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This will be an examination of the history of Goth music. I know several of my friends are definitely more of an authority on this than I am, but I like to think I know enough. I once again felt compelled to build a bridge between Gen-X and the younger folks who came into the scene a bit later. I know many people who seem to equate Goth and Emo because the scenes share some aesthetics, but the music is vastly different.
My categories for this song-a-day exploration of Goth are as follows:
1) Origins – bands and songs that may or may not be officially “Goth,” but certainly helped spawn the genre
2) The Dark Wave – the emergence of the first Goth bands from a combination of Punk and New Wave
3) The Metal/Industrial Edge – Goth music’s transition into the 90s and influences from hard rock and heavy metal
4) Downtempo – the simultaneous and contrasting movement towards trance and ethereal Goth
5) Lasting Impact – just a couple of post-Goth songs that I want to comment on in terms of how they relate to the genre
As always, this will be a mix of well-known songs and much more obscure ones. (If you know all of them, you’re probably one of the people I was referring to earlier.) However, if you’re familiar with my various FB music series, then you know that the context and flow is important. You may disagree with some of my choices, and that’s fine. Everything is up for discussion and interpretation.
Gothtember
Day 1 (Origins) – The Damned, “New Rose”
There are plenty of Goth influences that predate the 70s – The Doors, The Stooges, The Velvet Underground – but the most direct origins of Goth lie in the British Punk movement of the mid to late 70s. (This is part of why Goth began as mostly a British phenomenon, as you’ll see throughout this series.)
The Damned later embraced more of the Gothic horror aesthetic, but as you can see at first they were almost entirely a straightforward Punk band. In this very early video, the only thing that stands out (other than the fact that this is a massively underrated song that stands up to anything the Sex Pistols were doing) is Dave Vanian himself.
The lead singer of the Damned explored “vampire” imagery from the very beginning, which was completely unique at the time. But as the band’s success grew and fans began to adopt the lipstick-and-eyeliner look, the groundwork was being laid for a new subculture within Punk…
Day 2 (Origins) – Siouxsie and the Banshees, “Playground Twist”
Siouxsie Sioux has often said that she prefers not to be called Goth, but there is no doubt that she and the Banshees helped spawn both the look and the sound of the genre. Here you see them at the beginning, still deep in the Punk era but bringing in the heavily minor modalities that distinguished themselves from the more straightforward Punk progressions.
And however much she did not want the title of “Godmother of Goth,” Siouxsie’s makeup styles set the standard for a generation of Goths to come. Of course, having Neil Gaiman’s version of Death look so similar to her just solidified the association far beyond even her fans. [edited – see Christian’s correction below]
This song also brings in lyrical elements that would pop up many times in future Goth songs: historical, cultural commentary (playground games in this case) with dark undertones. I have to wonder what the general public’s reaction was to this performance on Top of the Pops at the time.
Day 3 (Origins) – Adam & the Ants, “Antmusic”
Adam Ant typified British pop music of the late 70s/early 80s as it moved out of Glam and Punk. In many ways, he did what often happens to subversive musical genres once they become sufficiently mainstream: he encapsulated the aesthetic without the attitude.
Adam & the Ants were doing that to Punk music specifically – borrowing the look and updating it just enough to be more New Wave than Punk – but at the same time he (perhaps accidentally) hooked into another thread of what would become Goth.
Like Dave Vanian of the Damned, Ant built a look that stood out, but his look was based on ironic anachronism rather than morbid imagery. And this ironic anachronism soon bled into the Post-Punk bands that formed the foundation of Goth. Women in updated versions of Georgian dresses, men in blousy shirts with laced cuffs – these became secondary Goth fashion elements. The anachronism connected Goth to its literary roots and provided more common ground for the cultural aesthetic.
People like to joke that Steampunk happened when Goths discovered brown, but I’d take that even further and say that Goth happened when Glams discovered black.
Day 4 (Origins) – Bauhaus, “Bela Lugosi’s Dead”
This is considered by many to be the first actual Goth song by the first actual Goth band. Bauhaus’s claim to that title arose partly because NME described their first full album, In the Flat Field, as “Gothick-Romantick pseudo-decadence.” And if any phrase could encompass the entire genre, it’s that one.
Bauhaus was a short-lived band, but their sound carried on through Peter Murphy’s solo work and the Murphy-less version of the band known as Love and Rockets.
