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Garage is any of several different varieties of modern electronic dance music generally connected to house or disco. Usage is different in the US and UK.
The term was first used in the US to describe records in the late 70s and early 80s that formed the eclectic playlist of the "Paradise Garage" nightclub in New York City. Over time, the term in the US came to mainly describe the more soulful, gospel-inspired styles of disco and house music first made popular by Tony Humphries at club Zanzibar in Newark, NJ.
The evolution of house music in the UK in the late 1990s led to the term being applied to a new form of music also known as "speed garage" or UK Garage. This style is now frequently combined with other forms of music like hip hop, rap and R&B, all broadly filed under the description urban music.
The correct pronunciation of UK Garage is "Garridge", rather than in the same way as the building (although the pronunciation "garridge" for the building is also common in the UK).
Artists like Dizzee Rascal (2003 winner of the Mercury Music Award) have made East London Garage mainstream in the UK. Garage is really a mixture between drums and bass with rap or hip hop. Garage progressively becomes more raw in East London with much more emphasis on electronic beats and rhythms.
"'Garage' is one of the most mangled terms in dance music. The term derives from the Paradise Garage itself, but it has meant so many different things to so many different people that unless you're talking about a specific time and place, it is virtually meaningless. Part of the reason for this confusion (aside from various journalistic misunderstandings and industry misappropriations) is that the range of music played at the Garage was so broad. The music we now call 'garage' has evolved from only a small part of the club's wildly eclectic soundtrack." -- Frank Broughton/Bill Brewster in Last Night A DJ Saved My Life
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