What is goth music?

How do you define goth music? Is it Marilyn Manson? No! Is it Evanescence? Hell No! Ok, so what defines goth music? According to the dictionary it is: A style of rock music that often evokes bleak, lugubrious imagery. Wow, that's helpful, right? How about this? Okay, now that you are getting a general idea, here is my definition of what I think goth is: Goth is a state a mind, and interest in the dark macabre. It is about exploring the spectrum of human emotions- strongly focused on love or lack thereof (romanticism). It's about human tragedy, abnormal psyche, and a blurring of the gender lines (androgeny). It is not the clothes you wear, or the way you do your makeup or you hair, or being pathetically skinny and suicidal. Many people have painted a bad stereotype for goths. They think that they are all manically depressed, or mentally disturbed and have a total lack of respect for life. This is not true. Not all goths trudge around in all black with their hands stapled to their foreheads, thinking they are 200 year old tragic vampires. There are a variety of subcultures to the subculture.
So my next point is: What music do you think is goth? I'd like to know.

Like punk, Goth has become more about the fashion and the myth than anything related to the music.

But let's say it "started" with The Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshees and Bauhaus, and went downhill from there.

Originally posted by deadlynightshade
So my next point is: What music do you think is goth? I'd like to know.

Nothing that requires electricity. But 250 year old Austrian chamber music is pretty Goth.

Originally posted by MaskedAvatar
But let's say it "started" with The Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshees and Bauhaus, and went downhill from there.

Yeah, I apply a Schrodinger's Cat perspective to almost everything. Once "labeled" it's dead. Bauhaus and The Damned (probably my favorite bands) are "Goth" now, but weren't then.

Yes, Eloise, I can see the damned Goth connection, but go on punk, make my day.

Of the "middle ages" of post-punk industrial Goth history, I would tip my hat to Christian Death and particularly the underrated Gitane Demone.

Well being part of goth/punk/cyber subculture for nearly twenty years now, I am under the opinion that it has changed and evolved just like everything else. Especially when someone realizes that money can be made off it. It is the commercialization of any original idea that kills the purity of it.

So what is gothic music? It all depends on what era you are speaking of or familiar with. What passes to the masses as goth today would be laughed at if not spit on by the old school crew. I always thought that Manson being considered goth just because he had a darker image was funny. That is not to say that I am being an elitist (the song Posthuman kills), but it just isn’t really goth. The genre is generally considered to have started in what is considered to be the ‘batcave era’. This consisted of the most well known band, Bauhaus, as well as bands like Specimen, The Birthday Party, Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, The Virgin Prunes, etc. There really wasn’t anything mopey about them. It was just a dark punk and pre-neo wave. Then in the early 80s, you had bands like Christian Death and Sisters of Mercy, which assisted with developing the darker image. Towards the end of the 80s, things became a bit more synthesized and goth thinned out. Then in the early to mid 90s, you saw the emergence of the next wave of goth with bands like The Wake, Children on Stun, Skeletal Family. After around 95’, I got out of the music because it was becoming all ethereal landscapes and just too ‘Oooo I’m just so spooky and depressed’ for me. To me there are generally two types of goth: gothic rock/gothic punk and the mopey style (which I never really got into).

So what does this old man consider real goth music to be? Experimental, twisted psyche, punk laced, twitching like a schizoid on the dance floor, etc. I haven’t heard any new music that I would consider acceptable gothic rock/punk over the past decade. BUT then again it evolved like everything else. These days I mostly listen to EBM, electrosynth, futurepop, noise, industrial dance, etc and they have been influenced by the old school goth bands, but would hardly be considered goth.

Just pretend that you’re an insane corpse and there you have real goth.

The Birthday Party and "gothic" never belonged in the same sentence so far as I could see. They are an ensemble of nice country boys from Victoria, who played only one song about bats.

It must be the perception of members of a certain subculture (not the music) that determines what's in and what's hot and what's not.

Diamanda Galas would surely be more of a prototype dead-undead than anyone heretofore mentioned? With an indisputable operatic talent to match the image that vampires feed on.

Originally posted by MaskedAvatar
The Birthday Party and "gothic" never belonged in the same sentence so far as I could see. They are an ensemble of nice country boys from Victoria, who played only one song about bats.

Well, in my defense, I am refering to the old school mentality that goth originally had more to do with experimental chaos then moody children of the night. Sure those bands were 'darker' then the norm, but I really didn't feel they had the 'Oh, woe is me. I'm so misunderstood.' message yet. It was more of the abnormailties of the psyche then isolation. Now Joy division...there was some isolationism even though I am hesitant to label them as goth because of what goth is seen as these days: mainly cheese.

As I have already stated, I think that the moody factor was just something that people found familiar to clutch to as a connection over time thus redefining the feel/image of the genre.

Don't force me to 'release the bats' on your ass! Or perhaps I'll get Nick to give you a lap dance.

That album was some funny stuff! Any time I play it, my gf begs me to change the tape as it is "music to go insane by". Strangely she does not seem to be any happier when I flip it to the other side and force her to listen to 45 Grave.