The song itself taps into the atmospheric stylings that were more related to Prog than Punk. It also contains some hints of influence from the early Industrial sound of Kraftwerk. Both of these seeds would soon bloom into the full-flowered sound of Goth.
For those of you who are less familiar with Goth, this is one of the essential songs in the canon. Listen and revel in it. This particular performance is from a more recent reunion tour with Peter Murphy and David J (on bass), and I kind of love Peter Murphy’s older, bearded look.
Day 5 (Origins) – The Cure, “A Forest”
Because of their longevity and popularity, The Cure have been many people’s first introduction to Goth. Of course, not everything they do is really all that Goth. I became aware of them during the Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me era, and they seemed like just a normal poppy alternative band. But that also corresponded to the Standing on a Beach compilation, which turned out to be a great primer to their early work, which was very different.
Cure fans who are slightly younger than me typically cite Disintegration as their true entry point, and that is indeed a great album. But it’s not the album where they suddenly “turned” Goth. Rather, it was a return to their earlier sound.
Seventeen Seconds is one of my favorite Cure albums. It marks the beginning of their Gothiest trio of albums (along with Faith and Pornography), and I love the stark openness of the songs. The bass really stands out, and there’s just so much space between the notes. This is Goth at its most elemental.
(Sorry for the fan-edited video, but it’s the best I could find and “A Forest” is too important not to share.)
Day 6 (Origins) – Joy Division, “Love Will Tear Us Apart”
My final entry into the “Origins” category is a band that definitely did not have time to classify itself as Goth but certainly belongs to the genre. New Order is not Goth, but Joy Division definitely was. Ian Curtis’s voice and lyrics really did make that much of a difference, and singers would try to emulate him for years to come.
This is also a moment where I must pause and talk a bit about offensive imagery in the Goth movement. I was well into adulthood when I found out about the actual origin of the band’s name, and even now it’s harder to Google the real history than the band. My ignorance was not my fault, but the source of it is our collective responsibility. From the appropriation of the Ankh to the fetishization of Nazi symbols, Goths have made numerous poor decisions over the years.
One specific Goth band that I will not be including on my list is Death In June. I won’t argue about whether they really are Nazis, but they certainly reached Poe’s Law levels. Even if they were being ironic, their irony became indistinguishable from sincerity. Joy Division was not nearly that problematic, but we still must be clear as Goths that we stand against white supremacy. To paraphrase a famous quote from another genre:
Nazi Goths fuck off.
Day 7 (The Dark Wave) – Killing Joke, “Love Like Blood”
In most of its early incarnations, Goth was an emergent genre. The Doors emerged from Rock and were part of its transition into both Prog and hard rock. The Cure and Siouxsie and the Banshees emerged from punk and are specifically referred to as post-punk. Similarly, Dark Wave emerged from New Wave, using its sound and orchestration to do something that New Wave had not really been doing yet.
Killing Joke is a classic example of this – their look during the early to mid-80s put them squarely in line with bands like Human League or Icicle Works, but they incorporated the gloomy sound and morbid lyrics of the Goth precursors we’ve already mentioned.
One of the things I find fascinating about Killing Joke is how many late 80s/early 90s hard rock and even metal bands cite them as an influence. They are one of the many elements that link a harder sound back to Goth. But we’ll talk more more about that later – for now, just enjoy the ethereal guitar and keyboard over the driving rhythmic bass, united by Jaz Coleman’s smooth vocals.
Day 8 (The Dark Wave) – The Church, “Reptile”
And then we jump to one of the few non-British bands on this list. The Church are usually listed as part of the psychedelic/alternative wave that came out of Australia in the 80s. (This wave also included the Hoodoo Gurus, a band I have discussed in the past.) Very few descriptions of them include the word “Goth,” but I would argue that they were an important part of the Dark Wave of Goth.
Most casual listeners probably know them from “Under the Milky Way,” a song which may play around in minor keys but doesn’t necessarily strike most people as Goth. And it’s true that The Church’s oeuvre is not entirely dark. But when they lean in that direction, they do it well. “Reptile” and several other songs from Starfish are perfect examples. And if you haven’t heard Priest=Aura, you need to – that album is a solid Goth masterpiece.
