holds by them.

  2. 2The one to put on first
    Cover of The Stooges

    The Stooges, The Stooges 1969

    Proto-punk

    The Stooges - Fun House. The sound of a band self-destructing in real time.

  3. 3Then
    Cover of Fun House
  4. 4Then
    Cover of Kick Out the Jams
  5. 5Then
    Cover of White Light/White Heat

The first is the entry point for Garage rock, one step outside, so the second record has something to be heard against. After it come Proto-punk's essential records in the order the encyclopedia lists them. Every one of these has a page here with links out to somewhere it can be played.

If that is not it

Not simply the second and third of the ranking: those are almost always near neighbours of the first, which is three names for one suggestion. An alternate has to sit at least 4 steps through the tree from the headline and from the other alternate, which is the same floor the "sounds like this, but isn't" panel uses.