As I was laying in bed this morning trying to get back to
sleep, I was considering the recently debated topic among some of my favorite
YouTubers.
Can you be goth if you don’t listen to goth music?
I have to say that I leaned more towards yes-ish than a no,
most likely due to my goth origin. I’ll get to why I’m a NO on this in a few.
I was “darkly inclined” before I ever heard goth music, at
12 I was reading Poe. I loved Vincent Price, and the Poe based movies he
featured in, including The Pit and the Pendulum, Masque of the Red Death and my
favorite The Comedy of Terrors (although I don’t think that is Poe based).
Just as an aside, perhaps my first goth album was the Alan
Parson’s Project: Tales of Mystery and Imagination. All the songs were based on
Poe’s works.
I wasn’t allowed to watch Freddy or Jason, but I was allowed
to watch all the old black and white horror movies I wanted. So Frankenstein,
the Wolfman and Dracula were top favorites. Of course I loved Vampires… and
Werewolves… I think I might have loved Werewolves first…
Growing up in a small town in Arizona, back in the early 80’s
we were pretty isolated, cable didn’t come all the way out to my house, so we
had three network channels. Radio reception wasn’t that great either.
My folks listened to an array of music, but they mostly
listened to country. Of course, all my peers listened to country, thus I
listened to it as well. I always gravitated towards what I think now were
darker or more supernatural songs. Such as Big Bad John by Jimmy Dean… yes, the
sausage guy.
First, what I still love about country is that it tells a
story. Big Bad John is about a man that may or may not have killed a man over
his “Cajun Queen”. So, this man with a questionable past takes up working for a
mine, of course he’s a big strong strapping lad. One day a beam gives way in
the mine and John steps over and holds it while the rest of the miners
evacuate. Unfortunately, John can’t escape the cave in, in time.
The second song “The Cajun Queen” is about how his lady love
comes to find him. When she does she simply resurrects him and leaves town. I
can totally see this as a goth song, revised as New Wave… Well maybe… If big
goth dudes were miners…
I liked other songs like “Phantom 309” by Red Sovine.
Phantom 309 is about a ghost semi. The driver, Big Joe, dumped his rig and died to save a bus load of
children, but his ghost picks up the occasional hitch hiker and delivers them
safely to a truck stop.
In a small town with no radio and no cable, you have to find
out about new music somehow… So I would buy the sound tracks to movies I liked.
You also had to rely on friends who might be interested in other types of music
to open your eyes to new bands.
Now I always maintained that Type O Negative was the start
of goth music for me. I came to a startling realization this morning as I was
laying there in bed… I was listening to the Cure a year before TON, and I was
listening to Depeche Mode a couple years before the Cure. My friend Jenny was
always listening to something different. She was playing Depeche Mode in her
car one day, and I fell in love with it and…
Thus my first official goth album ever was “Songs of Faith
and Devotion” by Depeche Mode! Okay, I concede that lots of goths think Depeche
Mode is a throw away, but I’m not so sure about that. Then again, I like Depeche
Mode more than the Cure. I know, take my black lipstick away.
So back to the soundtracks… I know that I was listening to
the Cure before TON because I learned of the Cure from the Crow soundtrack. The
movie came out in 1994. The following year Mortal Kombat came out and TON’s
re-mastered version of Blood and Fire was on that album.
I had bought the sound track to Mortal Kombat and we were
listening to it in my friend Jenny’s car. Funny thing as the first notes of
Blood and Fire played we skipped the song because it sounded, “to 70’s”. Then
when I listened to the full album at home, I fell hopelessly in love with Peter
Steel’s voice. 22 years later, I listen to TON almost every day. I light a cigarette
for Peter every Samhain.
Now back to “Can you be goth if you don’t listen to goth
music?” and my now resounding NO.
You know what a metal head looks like, usually long hair, metal
band t-shirt, battle vest, spikey cuffs, jeans, wallet on a chain and boots?
Wouldn’t you be shocked as shit if you asked them about their patches and they
said they didn’t listen to any of those bands, the patches were just “cool
looking” and they only liked rap?
The goth appearance is about the music, it’s our “battle
vest” if you will.
The only problem I can see here and it’s a big one… metal
has a huge body of work to pull from. There’s death metal, power metal, speed
metal, death core, folk metal, baby metal (if you count it) and the list goes
on and on. New metal bands are coming out every day it seems, while yes it’s a
specific type of music it’s still a fire hose of new music.
Goth has only post-punk, darkwave, ethereal wave and
neoclassical. When you start diverging into death rock, gothic rock, industrial and goth metal you get more
and more goths saying NO, that’s not goth. From what I can see the well of
music, in comparison to metal, dwindles down to a drip.
You can’t expect kids getting into
the scene now to go back and listen to Joy Division, Siouxie, Bauhaus and
Sisters of Mercy. They just aren’t going start off doing it, they will never
have heard of those band, much like myself at the start. We as a community (if
there is one) need to make sure we embrace the new bands and new versions of
the music or goth will die when our elder goths die out. For fucks sake most
goths are artists? We need to make the music for our future.
Alan Parsons
Project - Tales of Mystery and Imagination (full album)
https://youtu.be/HrFeBavjPL4
Depeche Mode
songs of Faith and Devotion full album
https://youtu.be/gsh08PgYNAM
The Cure -
Burn
Type O
Negative - Blood and Fire (out of the ashes remix)... I can't find the other
version, but it's on the Bloody Kisses Album
https://youtu.be/oOz8Q22hCnQ