The darkness of Starfish in particular has an amusing background. The Church had relocated to LA for the production of the album after their Australian label abandoned them. Steve Kilbey found everything about the city and its culture extremely depressing, and this is what led him to write songs like “Destination,” “Lost,” and “North, South, East, West.”
Day 9 (The Dark Wave) – Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, “Tupelo”
And we follow up with another Australian band. Now, to be clear – Nick Cave is not Goth. I say that out of respect for the man who fought that association repeatedly throughout his career. Unfortunately, violently declaring yourself not Goth doesn’t stop your music from influencing an entire generation of bands. Just ask Siouxsie.
You can see in songs like “Tupelo” what Cave was pushing for – he was building a darker version of American Blues and Folk Gospel. And it’s true that at the time that wasn’t very Goth. But that’s because we hadn’t really seen the emergence of an American Goth sound quite yet. When it truly arrived, it was much more Nick Cave than The Cure. (It was also a fair bit more metal, but we’ll talk about that in the next section.)
So yes, it’s true that Cave wasn’t what you’d consider “Goth” at the time. I might call him Goth-Blues with perhaps a little Cramps-style Gothabilly. But Goth as a genre is pretty wide, and in the end I think it’s wide enough to include Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds.
Day 10 (The Dark Wave) – The Fall, “Big New Prinz”
The Fall did not get much air time in the US. They were a band that was hard to “follow,” per se. They were just intensely prolific both in album releases and turnover of band members, with Mark E. Smith’s iconic vocals the only real constant.
The album I Am Kurious, Oranj was written as a soundtrack to the same-named (but differently-spelled) ballet project – I Am Curious, Orange. This video features elements of the choreography from the ballet, which blends surprisingly well with the dark guitar line and Smith’s driving lyrics. Not all of The Fall’s music leans into Goth, but this album certainly does.
This was also my first exposure to The Fall. I can still remember the way VJ Dave Kendall said the name of album when first introducing the video on 120 Minutes. The surreality of what followed was almost overwhelming, but it stuck with me.
Day 11 (The Dark Wave) – Echo & The Bunnymen, “The Killing Moon”
Echo & The Bunnymen represent what I think of as the synthesis of early 80s British pop, Goth, and New Wave. They weren’t as consistently dark as other Dark Wave bands, but they went there often enough that it’s worth talking about. They were also the band whose sound most directly incorporated The Doors, so that’s another reason to include them.
In particular, I want to use E&TB to distinguish Goth from another prominent band of that era that was doing very dark music but wasn’t Goth: The Smiths. Although the Smiths were definitely making what you might call “sad boy” music, I don’t think it’s necessarily Goth. In particular, I believe the reason is that their songs are far too focused inward.
Compared to “The Killing Moon,” a song like “Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want” is completely internalized. In many ways, Goth is an extroverted darkness, while the Smiths presented an intensely introverted one. Goth music is meant to be sung out to the world. The Smiths are meant to be sung alone to yourself and you just imagine what it would be like IF anyone heard you.
Maybe that’s just my experience, but this is my list and I’m going with it.
Day 12 (The Dark Wave) – The Mission, “Stay With Me”
(Video no longer available, so here’s the audio.)
One of the most important events in Goth music was actually the mid-80s schism of the first incarnation of Sisters of Mercy. Andrew Eldritch held on to the Sisters of Mercy name, along with his attachment to a more electronic sound, while Craig Adams and Wayne Hussey eschewed the drum machine and formed The Mission. (The band would be known as “The Mission UK” here in the US.)
The band’s personnel cycled a bit in the following years, and this resulted in a harder sound by the 90s, but Hussey’s vocals remained a constant unifying force. Their 1986 debut album, God’s Own Medicine, marked the establishment of Goth in the musical mainstream. Unfortunately for The Mission, their former bandmate would end up overshadowing them the following year…
Day 13 (The Dark Wave) – The Sisters of Mercy, “This Corrosion”
I consider it Goth’s signature song, and I think Floodland is a perfect album from start to finish. After losing Adams and Hussey, Andrew Eldritch hired bassist Patricia Morrison. Eldritch later complained that she suffered from writer’s block and contributed little to the album, but her appearance in the videos for “This Corrosion” and “Dominion” helped to visually cement the band as a Goth icon.
