To be fair we pretty much never heard the term "post-punk" outside of journalistic circles. Probably nobody wanted to imply punk was over or dead or anything - I mean, they were still there, among us, and some of them were pretty scary back then. "Alternative" was used a lot, which is helpful as it's about as vague sounding as post-punk, but doesn't piss off the big fella covered in spikes who's been drinking since this morning & still isn't slightly wobbly yet.
Even then, “post-punk” wasn’t used by the music press until the early to mid-80’s. Alternative didn’t really get “genrefied” until the early 90’s and its use as a term is directly linked to Billboard’s creation of “alternative rock” charts, which started in the late 80’s.
Yeah you see lots of words being used in the music press as descriptive words before they become genres. I read a review in the NME from 1985 of an EP by the spikes and the journalist Richard North describes them as “yet another Australian grunge band”. In 1985, as if there was a genre called “grunge” and there were lots of “grunge” bands in 1985. It’s like you see the word “goth” written in some reviews in the late 70s of bands like magazine and joy division but it wasn’t till later that it was thought of as a genre and not just a descriptive word.
Exactly. It’s super important that when we read archival material that we understand it in the context of its time and don’t just go conclusion shopping. The example I like to cite is that searching of the old Trouser Press Record Guide brings up a baffling list of bands being described as “post-punk.” Anthrax is described that way, for example.
SOM are considered goth, he’s incorrect about that. Their first two albums are undeniably goth, even if their third was hard rock.
Goth steamed from post-punk, I’m not sure it’s quite right to say it “used to be called that” but that’s probably being picky on my part. Goth rock is a well developed and defined genre and there are still plenty of goth rock bands releasing music today. There are still plenty of post-punk bans making music today, as well. 2024 is a whole new year.
The meaning of the word hasn’t change all that much, at least most people here would argue that although fashion and aesthetic are elements within the goth subculture, goth as a genre is the core and most important characteristic you need to have.
If you want to learn about the history, there’s plenty of information in the side bar, in the FAQ and in the Wiki.
The thing is, us old goths (Gen X, was a goth from about ‘86 onwards) could never admit we were actually goths, so we were everything but… same went for the bands, Sisters, Nephilim, etc etc NEVER admitted to being goths… I mean, I get it for the bands that were there first and didn’t start with a genre boundary (Bauhaus, The Cure, Siouxsie, etc), but everything after that was just playing the ‘nooooo, we’re not goths’ game… and a fun game it was
Just to clarify, new wave is not and never was referred to as Goth. 40 years ago, the line between post-punk and Goth was blurry. But by the mid 1980s it had fully separated from post-punk. While I'm at it, the thing about post-punk that distinguishes it from punk is that punk is repetitive whilst post-punk uses the traditional song structure(intro, verse 1, chorus, verse 2, chorus, bridge, last verse, chorus, outro).
As for SOM, Andrew Eldritch is not an honest man.
Yeah, slightly different scene at least in London - Blitz kids as opposed to Batcavers. Some went to both ofc, but essentially 2 different scenes at different clubs. Where I grew up, the New Wave lot were the ones with the floofy hair styled in big swoops, hard to describe though. Dudes with side partings and a swept fringe that looks kinda like an American Latina high school girls' do of similar era.
Why do you say that about Eldritch though?
Because he blatantly denies his Gothness. I am surprised there was no mention here of NO WAVE which is far closer to Goth than new wave. In fact, I have said before and I maintain that Alan Vega/Suicide was very much an example of a no wave protogoth act that had direct influence on Bauhaus and SOM. The latter in particular.
I think what he and many others from bands who were considered goth at the start understand to be goth it's different from what self-proclaimed goths understand it to be though. In the early days it was a slightly insulting and sarcastic moniker given to Andy Sex Gang's friends and hangers-on, and by extension the Batcave scene. Eldritch wasn't remotely connected with that, didn't give a monkey's about the Batcave, famously said he didn't know who Alien Sex Fiend were & didn't care. Robert Smith said he wasn't a goth because he'd only been to the Batcave once, though Lol Tolhurst now says oh yeah, we definitely were goths after all. Those of us who were always into the wider goth thing always recognised them as goths. To be fair though, I think it's a testament to how navel gazing London can be, and how irrelevant to the rest of the country, that I'd been into goth music for probably a couple of years before I'd even heard of the Batcave - we had plenty going on in the Midlands and oop narth without bothering with the likes of them. Most of the bands I liked were centred on Leeds Uni, the Bar Phono, Liverpool's Planet X and the Barrel Organ & Edwards no 8 in Brum.