Pure evil!

[B]Here it goes.
Nu goth is a genre thats dark but its much more depressing then real goth ,the lyrics are often more morbid and less romantic.

)IMPORTANT LINK/FREE GOTHIC MP3


Name - album - song(s)


The sisters of mercy-some girls wander by mistake-temple of love,alice,marian

The 69 Eyes -Blessed Be - Gothic Girl, Brandon Lee * * * * * *

evanescence- Fallen -Tourniqet, Even In Death (Nu-goth)

HIM- Razorblade Romance/And Love Said No - Sigillum Diaboli, The Funeral Of Hearts(Nu-goth) * * * * * *

Jack off jill-Clear Hearts Grey Flowers - When I am Queen, Fear Of Dying(Nu-goth/punk)

The Cure- Pornography/Disintegration - Cold, Lovesong, Pictures Of You,the figurhead * * * * * *

Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures - New Dawn Fades, Dead Souls, Transmission

Bauhaus - In The Flat Field - Rosegarden, Funeral Of Sores, Stigmata, Martyr* * * * * *

Miranda Sex Garden - Fairytale About Slavery - Fairytale About Slavery

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Murder Ballads - Stagger Lee

Plasmatics - Coup D`etat - Prisoners Of The Damned

Scarling - Sweet Heart Dealer - Baby Dracula, The Last Day I Was Happy, Bandaid Covers The Bullethole(nu-goth)

Seigmen - Metropolis - Slaver Av Solen

Siouxsie & The Banshees - Join Hands - Mother, The Lords Prayer

Bloody dead and sexy-paint it red-the rose red bloody stage * * * * * *

Killing Miranda-consummate-angelfly,enter the dagon

Other albums/songs:
Lacrimosa - Inferno

Bauhaus - Gotham

Specimen - Wet Warm Cling Film Red Velvet Crush

Nick Cave - Tender Prey

Fields Of The Nephilim - The Nephilim,hollow doll

The ghost of Lemora-dread the day the cities rise




Goth metal

Lullacry-allright tonight

poisonblack-love infernal * * * * * *

Tristania-widow's weed,ashes-wormwood,sirenel,ibre,equlibrium * * * * * *

Sirenia -at sixes and sevens -sister nightfall

Lacuna coil-In a reverie,comalies-cold,swamped * * * * * *

Cradle of filth-nymphetamine,midian,bitter suites to succubi-a gothic romance,nymphetamine fix,suicide and other comforts,nemesis.* * * * * *

Moonspell-wolfheart-vampiria,made of storm * * * * * *

seraphim shock-red silk vow-god of this world,beyond forever * * * * * *

sins of thy beloved-lake of sorrow-the kiss,worthy of you,lake of sorrow * * * * * *

Type o negative-bloody kisses-we hate everyone,everything dies * * * * * *

Theatre of tragedy-a rose for the dead,venus * * * * * *

Umbra et Imageo-Die welt brennt-feire und licht(industrial/gothic)

Kovenantanimatronic-mirrors paradise,jihad (goth metal with electronic influences)* * * * * *

bladflowers-diabolic-ablaze (similar to jack off jill)

My dying bride-the dreadfull hours-the raven and the rose,the cry of mankind (goth influenced doom metal) * * * * * *

Other songs

Vampiria-crown of crows

Edenbride-arcana

ahes you leave-your divinity

Tristania-bird

Entwine-the pit

Xandria-isis osiris

Evereve-abraza la luz

Mortal love-all the beauty[

Therion-typhon

Mortal love-I want to die

Beseech-drama


Industrial,alternative & EBM

wumpscut-evil young flesh-witches dance

Blutengel-child of glas-weg zu mir,vampire romances

Gothminister- Empire Of Dark Salvation - Angel

Cruxshadows-the mystery of the whisper-even angels fall,ave maria.

Mortiis-aanden som gjorde opprør-en mørk horisont

Funker vogt-survivor-history [/B]

to read seven more pages go here

[edit on 4-22-2005 by websurfer]

As MA says, bauhaus were the original goth act. Was just listening to them there that's why this thread caught my attention.

People don't think of mellow bands like bauhaus or the cure when they think of goth, though. They think of metal. Which is all crap. Yes, all of it.

I saw Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds again on Friday. Nick at 47 would comfortably fit into the Neil Diamond/Sid Vicious crossover genre, but with more talent. Met "St Nick" and his gospel choir rehearsing a few hours before showtime.

But I see Nick evolving into a cabaret piano man with Mick Harvey taking up the reins as Bad Seeds leader and the departed Blixa going potty with the next few Einsturzende Neubauten releases.

Good fun, certainly not as high energy as the "gothic" The Birthday Party of 25 years ago. Watching ageing heroin addiction-reformed murder balladeers in eight piece ensembles backed by four-piece multiracial choirs is "quite" gothic.

[edit on 15-5-2005 by MaskedAvatar]