I know that many veteran Goths will chuckle (or even groan) that I have included this song, but for all you baby Goths out there – if you haven’t heard this song, listen to it. If you haven’t heard the full 11-minute version, go listen to that. And if you haven’t heard all of Floodland, please listen to it. When I do these lists, I usually hope that people will find a few things that interest them, and I don’t try to push specific songs or albums on everybody. Floodland is different. Floodland is an album I will push on everybody.
Tomorrow, I will end the Dark Wave era with a song that is perhaps even more widely known than this one.
Day 14 (The Dark Wave) – Concrete Blonde, “Bloodletting (The Vampire Song)”
There is a LOT of cultural context surrounding this song.
Let’s start with the lyrics. The song is clearly a reference to Anne Rice’s 1976 novel, Interview With The Vampire. That novel may very well have been part of the inspiration for Dave Vanian’s original look, and there’s no doubt that it and its many sequels were indirect inspirations for the Vampire: The Masquerade RPG. (Mark Rein-Hagen admitted that he read Rice’s novels late in development, but he saw that many of the elements he had incorporated from other media came from her.)
This song and album came out one year before the initial release of V:tM, and there was quite a bit of overlap between fans of the album and fans of the game. Concrete Blonde was “alternative” back when that meant “mostly on college radio,” and Vampire exploded in popularity across college campuses throughout the early 90s. They were essentially targeting the same audience.
From a musical standpoint, you can hear the open, atmospheric bass sound that typified the Dark Wave, but this song has more of an anthemic quality, much like “This Corrosion.” It also has a strong blues undercurrent, which is more typical of American Goth (and Nick Cave). You can begin to hear the emergence of something new in this album, and we’ll start talking about that tomorrow.
Day 15 (The Metal/Industrial Edge) – The Cult, “She Sells Sanctuary”
I begin this section by stepping back a bit to a moment of transition. As you can see in this video, the Cult started off as a slightly more energetic New Wave band. It wasn’t long after this that they start moving more into Hard Rock, with a sound and a look that was closer to what you’d expect of that genre in the mid 80s. Yet Ian Astbury’s image stands out. It’s the anachronistic, slightly 60s psychedelic trend that calls back to Adam Ant.
You can hear in this song the hints of the harder elements that were starting to creep in. The very next song that The Cult worked on after this album was “Love Removal Machine,” which was more like Billy Idol or Meatloaf than anything they had done previously.
The Cult were never quite as Goth as other bands, but their shift into Hard Rock coincided with the rest of the genre’s move in that direction. Prior to this, Deathrock had been kind of its own thing, sometimes synonymous with Goth, sometimes just considered a darker strain of Punk. But as the 80s came to an end, everything began to blend together…
Day 16 (The Metal/Industrial Edge) – Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, “Nothing Wrong”
Before we get to the mainstreaming of Industrial Goth, I want to mention one of its unsung innovators. Red Lorry Yellow Lorry are not often cited as an influence among Goth or Industrial artists, but their brief discography anticipates much of the sound that would hit the mainstream in the 90s.
Quickly overshadowed by other bands (which we’ll get to soon), Red Lorry Yellow Lorry nevertheless hold a place in my heart. They denied the Goth label, but that’s almost certainly because of the word’s associations in England at the time. Like many deniers, they may not have been where Goth was THEN, but they were where Goth was going to be.
Day 17 (The Metal/Industrial Edge) – Ministry, “Stigmata”
The history of Industrial Music is not always as coherent as the history of other musical genres (which is saying something). In many ways, “Industrial” is more a description of the theory and practice behind the music than it is a description of the music itself. The fact that Ministry, Kraftwerk, and John Cage have all been lumped under this term indicates that perhaps there is some confusion about what it really means from a musical standpoint.
Even Ministry themselves began more on the Kraftwerk electronica side of things, but in 1988 they took a drastic turn towards a more desolate, desperate sound. Their new album, The Land of Rape and Honey, cemented Ministry’s place in the growing Industrial canon. Their work with Wax Trax! Records had already begun to show the influence of other label bands like KMFDM and Front 242. And, of course, Al Jourgensen’s growing heroin use played at least a small part in the darker direction of his writing.