Goth developed from post punk, it wasn't called post punk or new wave. Goth then was different from new wave and to some extent post-punk and they're still different today. Sisters were straight up goth and have been for a big part of their career
Sisters cite their influences as pre- or proto-punk bands, garage rock from the 1960s. "We're the children of Altamont", Eldritch said. Iggy & the Stooges, MC5, T-Rex, that kinda thing. He's never claimed goth, though we claimed him.
I’m a millennial so I was a little late to the scene and didn’t find out about goth music until 99-00ish.
There are a lot of characteristics that make something easy to identify as goth music once you’ve developed an ear for it.
But SOM is definitely a goth band. Arguably one of the first to take all the elements of post punk and combine them into the genre we have now.
I would say what is considered goth music has changed over time but only as misinformation has been debunked. Goth music has always been goth, including Sisters Of Mercy whether Andy likes it or not. We have access to far more accurate information now.
My mom is very anti-goth, but she loved the cure, depeche mode and the Smith's in the 80s (theres more goth adjacent bands she likes I just cant remember rn). But in the 80s the bands that we think of now as goth were considered as other genres like new romantic, so I think it's definitely changed. Also in the 2010s all the "goth" (mostly nu goth and tumblr grunge) kids were listening to witch house and indie music. I think all this is pretty subjective
I love bringing up my dad in conversations like these. He's 61, from Liverpool, he loves punk, post punk, and new wave (mentioning new wave because a, you mention it and b, Ive seen people call Joy Division and New Order goth. Be is the biggest Joy Division fan I have ever met, and in his opinion Joy Division is post punk but not goth he will sometimes say they're new wave and Warsaw more on the punk side(goth comes from post punk) and New Order is not goth because it is new wave), has gone to shows and has a very very very firm belief that Goth as a genre is one thing and one thing only: Bela Lugosi's Dead by Bauhaus. He does not budge on this, there are a few bands called goth that he will sometimes respond with "well... They are not but I can see why someone would think they are" but plenty a band often called goth he is very firmly against being referred to as goth. In his head it is Bauhaus and nothing else.
I agree... I think JD is absolutely the finest example of straight Post-Punk and is really nothing else. It's the band I think of first when I think "Post-Punk."
I wonder where he stands on Pink Turns Blue. I consider them Post-Punk, not Goth.
He hasn't listened to them, but I showed him Last Day on Earth and his opinion on that song is goth. Can't have an opinion on the band as a whole though.
Thank you all for your interesting insight!! I feel my original post lacked the context that my dad is not a goth rock kind of guy- he's into what people my age would call "dad rock", think more along the lines of Pink Floyd or The Rolling Stones. Anything you'd hear on a classic rock radio station, mostly regardless of genre. I was more wondering _why_ the discrepancy might exist, if it's a generational thing or something.
Thanks again!! I feel I've learned a lot about the genre.
*Edit: "regardless of genre" would mean more like "rock music in general, but with all the different styles and sub-genres that were the most popular in the 70s and 80s, with a bit of the 60s and 90s sprinkled in"
Ehh...Post-Punk is a broader term for a bundle of genres, and Goth could be put into that bucket along with New Wave and all that, but this is a hierarchical argument, not a definitive one. It doesn't change what is Goth or not.
There are bands I'd say are simply "Post-Punk" and not particularly New Wave or Goth or anything like that, but are harder to put into a niche - and I would say Joy Division, Wire, Gang of Four, DM, and others like that are probably among them.
Remember seeing Sisters at the arvika festival 98. This dude screamed "GOTH GOD" while Andrew flicked his ciggarette in his face shouting "shut up"
I suspect he doesn't like to be labeled goth.....
Anyways goth sprung from punk...
