good point, but i’d say no unless his nails were black
Dead Can Dance was goth for about one early album. They quickly changed and settled into their neo-Baroque style afterward, but by then the Goth label had already been applied.
A goth label is just like that faded Dukakis/Ferraro bumper sticker that stubbornly refuses to come off of your old Volvo. Once applied, good luck removing it, and look forward to a lifetime of explaining it away.
Other bands that still have packets of goths tagging along at their concerts: The Cult, The Mission UK, Love and Rockets.
Umm, or was it Dukakis/Hart? or Bentsen? Ugh, the 80’s were a strange era.
Bentsen. Mondale ran with Feraro
Please indulge me while I take a trip down memory lane and list as many bands as I can think of from my old gothy days:
And Also the Trees
Alien Sex Fiend
Bauhaus
Sexgang Children
Andi Sexgang
Love and Rockets
Tones on Tail
The Cure
Depeche Mode
Cocteau Twins
Dead Can Dance
Sisters of Mercy
The Sisterhood
Christian Death
Skinny Puppy
Ministry
My Life with the Thrill Kill Cult
Nine Inch Nails
Siouxsie and the Banshees
Front 242
Joy Division
New Order
Laibach
KMFDM
Current 93
This Mortal Coil
His Name is Alive
Throwing Muses
Peter Murphy
Birthday Party
Lydia Lunch
Kate Bush
Wolfgang Press
Clan of Xymox
Xymox
The Mission
Mission UK
The Cult
Fields of the Nephelim
The Church
The Smiths
Echo and the Bunnymen
The Damned
XTC
Dukes of the Stratosphear
The Glove
The Creatures
Coil
Foetus
Death in June
Diamanda Galas
Einsturzende Neubauten
Frontline Assembly
Lene Lovich
Pigface
That’s all I can come up with for now, but it should give you a good idea of when I was a goth!
What, no The Moon Lay Hidden Beneath a Cloud?
That band is *my *test of Goth cred.
Seriously though, has anyone else ever heard of them?
I can only shake my head at the suggestion that the Smith’s are goth or Echo? COME ON! – are rice crispies goth? what about water? nachos? socks?-- But the brick that broke my back - the Damned - that’s a punk band for the love of pete!
Well, except, Bean, that “goth” is largely undefinable as a musical genre. The only definition that makes any sense is “music that ‘Goths’ listen to.”
On that count, all those bands qualify.
see posts 8 and 9 and my quip about nachos, socks, etc.
I think you’re wrong. I think it’s clear that there definitely is a style of music that has been labeled (or sub-labeled) “goth” (see, e.g. Peter Murphy and Bauhaus). The problem we’re having is one that arises when a style of music breeds a distinct subculture – a subculture so distinct that it takes on a life seperate and apart from the music. That members of the goth subculture have expanded their catalogue of musical tastes to include music in which they find goth themes or music that they just happen to like, doesn’t make everything that they listen to goth music. Sorry, the Damned aren’t goth just because goths (the subculture) listen to them anymore so than Young Jeezy is a frat boy by virtrue of his popularity with that set.
In other words, goths like goth, but maybe they also likesome punk and new wave – doesn’t make that punk and new wave goth.
Please realize that among my friends none of us took ourselves to seriously in terms of being a “punk” or a “goth” or “deathrocker” or what have you. In my teenage years, all the non-mainstream kids hung out together. Thus I would hang out with my metalhead friend Marty and we’d get high and listen to Pink Floyd, and so forth. I make no claim that all of these bands are “goth”, simply that I or my friends listened to all these bands during that phase of my life. I forgot to add Duran Duran, Madonna, Metallica and Jane’s Addiction, but had I remembered, all of those would have been on my list too. None of them are “goth” but the goth people I knew all liked those bands.
My point is, goth was what you made it for a very long time. The only goth bands that may have actually called themselves that back in my day were 45 Grave and Christian Death. Nowadays there are many bands that identify themselves as goth. This wasn’t always the case.
Very few goths I’ve met are vegans… most of the ones I knew were staunchly anti-vegetarian, actually. They wouldn’t give up leather or blood and you’ve got to be something of an idealist to stick with animal rights, not a misanthropic cynic.
I’ve seen Dead Can Dance live and it was wall-to-wall goths dressed to the nines, or to the thirteens as it were. They’re not a goth band because some goths like them, they’re a goth band because a shitload of goths worship them. Within the Realm of a Dying Sun also has one of the gothiest goth goth album covers of all time.
In a related note, The Damned are goth because of one album, Phantasmagoria. If they didn’t want to be a goth band, they shouldn’t have used that picture on the cover. They knew what they were getting into.
Goth bands will always deny being goth bands, which is only good sense. If a goth band says they’re goth, run away.
Also, I like The Moon Lay Hidden Beneath a Cloud… I even have the book.
And that about fulfills my posting quota for the word “goth” for the next five years.
I think Elysian Fields (with Jennifer Charles from Lovage) and Faith and the Muse are two other Gothy bands nobody has named yet.
Another vote for TMLHBAC.
Indeed, the World Serpent label was one of the finest source for this genre. It is missed.
For the life of me I can’t figure out why Concrete Blonde was never identified as Goth. They certainly deal with the same issues using the same language and much of the same music. Furthermore there isn’t any other genre they fit in well with. Like others have said, I bet if I went to one of their shows it would have a high Goth quotient (if a bit older than some groups.)
On alt.Gothic back in the day, the one time they were brought up the basic response was “sure, if they had to be anything, they’d be Goth, but I just don’t see it.” (I didn’t bring it up myself, btw.)
One of my theories is that it has to do with the incestuous nature of a lot of the subgenres of “Modern Rock” (emo is guilty of this, too.) So not only original Goth bands considered part of the genre, but bands that formed from their members or have another direct connection are grandfathered in (for instance, New Order and Love and Rockets.) Bands that sound similar to these aren’t.
I never heard the term goth when I was in high school (back in a nuclear age, when Robert Palmer still walked the earth). But a bunch of my friends listened to Depeche Mode, the Cure, & Bauhaus, & I got into the Church’s relatively freaky dark stuff from Starfish on.
A few years later, there were all these kids dressing like the Munsters & wearing makeup more appropriate to the stage than to general wear, calling themselves Goth. I thought it ridiculous, & still do.
I’m amused that New Order, the owners of the ecstasy fueled Hacienda, where raves may have been born, have Goth cred.
You do know that New Order arose from the ashes of Joy Division right? I’m sure you do. But I bet plenty of people still don’t. (I feel like I’m in high school again pointing this out.)
You have a point. Or you would, if Joy Division were a Goth Band.
However, they are not, for who else was the term “post-punk” invented for, if not Joy Division?
OK, maybe the Fall, too.
Once again, band Goths listen to =/= Goth Band. To be a Goth Band, I submit that the members themselves must in some way subscribe to Goth, from Peter Murphy with his tights and winklepickers, to Black Tape for a Blue Girl with their friggin’ Goth music label!
I’ve always wondered if late era T.S.O.L (Silent Scream) or Glen Danzig’s more operatic howlings qualified as “Goth”.
Whoa. I listen to all the bands mentioned in this thread. I must be a goth. 
(noooooo, I’m not… though I am pale enough, I suppose). Just add in Razed In Black. I wonder if there’s a member card and benefits. Other goths would glare at me at first (since, you know, I tend to wear a lot of pink. Not hot pink, either), and then I’d flash my little goth card. “It’s cool, I’m with you guys.”
Riiight. 