Jourgensen has specifically said that he considers “Stigmata” to be too simplistic, but perhaps that’s why it was so accessible. It became a club mainstay, and it is a clear musical precursor to one of the most popular Industrial bands of the early 90s…
Day 18 (The Metal/Industrial Edge) – Nine Inch Nails, “Head Like a Hole”
I probably don’t have to tell you too much about this band. Nine Inch Nails were so ubiquitous in the 90s that their logo appeared in the immensely popular video game Quake (on the ammo boxes for the nail gun). They headlined Lollapalooza, they went up against record labels and survived, they were nigh-unstoppable.
And when I say “they,” I of course mean Trent Reznor, who is the primary composer and musician in all NIN recordings and around whom the changing band lineup has always revolved. Reznor is an icon unto himself, a forceful personality that demands attention (and gets it).
In terms of the music, NIN owes a lot to Ministry and Skinny Puppy. Reznor took their Industrial sound, kept the anger, and removed the message. We’ve had some conversations about the extroversion of Goth, but Nine Inch Nails went further – they made it aggressive, not just declarative.
(On a side note, I will also suggest that the video for “Closer” may have helped turn Goths towards Steampunk.)
Day 19 (The Metal/Industrial Edge) – Type O Negative, “Black No. 1 (Little Miss Scare-All)”
At the same time that Industrial was reaching the apex of Goth representation, Goth Metal was maturing to a point of clarity. Death Metal and Doom Metal had been around for a while, but had not seen as much crossover with Goth fans as you might think. With their third album, Bloody Kisses, Type O Negative bridged that gap like never before.
Perhaps it was the timing, perhaps it was the content, or perhaps it was frontman Peter Steele’s much lower vocal range that was more akin to Red Lorry Yellow Lorry than Black Sabbath. (Honestly, that was it for me.) The songs on Bloody Kisses showed a strong awareness of Goth culture, but also an appreciation for it. “Black No. 1” is clearly mocking the self-importance of a Goth who considers herself extremely dark but is also too self-conscious to be seen with undyed roots. Yet it is a gentle mocking, a friendly ribbing. It allows the subject to keep her dignity by making the act of dyeing her hair part of the very darkness that defines her.
This band taught me that maybe there was Metal I could love, and I am grateful for that. And I will always love that Peter Steele was tall enough to play an upright bass sideways.
Day 20 (The Metal/Industrial Edge) – Switchblade Symphony, “Clown”
It’s hard to pin Switchblade Symphony into one category, since they really incorporated many disparate elements of Goth. They brought in the wide, atmospheric sound of Dark Wave, the lilting vocals of Ethereal, and the heavier guitar distortion of Industrial.
Switchblade Symphony never quite saw mainstream success – and there are several potential reasons for that – but they deserved more attention than they got. If they had broken out a little bit earlier, they probably could have carried the tail end of the Dark Wave. Their timing meant that they could still find a devoted fan base, but they couldn’t quite compete for airplay and label status against the more Industrial bands of the time.
Still, I knew a number of women in the mid to late 90s who emulated Susan Wallace and Tina Root. The band was certainly an influence on the Candy Goth and Glitter Goth aesthetics.
Day 21 (The Metal/Industrial Edge) – Lacuna Coil, “Trip the Darkness”
I end this section with a more recent piece from a band that became popular in the 2000s. Lacuna Coil is an Italian Goth Metal band that illustrates many of the trends that had been happening in Europe throughout the 80s and 90s. European Goth is not my area of expertise, but I can tell you that it has a history at least as rich as everything I’ve talked about so far.
I came upon Lacuna Coil fairly recently myself while I was looking for female metal vocalists. (Side note – I strongly recommend Master of Persia if you’re into Death Metal.) This song and video really stuck out for me as just a perfect encapsulation of modern Goth. I don’t think they’re necessarily innovating much here, but they make a compelling case that Goth is not done yet.
Day 22 (Slowing It Down) – Dead Can Dance, “Sanvean (I Am Your Shadow)”
I wanted to start this section with as strong a contrast as possible. We step away from the thrashing, angry Goths and join the ones who close their eyes and move their arms like they’re painting the air.
One of the pioneers of the Ethereal Dark Wave, Dead Can Dance incorporated non-Western tonalities, ambient synths, open percussion, and Lisa Gerrard’s haunting pseudo-language vocals to create an intense and engaging sound. The band moved from Australia to England in the 80s, and Gerrard wrote this song in the early 90s to express her longing for her homeland. (Get you someone who misses you like Lisa Gerrard misses Australia.)
