Put Your Shades On, It's Goth Rock Week!
 

Yup, it's goth rock week.

Early goth rock emerged in the late 70s and had strong ties with the english punk/post-punk scene. The themes were often dark, sometimes flavoured with the supernatural, but also often quite romantic.

So, this is the week when we celebrate all things goth-rocky. GET ON WITH IT!


I'll kick it off with one of my all-time favourite songs from my favourite goth rock group (although they loathe that description), The Sisters of Mercy :)



Let's see some more!

I actually listen to a fair amount of Goth Rock, I feel the genre gets a bad rep it doesn't deserve. Most people judge the genre by it's fans, who are very annoying. I love how dark it i and really it's just a more extreme version of most Post-Punk.

I did a journal entry on Bauhaus a while back, I love them to death. Such a great band. Here is Bela Lugosi's Dead often hailed as "the song that invented Goth Rock".


Fields Of The Nephilim are one of the most underrated bands ever. Elizium is one of the best albums of the 90s. This song is named Psychonaut and was on another album but remains my favourite song.


The Damned were one of my favourite first wave Punk bands, then a few years down the line became one of my favourite Goth Rock bands. This is Curtain Call, from The Black Album.


Swans are one of the most versatile artists of all time, everything they did was great no matter what genre it was. Their Goth album Love Of Life is one of their best releases. There are elements of Goth Rock in more of their releases but this is the main one.


Although Dead Can Dance are technically Darkwave their debut is Goth Rock so i'll include a song from there on here. It doesn't touch their later stuff mind,which is what makes them such a fantastic band.



Red Lorry Yellow Lorry are such a great band, so underrated. This should give them some more exposure. This is from their album Talk About The Weather, get it now!

I didn't include stuff like The Banshees and The Cure cause everybody knows them, but seriously Goth Rock is an outstanding genre and one of my favourites, listen to more Goth Rock!

Noone else have posted yet, so here are some other favourites!

The Cure's Lullaby is a marvellous hit that I unfortunately grew tired of a long time ago, but maybe some of the younger crowd reading this post don't know it yet. I could've gone for other songs by The Cure, but this one has the added bonus of having a brilliant music video, I think :) Nicely done and Robert Smith getting eaten by a huge couch towards the end is an interesting touch.



I don't like Siouxsie and the Banshees that much, but this "hit" of theirs is enthralling. Brilliant song!



edit :

Aha, James just beat me to making post #2 in the thread :D

Lmao, this is hilarious after my last sentence. Siouxsie And The Banshees are one of my favourite bands but I thought they were too obvious. Good someone posted them they do deserve the love they get.

I usually figure the famous bands are famous for a reason and there are so many young people on the forums that probably don't know Siouxsie or even The Cure very well, so I don't usually worry about posting stuff which is obvious. :)

I don't really listen much to goth rock these days, but I did a fair bit when I was a teenager. Another one of the bands I liked then was Love & Rockets which, as you probably know, is sort of a spin-off group from Bauhaus.

Here's an obvious one from them :D

I already posted Psychonaut :(
But it's so great it deserves two mentions...I guess.

On the topic of what's obvious, I thought you can't go more obvious than Bauhaus and Sisters of Mercy.

Anyway, some of my favorites that are not mentioned:

Christian Death - Romeo's Distress

Virgin Prunes - Ulakanakulot/Decline and Fall

The Mission (formed by ex-members of Sisters of Mercy) have yet to get their mention :)

Here are two bands I love that often collaborated. Both started in the early industrial scene but developed towards more gothic folk/country sound, the so called "apocalyptic folk".

Death In June - The Honour Of Silence from the album Nada! (1985)


Current 93 - The Inmost Light Itself from the album All The Pretty Little Horses (1997)


And how could have I forgotten the ethereal Cocteau Twins. Their first album Garlands (1982) I love the most and that's when they were more in the vein of dark wave/gothic rock. 'Grail Overfloweth' is my favorite song on the album...magical.