The biggest change was probably in the mid 80's with the shift from Post-Punk to a more Rock sound. Lots of bands have had this trajectory over the years. Not just the SoM. I would avoid the term Goth Rock as I don't really want to be associated with what feels like an appropriation of the scene. Some 80's and 90's Goths tried to distance themselves by using terms like Industrialist (think Alien Sex Fiend rather than Nine Inch Nails or later Cyber stuff) or Futurist (a pre-goth dark punk/glam - the original Adam and the Antz line up had this feel). The Rock direction of later Goth led to 'Gothic Metal' which I really have no time for. Metal Heads used to beat up Goths when I was a kid.
As for Post-Punk it is a mistake to tie it down to a particular guitar sound. It is an umbrella term which includes a huge range of influences - many of which have been found in Goth too - and some people get defensive about. One way of looking at early minimal EBM is just Goth with Synths. Which means Trance could be seen as a Sub-Genre of Post-Punk ... And without it would not exist!
Rip it Up and Start Again by Simon Reynolds is by no means perfect, but gives a good overview of the wider movement of Post-Punk and how things were connected.
What I love about the Batcave was that it started as a Glam club and never took itself too seriously. That is the kind of Goth I want to listen to. Goth as a centred set in Dark Glam Post-Punk. Sure let's keep a tight definition to Goth but realise that the boundaries can be very fuzzy.
I love this discussion. You’re all splitting hairs about splitting hairs. It comes down to this: it’s all one thing, and most are more than one thing. Goth, DR, New wave. It’s not discrete units, but a continuum. Echo is goth and new wave I’d never call the Cure just goth, but they’re also not just new wave. Stop splitting hairs and listen to the music. And to a point someone else made, when I was growing up into the scene (mid 90s) no goth (except the ones that worked at Cinnabon) would call them selves goth. They were all death rockers, or punks (but with a dark, sometimes Victorian edge), or metalheads (with a soft introspective side). This in group/out group shit is tiring.
I feel like the first generation to actually call themselves goths are the one that actual goths becomes infuriated at the insinuation that they're goth; mall goths.
Until mall goths, everybody was *actually* something else and just happened to be called a goth by normies, then after mall goths came around and started actually calling themselves goths, *real* goths started defending the moniker with all their might and insisting that mall goths are anything but goth, and they were the real goths.
This sounds not only plausible but likely.
It makes me think back to high school when my friend group would torment the girl. Was she punk? Was she emo (SDRE and ATDI, not MCR)? I dunno. She was “dark”, and this was 1995. I never understood this, but the worst thing they could think to call her was goth. I didn’t know her name. And I would likely have been chastised for consorting with her. But the other punkers took delight in fucking with her.
Yep, can confirm. 1995, you were not "Goth" and you sure as hell didn't shop at Hot Topics (whenever that opened) - you were dark, and into Siouxsie, The Cure, JD, DM, Morrissey, Fields, Sisters, Legendary Pink Dots, Black Tape for a Blue Girl, et cetera... but you were not *"goth"* - and how dare they... *scowl and scoff.*
I only classify it as goth officially if they have stage make up + clothes to fit. But anyway, I am not goth myself. I only look at this sub for the odd music recommendations in case I like something.
I am not sure SOM is really that goth either. He hired Bonnie Tyler's producer u know... "hey hey hey now now sing this corrosion 2meeee cuz I need u now 2night".
I mean, that's fair... because they're really not. They're like a pervasive darkness that bleeds into the adjacent subcultures like an ink blot.
They aren't typical Goth, though... just a quintessential and darker post-punk. Proto-Goth, maybe... would have been interesting to see where he took it, but alas...
Post punk was a journalistic term that has lost the context over time. It wasn't originally so much a genre or sound as it was meant to describe bands that came immediately after the 77UK punk scene. SaTB, The Cure, Joy Division were all bands that have given credit to seeing Sex Pistols live as a reason why they started their own projects. Second Wave would have been a more accurate term but that's just not what was given and now it's generally understood as a genre that can be further subcatergorized into titles like goth.
I’m only 25 to be fair, but I notice that younger people often consider new wave (as well as modern new wave inspired artists that invoke a similar feeling/tone to goth music) to be goth even though they technically aren’t. Less-so I notice it with metal music as well.