It’s important to acknowledge that there is a fair bit of Orientalism in Dead Can Dance’s music, particularly when they incorporate North African and Middle Eastern instrumentation. They anticipated and influenced the World Music movement of the late 80s and early 90s, a movement that had some patronizing and paternalistic undercurrents in how it approached ethnomusicology. They made an effort to be respectful, but their treatment of music as anachronism was (perhaps subconsciously) built around a classic Orientalist view of non-Western cultures as “timeless past.”
Day 23 (Slowing It Down) – Cocteau Twins, “Carolyn’s Fingers”
Today, we dive further into the “is it Goth?” question. When I first heard this song in the late 80s (my first exposure to the band), I would not have said so. This was just one year after Floodland, and it was hard to see anything that didn’t resemble Sisters of Mercy as Goth. But it was also one year after Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, so The Cure were also leaning into more major tonalities and pop-adjacent ballads. (And The Cure’s movement in that direction had in fact been partially inspired by Robert Smith’s love of the Cocteau Twins.)
In retrospect, of course, we can see the elements of a new Goth-adjacent genre that the Cocteau Twins helped to spawn: Shoegaze. Is Shoegaze Goth? Well, we’ll be discussing that further in the coming days. But in this song you can hear the atmospheric elements that were common in the Dark Wave. Cocteau Twins build a lot off of Siouxsie and the Banshees, so the Goth influence is certainly there. Their sound isn’t “dark” per se, but it does offer the overflowing emotion common to Ethereal Goth.
I do want to talk a little about the song itself. Elizabeth Fraser’s vocals are absolutely transcendent. Her blending of the lyrical soprano parts over the smooth mezzo lines gets me every time. The guitar processing (and much of the writing style) is so close to what The Sundays would be doing just a couple years later that I can only assume there was some direct influence. Goth or not, I love this song.
Day 24 (Slowing It Down) – This Mortal Coil, “Late Night”
This Mortal Coil wasn’t actually a band – it was a project. British record label 4AD was responsible for producing many of the bands we’ve already discussed and many more beyond that. This Mortal Coil was a recording project that brought in individual artists from across the label and featured them in solo works. (One of Elizabeth Fraser’s most famous early pieces, a cover “Song to the Siren,” was recorded as This Mortal Coil rather than Cocteau Twins.)
Because of the variety of members, This Mortal Coil dipped partially into Goth and partially into Dream Pop. It would be a mistake to narrowly classify a collective, but project had significant reciprocal influence with many bands on the label, and this certainly impacted the direction of Goth as well as other genres.
This particular song features Caroline Crawley from the band Shelleyan Orphan, a lesser-known label band that managed to catch the attention of Robert Smith and opened for The Cure during the Prayer Tour.
Day 25 (Slowing It Down) – Lush, “Desire Lines”
Okay, let’s talk about Shoegaze.
While there are some common elements among the bands lumped into this genre, I think it’s more accurate to call it an attitude than a musical trend. The name “Shoegaze” refers to the practice of staring downward while playing, and one famous quote connects this to Robert Smith’s habit of doing that when playing live.
Jangly, atmospheric guitars and ethereal (often female) vocal lines typify the genre, but those elements are used in wide variety of ways. Lush is a good example of this. Many of their songs had a more poppy, almost Madchester tone, and then there are songs like this one that dip into much darker tone.
So when addressing the discussion about whether Shoegaze is Goth, I would suggest that it isn’t inherently Goth but it can be. Shoegaze is not a subgenre of Goth, but neither is it entirely separate – there is crossover and mutual influence. I have just a few more songs in this section where I will attempt to demonstrate that overlap.
Day 26 (Slowing It Down) – The Moon Seven Times, “Straw Donkeys”
(Sorry for the lack of video on this one, but that’s what happens when you go local and obscure.)
While we’re on the subject of Shoegaze, I have to talk about what I consider the American version of the scene. Projekt Records was based in Portland, but they held a festival for a few years in the 90s in Chicago. Projektfest featured several of their label artists, many of whom leaned heavily on the Ethereal end of Dark Wave. Among them was Area, an electronic ethereal duo from Champaign-Urbana that later added more musicians and became The Moon Seven Times.
