Theoretically Speaking: S6:E9 – What Makes Goth, Goth?

As I write this:

It’s a gray, gloomy day

With distant thunder rumbling off to the north…

The first Goth song was “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” by Bauhaus.

It didn’t just happen, though. No one said, “Let there be Goth” and there was Goth. It had centuries of solemn, melancholy, music before it.

Blues and Folk songs about the dark and dismal are common.

And Horror Rock — for lack of a better term — gave us Alice Cooper, Arthur Brown, and Bloodrock’s gruesome death fantasies. Though “I Put A Spell On You” by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, “Jack The Ripper” by Screaming Lord Sutch, and much of The Cramps’ catalog are thought of as novelty songs, they show that menacing and morbid subjects can be treated cleverly and artistically.

We should also recognize the influence of the Romantic writers like Lord Byron, the Brownings, and the Shelleys.

Mary Shelley not only wrote Frankenstein, she reportedly kept Percy’s heart in a bag on her desk for the last thirty years of her life.

And we can’t forget the original Goths:

Sometimes called the Visigoths, the Germanic people from the Balkans who sacked Rome in 410 AD. That was an important event in the weakening of the Roman Empire. The Goths populated southern France and the Iberian Peninsula.

The first group to be called “Gothic Rock” in print was The Doors.

Jim Morrison’s baritone voice and dark subject matter shows up in the Goth bands that arrived fifteen years later.

That deep, brooding voice wasn’t just for men.

She’s best known for singing on the Velvet Underground’s first album in 1967, though she really wasn’t a band member. The band wasn’t happy about having her on the record but their manager, artist Andy Warhol, insisted.

Nico released a solo album called Chelsea Girl that same year, but she was unhappy with it. Producer Tom Wilson wouldn’t allow her to add drums, and then overdubbed strings and flutes without her knowledge. 

She took control of her next album, The Marble Index.

The album, like the Velvet Underground record, was ignored at the time but influenced many bands to come.

She also changed her look.

That look was adopted by Susan Ballion, who’s better known by her stage name Siouxsie Sioux.

Siouxsie & The Banshees were one of a number of Post-Punk bands in the early 80s. Post-Punk retained the rebellious and do-it-yourself ethos of Punk but experimented beyond the boundaries of Punk’s raw simplicity. Some wags suggest that it’s what happened when punks learned how to play their instruments.

Joy Division is another important proto-Goth influence.

While all that was going on, New Wave was popular in the mainstream.

New Wave’s synth-pop combining with Post-Punk’s angular guitar lines and dark topics is what brings us to Bauhaus.

They recorded “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” during their first studio session. It’s mostly the same three chords for nine minutes with lots of creepy echo and tape effects. Those sounds come directly from Dub, the Reggae subgenre pioneered by Lee “Scratch” Perry, King Tubby, and others.

They may have Jamaican roots, but you’d hear echoes like those in stone Gothic churches. 

Murphy intones lyrics about Bela Lugosi’s funeral, complete with bats, dead flowers, and virginal brides.

“Bela Lugosi’s Dead” wasn’t a major hit, but the people who liked it loved it. It’s somber and haunting, but also theatrical with dark humor.

His stage presence and the imagery Bauhaus used contributed to the visual culture of Goth, influencing fashion, art, and music videos in the genre.

It’s a fun song in the way that Blood Of Dracula’s Castle is a fun movie.

New bands joined this new Goth scene and existing bands made the switch.

Look at early pictures of The Cure and you won’t recognize the band that made forlorn songs like “Boys Don’t Cry” and “A Forest.” 

They had a literary bent, too, using books by Albert Camus and Penelope Farmer to inspire “Killing An Arab” and “Charlotte Sometimes.” Other bands cited Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft.

Later, The Cure went in a decidedly Pop direction.

The Sisters of Mercy were one of the bands to set out to be Goth, though their real goal was hearing themselves on the radio.

With a constantly changing lineup, the only permanent member has been singer Andrew Eldritch. Even the drum machine called Doktor Avalanche was actually a series of technologically better equipment.

Most of these bands were British, but few were from London. The Cure were from Crawley, The Sisters Of Mercy from Leeds, and Bauhaus from Northampton.

As the Goth sound evolved, an array of subgenres developed.

An early offshoot, mostly from the USA’s west coast, was called Death Rock.

Dark Wave emphasized the New Wave aspect of Goth. Clan Of Xymox from The Netherlands sound as much like Duran Duran as they do Bauhaus. Dark Wave may be the most long lived of the Goth subgenres, with bands like Boy Harsher, Pixel Grip, and Twin Tribes forming in the 2010s and continuing to release new music.

Meanwhile in France, a subgenre called Cold Wave also highlighted Goth’s New Wave aspects but included the influence of Kraftwerk and other electronic bands.

It is characterized by its minimalist, melancholic sound created with synthesizers and drum machines. You can hear its detached, cold, but rocking aesthetic in bands like Marquis de Sade, KaS Product.

Ethereal Wave, sometimes called just Ethereal, is characterized by its melodic, dreamy, and atmospheric sound. It uses traditional rock instruments like guitars and bass to create shimmering, cascading textures, as well as electronic instruments like synthesizers and drum machines to add layers of ambient sound.

There are other subgenres and sub-subgenres, but Goth’s influence is also felt in styles that are full genres on their sub-genres.

It’s hard to imagine Industrial or Electroclash without the Goth that came before them. Though it started in England, Goth spread globally, with significant movements in the United States, Germany, and other parts of Europe.

Goth continues to influence fashion, visual arts, and other music genres, maintaining a distinct presence in the Alternative music scene.

Goth remains vibrant and influential. It’s still alive.

Or maybe, undead.

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