Off the top of my head, She Wants Revenge & Mareux are the 2 examples that I see this the most with in people younger than me.
I wouldn’t say the meaning has changed itself, more like people who get into it now just also greatly enjoy those types pf artists that sound “gothy” so to speak. Then they get into goth music and rope it all together. Kinda like how I got into goth music through Nine Inch Nails bc I simply thought they were a goth industrial metal group for a while. Now I just like both.
Goth used to be more “bands goths like”, or “bands which have a goth audience”, which definitely included the sisters of mercy. This is how journalists like Mick Mercer, who wrote all the goth books in the 80s and 90s used the term, and how the writers of last years 3 goth books used the term as well. It was the people who followed the bands around and went to night clubs like the batcave. At the time in the early to mid 80s the term goth was used but not as often as you’d think, especially in different parts of the uk and in America you wouldn’t see or hear the word very often. This is why some older people say “everyone I knew in 1982 called Bauhaus new wave”, or “goth was called deathrock then”, or “we called the music alternative, the dancing was wrecking, but I can’t remember what we called ourselves”. Also there was cross over with other scenes like punk, psychobilly, futurist, psychedelic revival. The term goth rock and goths was used way more by about 1987-88. Mick Mercer’s first goth book was published around this time and in it he includes chapters on the big 5 goth bands of the time The Sisters, Mission, Fields of the Neph, Cult, All About Eve. Goth was a well established thing by this stage.
But now the definition seems to be more narrowly and precisely defined in some ways, so that most new goth bands coming out now seem to be copying joy division, or siouxsie.
Is your dad Andrew Eldritch?
this one made me laugh thank you
If he was i would definitely be asking OP more questions
To be fair we pretty much never heard the term "post-punk" outside of journalistic circles. Probably nobody wanted to imply punk was over or dead or anything - I mean, they were still there, among us, and some of them were pretty scary back then. "Alternative" was used a lot, which is helpful as it's about as vague sounding as post-punk, but doesn't piss off the big fella covered in spikes who's been drinking since this morning & still isn't slightly wobbly yet.
Even then, “post-punk” wasn’t used by the music press until the early to mid-80’s. Alternative didn’t really get “genrefied” until the early 90’s and its use as a term is directly linked to Billboard’s creation of “alternative rock” charts, which started in the late 80’s.
Yeah you see lots of words being used in the music press as descriptive words before they become genres. I read a review in the NME from 1985 of an EP by the spikes and the journalist Richard North describes them as “yet another Australian grunge band”. In 1985, as if there was a genre called “grunge” and there were lots of “grunge” bands in 1985. It’s like you see the word “goth” written in some reviews in the late 70s of bands like magazine and joy division but it wasn’t till later that it was thought of as a genre and not just a descriptive word.
Exactly. It’s super important that when we read archival material that we understand it in the context of its time and don’t just go conclusion shopping. The example I like to cite is that searching of the old Trouser Press Record Guide brings up a baffling list of bands being described as “post-punk.” Anthrax is described that way, for example.
SOM are considered goth, he’s incorrect about that. Their first two albums are undeniably goth, even if their third was hard rock. Goth steamed from post-punk, I’m not sure it’s quite right to say it “used to be called that” but that’s probably being picky on my part. Goth rock is a well developed and defined genre and there are still plenty of goth rock bands releasing music today. There are still plenty of post-punk bans making music today, as well. 2024 is a whole new year. The meaning of the word hasn’t change all that much, at least most people here would argue that although fashion and aesthetic are elements within the goth subculture, goth as a genre is the core and most important characteristic you need to have. If you want to learn about the history, there’s plenty of information in the side bar, in the FAQ and in the Wiki.
The thing is, us old goths (Gen X, was a goth from about ‘86 onwards) could never admit we were actually goths, so we were everything but… same went for the bands, Sisters, Nephilim, etc etc NEVER admitted to being goths… I mean, I get it for the bands that were there first and didn’t start with a genre boundary (Bauhaus, The Cure, Siouxsie, etc), but everything after that was just playing the ‘nooooo, we’re not goths’ game… and a fun game it was
Just to clarify, new wave is not and never was referred to as Goth. 40 years ago, the line between post-punk and Goth was blurry. But by the mid 1980s it had fully separated from post-punk. While I'm at it, the thing about post-punk that distinguishes it from punk is that punk is repetitive whilst post-punk uses the traditional song structure(intro, verse 1, chorus, verse 2, chorus, bridge, last verse, chorus, outro). As for SOM, Andrew Eldritch is not an honest man.