Oddly enough, The Moon Seven Times did not sign with Projekt, although they continued to play Projektfest. Instead, they recorded under Roadrunner Records, which is a frankly baffling decision on both sides. Undoubtedly this label mismatch is one of the reasons they were severely underpromoted. I wanted to share this song because I want more people to be aware of them. If you enjoy this, or if you want something a little darker, I also recommend Projekt Records alum Love Spirals Downwards.
Day 27 (Slowing It Down) – Mazzy Star, “Fade Into You”
Adjacent to the discussion of “is it Goth?” there are some people who question, “is it Shoegaze?” about Mazzy Star. But in the video for their most famous song, we see Hope Sandoval singing while staring at her feet, so I guess that answers that.
But I want to go further and argue that Mazzy Star is Goth too. There was a ton of music in the early 90s that got lumped under the “Psychedelic” tag. The problem was, this was more a general 60s-revival ethos than a coherent genre. Sure, you can hear those influences in Mazzy’s music, but does it make sense to say they belong to the same genre as Red Hot Chili Peppers and The Flaming Lips? If so, then I should have no trouble making the case that they also belong to Goth.
More to the point, they managed to merge the more Bluesy sound of American Goth with the atmospheric instrumentation and ethereal vocals of Shoegaze. Frankly, I can’t imagine listening to songs like “Into Dust” or “Rhymes of an Hour” and not hearing them as Goth. Anyone who says differently – well, I won’t fight you. I’ve got Mazzy to listen to.
Day 28 (Slowing It Down) – Portishead, “Roads”
You probably could have guessed that I was leading up to this. Portishead is the culmination of everything I’ve been talking about in this section. They’ve got the slow Blues tonalities, the sparse, atmospheric instrumentation, the ethereal vocals, the Shoegaze attitude of not really looking at the audience – they’re the perfect slow Goth band.
One thing I want to point out about Beth Gibbons is her almost staccato singing style. I love the way she attacks and pulls back immediately on nearly every note. It gives her such a unique and haunting sound.
For the last two days of the month, I will be taking a look at a couple bands that are sort of Post-Goth and considering whether they might be included.
Day 29 (Lasting Impact) – Evanescence, “Bring Me to Life”
Since this list was at least partially directed at Millennials and helping them learn a bit about Goth history, I think it’s important to talk about the band that was the most prominent mainstream representation of the genre during their late teens/early adulthood.
Given the broad definition that I’ve built over the past month, it would be rude of me to turn around and say that Evanescence isn’t Goth. Clearly the important elements are there, especially in songs like this one. But to my Gen-X sensibilities, something has always seemed off about this sound, and I think I am finally able to articulate it.
For me, there’s a tremendous mismatch in the songwriting that fails to blend Amy Lee’s ethereal vocals with the chunky-white-boy NuMetal the rest of the band is playing. It’s not that the two sounds can’t mix, it’s that it feels to me like the band isn’t quite making the effort. I have to wonder if this is a producer problem, like maybe they never got someone who understood how to pull it all together. As it stands, every time I listen to anything from Evanescence, I always think, “Boy, I’d like to hear the band she built after this one.” Sadly, that did not happen.
Day 30 (Lasting Impact) – Malice Mizer, “Beast of Blood”
And here it is, my selection for the perfect Millenial introduction to Goth.
MALICE MIZER (capitalization theirs) was an icon of the Visual Kei movement in Japan during the late 90s. Their peak coincided with a huge anime boom in the US, and many Americans discovered Visual Kei through their immersion into anime and Japanese pop culture. MALICE MIZER had everything – thrashing industrial, lyrical vocals, rich orchestration (harpsichord!), anachronistic aesthetic, gender subversion, and thick layers of attitude. Mana, the guitarist, helped popularize Gothic Lolita fashion in Japan. He even started an entire clothing business around it (Moi-même-Moitié).
I feel like I could take someone who was a huge fan of MALICE MIZER but didn’t know anything else, introduce them to any aspect of Goth history we’ve talked about, and they would feel right at home.
As I end this 30-day journey, I want to thank all of you who taught me even more in your comments and messages. I hope everyone realizes that this is only scratching the surface, a 101 class if you will. There is much more to learn and explore about Goth, and I hope that this exploration enriches your Halloween season!
Eric the Unabridged 