Pop That's Not Poppy - My History of Goth Rock

A Goth is defined by Webster’s as “a member of a Germanic people that overran the Roman Empire in the early centuries of the Christian era. Compare that term to names of bands like Christian Death, Einsturzende Neubauten (‘collapsing new buildings’), and Xmal Deutschland. The combination ‘Gothic romance’ represents a union of two of the major influences in the development of European culture, the Roman Empire and the Germanic tribes that invaded it. Horace Walpole applied the word "Gothic" to his novel The Castle of Otranto, a Gothic Story (1765) in the sense "medieval, not classical.” From this novel filled with scenes of terror and gloom in a medieval setting descended a literary genre still popular today; from its subtitle descended the name for it.” From the literary Dracula and Frankenstein came the Universal Studios’ horror movies which were later parodied on television with The Munsters and then revived by Britain’s Hammer Studios. British youth that grew up loving this dark side of pop culture took the contemporary ‘punk’ attitude, kept the edge but traded the rags for Victorian leather and lace, then met at a London club called The Batcave. At least, that seems to be the connection the media made.

Mick Mercer, author of four books on Goth rock, supports the term: “An embellished darker side of life has always captivated even the youngest minds, and that translates very well to music. After the bumptious music the ‘60s provided, the only sounds with which punks and Goths found easy favour was reggae or glam (Sweet/Roxy/Bolan/Bowie), because that was street level and, above all, there was one special performer. Find an original Goth who apparently hasn’t owned Alice Cooper albums and you’re likely to be talking to a pathological liar! When he appeared on our screens performing “School’s Out,” the man whom Marilyn Manson would successfully emulate sent thousands out to investigate his albums filled with the most deliriously screwed-up songs.” (from the liner notes to A Life Less Lived: The Goth Box CD set pictured to the right)

Nick Hornby, in his book High Fidelity (1995), asks: “What came first – the music or the misery? Did I listen to (pop) music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to (pop) music? Do all those records turn you into a melancholy person? People worry about kids playing with guns, and teenagers watching violent videos; we are scared that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands – literally thousands – of songs about broken hearts and rejection and pain and misery and loss.”

What follows is a collection of miserable pop tunes, which may or may not agree with your definitions of goth and/or rock, but they would all work perfectly as background music in a horror movie (teen slashers being the most "medieval" movies currently in production). With that said, here is my "goth rock" playlist:

1. "Paint It Black" - The Rolling Stones (1966) I acknowledge that this is neither post-punk like nearly all the other tracks nor is it considered Goth. But it’s dark, it’s bleak, and the sitar sounds medieval. Mick Jagger said, “it's like the beginnings of miserable psychedelia. That's what the Rolling Stones started - maybe we should have a revival of that.” U2 did a cover of this for the 7" B-side of “Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses,” and used some of it in live versions of “Bad.”

2. "People Are Strange" - The Doors (1967) Echo & The Bunnymen covered this on The Lost Boys soundtrack.

3. "I Was a Teenage Werewolf" - The Cramps (Live, 1976) The original psychobilly band making an obvious pop culture horror movie reference. "More punk than you," to quote MC Lars' "Hot Topic Is Not Punk Rock."

4. "Bela Lugosi's Dead" - Bauhaus (1979) "It's been described as the Goth rock equivalent of "Stairway to Heaven" — in fact, it's even longer than that particular song — but what still remains especially astonishing about the title track is in fact how un-‘Goth’ it is, at least in the clichéd notion familiar in later times. If anything, dub reggae is at the heart of the song, with Haskin’s steady pulse and clatter interspersed with heavy-duty bass from David J. But what ultimately carries the day is the combination of Ash’s swirling, crisp and snarling guitar work, a mini-masterpiece of art-rock in itself, and Murphy’s deep black croon, singing what he described later as lyrics meant to be as much horror-movie parody as anything else, but which still conveyed a romantic majesty thanks to the performance. Until its appearance on the Crackle compilation in 1998, the EP was the only place to get the original studio version, making it one of the steadiest-selling singles in musical history as a result." (Review by Ned Raggett, read it at allmusic.com)

5. "Spellbound" - Siouxsie & the Banshees (1981) These guys and The Misfits both have songs entitled "Halloween," but I saved those for my "Halloween" mix CD.

6. "Dead Souls" - Joy Division (1981) Nine Inch Nails covered it for The Crow soundtrack. As you know, Joy Division became New Order. Movement, the first New Order album, is one of their best and the songs all sound like this one.

7. "Truth" - New Order (1981) Case in point.

8. "The Hanging Garden" - The Cure (1982) AFI covered this on their A Fire Inside! EP. And there’s that percussion again.

9. "No Hands" - Echo & the Bunnymen (1982) Released around the time of the Heaven Up Here album, the band’s self-professed favorite, while not their best (that would be Ocean Rain), it’s definitely considered the most goth. Something that ties this to the last two is the tribal sounding percussion, which New Order was still incorporating when I saw them live.

10. "Don't Fall" - The Chameleons (1983) I need to get way more stuff by them. So far everything I've come across is good, but then I'm a sucker for British dream pop.

11. "How Soon Is Now?" - The Smiths (1984) I heard a cover of this on The Craft soundtrack before I heard the original. They’re so close, yet the newer, hipper version isn’t quite as haunting, gritty as the updated vocals may be. Too bad for the movie.

12. "She Sells Sanctuary" - The Cult (1985) From my With Honors soundtrack – not a scary movie or even a scary song, but the band was supposedly one of the most exciting live bands on London’s early 1980s club scene. They changed names three times to shake their goth fans.

13. "Haunted When the Minutes Drag" - Love & Rockets (1985) From my She’s Having a Baby soundtrack, one of my Top 100 movies, which has nothing to do with goth rock, but the band does.

14. "Tomorrow's World" - Killing Joke (1985) I’ll admit it, I’d never heard of them until I got the Suicide Girls’ Black Heart Retrospective compilation (which I picked up for the picture on the cover). Since then, I’ve connected them to a punk song I’ve always liked called “Eighties,” which Nirvana borrowed a riff from for “Come As You Are.”

15. "Muscoviet Mosquito" - Clan of Xymox (1985) Easy to see why they initially drew comparisons to Joy Division and The Cure. I get these weekly e-mails from an independent label, A Different Drum, that specializes in synth pop, and the owner has referenced Xymox on numerous occasions.

16. "Dressed in Black" - Depeche Mode (1986) More for the title than the circus carousel~funeral dirge music. I could’ve included “Waiting for the Night” or “The Dead of Night." The band’s most goth is “One Caress,” but that’s just my opinion.

17. "All This and Nothing" - Sponge (1996) From The Craft soundtrack.

18. "HorrorBeach Pt. II" - HorrorPops (2008) Psychobilly/surf sound plus reference to grindhouse movies equals "Pop That's Not."

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