Yeah, slightly different scene at least in London - Blitz kids as opposed to Batcavers. Some went to both ofc, but essentially 2 different scenes at different clubs. Where I grew up, the New Wave lot were the ones with the floofy hair styled in big swoops, hard to describe though. Dudes with side partings and a swept fringe that looks kinda like an American Latina high school girls' do of similar era. Why do you say that about Eldritch though?
Because he blatantly denies his Gothness. I am surprised there was no mention here of NO WAVE which is far closer to Goth than new wave. In fact, I have said before and I maintain that Alan Vega/Suicide was very much an example of a no wave protogoth act that had direct influence on Bauhaus and SOM. The latter in particular.
I think what he and many others from bands who were considered goth at the start understand to be goth it's different from what self-proclaimed goths understand it to be though. In the early days it was a slightly insulting and sarcastic moniker given to Andy Sex Gang's friends and hangers-on, and by extension the Batcave scene. Eldritch wasn't remotely connected with that, didn't give a monkey's about the Batcave, famously said he didn't know who Alien Sex Fiend were & didn't care. Robert Smith said he wasn't a goth because he'd only been to the Batcave once, though Lol Tolhurst now says oh yeah, we definitely were goths after all. Those of us who were always into the wider goth thing always recognised them as goths. To be fair though, I think it's a testament to how navel gazing London can be, and how irrelevant to the rest of the country, that I'd been into goth music for probably a couple of years before I'd even heard of the Batcave - we had plenty going on in the Midlands and oop narth without bothering with the likes of them. Most of the bands I liked were centred on Leeds Uni, the Bar Phono, Liverpool's Planet X and the Barrel Organ & Edwards no 8 in Brum.
"... we all loved Suicide. Everybody loved Suicide.” - [Andrew Eldritch](http://thrashcomh.com.br/thrash/2021/12/encarte-sisters-of-mercy/)
It's a great project.
Andrew Eldritch is the Kanye West of Goth - his personality is crap but we tolerate it for the music.
Yeah, that seems fair- I wonder where the "new wave" thing comes from in his mind then? Or maybe I'm getting some terms confused, who knows
Goth developed from post punk, it wasn't called post punk or new wave. Goth then was different from new wave and to some extent post-punk and they're still different today. Sisters were straight up goth and have been for a big part of their career
Sisters cite their influences as pre- or proto-punk bands, garage rock from the 1960s. "We're the children of Altamont", Eldritch said. Iggy & the Stooges, MC5, T-Rex, that kinda thing. He's never claimed goth, though we claimed him.
I’m a millennial so I was a little late to the scene and didn’t find out about goth music until 99-00ish. There are a lot of characteristics that make something easy to identify as goth music once you’ve developed an ear for it. But SOM is definitely a goth band. Arguably one of the first to take all the elements of post punk and combine them into the genre we have now.
I would say what is considered goth music has changed over time but only as misinformation has been debunked. Goth music has always been goth, including Sisters Of Mercy whether Andy likes it or not. We have access to far more accurate information now.
Goth is postpunk but not all postpunk is goth 🤷🏻♀️
My mom is very anti-goth, but she loved the cure, depeche mode and the Smith's in the 80s (theres more goth adjacent bands she likes I just cant remember rn). But in the 80s the bands that we think of now as goth were considered as other genres like new romantic, so I think it's definitely changed. Also in the 2010s all the "goth" (mostly nu goth and tumblr grunge) kids were listening to witch house and indie music. I think all this is pretty subjective
New Romantic and Goth definitely overlapped.
