Garage house is a subgenre of electronic dance music emerged in New York City and New Jersey during the early to mid 1980s and popularized in discothèques like Paradise Garage and Zanzibar. In comparison to house music, garage house has more polished attributes, including gospel-influenced piano riffs and female vocals. After the collapse of disco music in the late 1970s, dance music became overwhelmed with synthesizers, sequencers and drum machines. Therefore these said musical instruments were and are an essential part of garage music. The direction of garage house was primarily influenced by the New York-based discothèque Paradise Garage where the influential DJ Larry Levan played records. According to Blues & Soul, garage house started with the early records of Visual, e.g., "The Music Got Me" in 1983 and the material of The Peech Boys. Garage House was most popular during the early 1990s when many songs crossed over R&B and Pop radio in the U.S. and UK. Since then, it has remained popular in discotheques.
Essential Garage House artists include Adeva, Barbara Tucker, Blaze, Byron Stingily, Carolyn Harding, Cevin Fisher, Club 69, Colonel Abrams, Danny Tenaglia, François K, Joey Negro, Junior Vasquez, Kerri Chandler, Loleatta Holloway, Larry Levan, Masters at Work, Peech Boys, Raww, Romanthony, Roy Davis, Jr., Todd Edwards, Todd Terry, Tony Humphries, Ultra Naté, and Victor Calderone.