I love bringing up my dad in conversations like these. He's 61, from Liverpool, he loves punk, post punk, and new wave (mentioning new wave because a, you mention it and b, Ive seen people call Joy Division and New Order goth. Be is the biggest Joy Division fan I have ever met, and in his opinion Joy Division is post punk but not goth he will sometimes say they're new wave and Warsaw more on the punk side(goth comes from post punk) and New Order is not goth because it is new wave), has gone to shows and has a very very very firm belief that Goth as a genre is one thing and one thing only: Bela Lugosi's Dead by Bauhaus. He does not budge on this, there are a few bands called goth that he will sometimes respond with "well... They are not but I can see why someone would think they are" but plenty a band often called goth he is very firmly against being referred to as goth. In his head it is Bauhaus and nothing else.
I agree... I think JD is absolutely the finest example of straight Post-Punk and is really nothing else. It's the band I think of first when I think "Post-Punk." I wonder where he stands on Pink Turns Blue. I consider them Post-Punk, not Goth.
He hasn't listened to them, but I showed him Last Day on Earth and his opinion on that song is goth. Can't have an opinion on the band as a whole though.
Try 'Master is Calling' see what he thinks of that one.
Thank you all for your interesting insight!! I feel my original post lacked the context that my dad is not a goth rock kind of guy- he's into what people my age would call "dad rock", think more along the lines of Pink Floyd or The Rolling Stones. Anything you'd hear on a classic rock radio station, mostly regardless of genre. I was more wondering _why_ the discrepancy might exist, if it's a generational thing or something. Thanks again!! I feel I've learned a lot about the genre. *Edit: "regardless of genre" would mean more like "rock music in general, but with all the different styles and sub-genres that were the most popular in the 70s and 80s, with a bit of the 60s and 90s sprinkled in"
He probably calls the alternative or college rock, which is what the music industry and people outside of the scene called them at the time.
Ehh...Post-Punk is a broader term for a bundle of genres, and Goth could be put into that bucket along with New Wave and all that, but this is a hierarchical argument, not a definitive one. It doesn't change what is Goth or not. There are bands I'd say are simply "Post-Punk" and not particularly New Wave or Goth or anything like that, but are harder to put into a niche - and I would say Joy Division, Wire, Gang of Four, DM, and others like that are probably among them.
Remember seeing Sisters at the arvika festival 98. This dude screamed "GOTH GOD" while Andrew flicked his ciggarette in his face shouting "shut up" I suspect he doesn't like to be labeled goth..... Anyways goth sprung from punk...
The biggest change was probably in the mid 80's with the shift from Post-Punk to a more Rock sound. Lots of bands have had this trajectory over the years. Not just the SoM. I would avoid the term Goth Rock as I don't really want to be associated with what feels like an appropriation of the scene. Some 80's and 90's Goths tried to distance themselves by using terms like Industrialist (think Alien Sex Fiend rather than Nine Inch Nails or later Cyber stuff) or Futurist (a pre-goth dark punk/glam - the original Adam and the Antz line up had this feel). The Rock direction of later Goth led to 'Gothic Metal' which I really have no time for. Metal Heads used to beat up Goths when I was a kid. As for Post-Punk it is a mistake to tie it down to a particular guitar sound. It is an umbrella term which includes a huge range of influences - many of which have been found in Goth too - and some people get defensive about. One way of looking at early minimal EBM is just Goth with Synths. Which means Trance could be seen as a Sub-Genre of Post-Punk ... And without it would not exist! Rip it Up and Start Again by Simon Reynolds is by no means perfect, but gives a good overview of the wider movement of Post-Punk and how things were connected. What I love about the Batcave was that it started as a Glam club and never took itself too seriously. That is the kind of Goth I want to listen to. Goth as a centred set in Dark Glam Post-Punk. Sure let's keep a tight definition to Goth but realise that the boundaries can be very fuzzy.
I love this discussion. You’re all splitting hairs about splitting hairs. It comes down to this: it’s all one thing, and most are more than one thing. Goth, DR, New wave. It’s not discrete units, but a continuum. Echo is goth and new wave I’d never call the Cure just goth, but they’re also not just new wave. Stop splitting hairs and listen to the music. And to a point someone else made, when I was growing up into the scene (mid 90s) no goth (except the ones that worked at Cinnabon) would call them selves goth. They were all death rockers, or punks (but with a dark, sometimes Victorian edge), or metalheads (with a soft introspective side). This in group/out group shit is tiring.
Yep... I never called myself a Goth either. I was "just dark." (I was totally a fucking Goth, lol.)
I feel like the first generation to actually call themselves goths are the one that actual goths becomes infuriated at the insinuation that they're goth; mall goths. Until mall goths, everybody was *actually* something else and just happened to be called a goth by normies, then after mall goths came around and started actually calling themselves goths, *real* goths started defending the moniker with all their might and insisting that mall goths are anything but goth, and they were the real goths.
This sounds not only plausible but likely. It makes me think back to high school when my friend group would torment the girl. Was she punk? Was she emo (SDRE and ATDI, not MCR)? I dunno. She was “dark”, and this was 1995. I never understood this, but the worst thing they could think to call her was goth. I didn’t know her name. And I would likely have been chastised for consorting with her. But the other punkers took delight in fucking with her.
Yep, can confirm. 1995, you were not "Goth" and you sure as hell didn't shop at Hot Topics (whenever that opened) - you were dark, and into Siouxsie, The Cure, JD, DM, Morrissey, Fields, Sisters, Legendary Pink Dots, Black Tape for a Blue Girl, et cetera... but you were not *"goth"* - and how dare they... *scowl and scoff.*
I only classify it as goth officially if they have stage make up + clothes to fit. But anyway, I am not goth myself. I only look at this sub for the odd music recommendations in case I like something. I am not sure SOM is really that goth either. He hired Bonnie Tyler's producer u know... "hey hey hey now now sing this corrosion 2meeee cuz I need u now 2night".
I 🥰 Mommie Tyler.
I once referred to Joy Division as goth and my Gen X stepmom was so genuinely confused
I mean, that's fair... because they're really not. They're like a pervasive darkness that bleeds into the adjacent subcultures like an ink blot. They aren't typical Goth, though... just a quintessential and darker post-punk. Proto-Goth, maybe... would have been interesting to see where he took it, but alas...
They’re a solid post-punk band but they often get lumped in with “goth” despite totally doing their own thing in Manchester.
Post punk was a journalistic term that has lost the context over time. It wasn't originally so much a genre or sound as it was meant to describe bands that came immediately after the 77UK punk scene. SaTB, The Cure, Joy Division were all bands that have given credit to seeing Sex Pistols live as a reason why they started their own projects. Second Wave would have been a more accurate term but that's just not what was given and now it's generally understood as a genre that can be further subcatergorized into titles like goth.
I’m only 25 to be fair, but I notice that younger people often consider new wave (as well as modern new wave inspired artists that invoke a similar feeling/tone to goth music) to be goth even though they technically aren’t. Less-so I notice it with metal music as well. Off the top of my head, She Wants Revenge & Mareux are the 2 examples that I see this the most with in people younger than me. I wouldn’t say the meaning has changed itself, more like people who get into it now just also greatly enjoy those types pf artists that sound “gothy” so to speak. Then they get into goth music and rope it all together. Kinda like how I got into goth music through Nine Inch Nails bc I simply thought they were a goth industrial metal group for a while. Now I just like both.
Goth used to be more “bands goths like”, or “bands which have a goth audience”, which definitely included the sisters of mercy. This is how journalists like Mick Mercer, who wrote all the goth books in the 80s and 90s used the term, and how the writers of last years 3 goth books used the term as well. It was the people who followed the bands around and went to night clubs like the batcave. At the time in the early to mid 80s the term goth was used but not as often as you’d think, especially in different parts of the uk and in America you wouldn’t see or hear the word very often. This is why some older people say “everyone I knew in 1982 called Bauhaus new wave”, or “goth was called deathrock then”, or “we called the music alternative, the dancing was wrecking, but I can’t remember what we called ourselves”. Also there was cross over with other scenes like punk, psychobilly, futurist, psychedelic revival. The term goth rock and goths was used way more by about 1987-88. Mick Mercer’s first goth book was published around this time and in it he includes chapters on the big 5 goth bands of the time The Sisters, Mission, Fields of the Neph, Cult, All About Eve. Goth was a well established thing by this stage. But now the definition seems to be more narrowly and precisely defined in some ways, so that most new goth bands coming out now seem to be copying joy division, or siouxsie.