Gothic music

gothic music can be broken up into two main categories: That said, there are many genres or subgenres of music associated with the Gothic subculture. As a definition, musically, with the exception of [Rock|Gothic Rock], which is a particular [in Goth|1980s] [|Post-Punk] subgenre, think of "Goth/ic music" as an [terms|umbrella term]; if you're in the overlap of [and Paganism|Goths and (Neo)Pagans], you're probably aware that "Pagan" and "Paganism" are best described as umbrella terms with dozens of religions widely considered to be "under the umbrella".
 * music made by people who are part of the [subculture|Gothic subculture]
 * music a significant percentage of people in the Gothic subculture generally tend to like
 * yes, the above categories can overlap

Likewise, Gothic music is best described as a plethora of genres that widely appeal to people in the [subculture|Goth subculture], including [punk|avant-garde punk], [music|experimental music], [folk music|dark folk music], [|neoclassical], and many others (which will be listed below, as they occur to me). The fact that Goth doesn't quite describe a music genre in the same way that it describes a [literature|literary genre] and a [film|film genre] and [architecture|architectural movement] (and by extension, [art|art movement] and [fashion|fashion movement]) doesn't necessarily mean that there's "no such thing as Gothic music", as people in the subculture have occasionally claimed; music genres, unlike genres of literature of film, are defined by more than just atmosphere -- since the days of Pythagoras, there has been a fringe of people who consider music as much about maths as it is about art, and so music genres tend to be defined by composition more than atmosphere or mood.

Pre-History of Goth Music
A lot of current and past musicians considered under the "goth" umbrella looks to Classical music, world music, and ancient music for inspiration. Some composers have been known to concentrate on minor keys and a darker ambience, and some pieces, like Mozart's opera, Don Giovanni, was especially dark, when compared to his more popular works (and also of note, [music|Industrial music] pioneer, [Fanni Tutti|Cosi Fanni Tutti] took her stage name from Mozart's comic opera, Così fan tutte ["Thus They All Do"]).

Artists like Nick Cave also go back to early Blues music from the 1920s and 30s, and the Dark Cabaret genre looks to early jazz, the [Berlin|Weimar Berlin] cabarets, North America's vaudeville, and the UK's music halls of the early 20th Century.

The 1960s / 1970s: Earliest Gothic music
It's easily arguable that with [Cohen|Leonard Cohen], [|Nico], and [Velvet Underground|The Velvet Underground], that [folk|alternative] and [folk|avant-garde folk] are the earliest genres associated with what is currently regarded as "Goth music". Nico's second album, 1969's [Marble Index|The Marble Index] is often cited as the earliest album to be described by the rock press as "gothic" in its sound and atmosphere.

In the UK in the late 1960s, [Driscoll|Julie Driscoll] was known for songs like "This Wheel's On Fire" (a Bob Dylan cover that was later covered by [Sioux|Siouxsie Sioux]), "Road to Cairo", and "Season of the Witch" (a cover of a Donovan song) and a late-1960s aesthetic that has been described as "psychedelic witch" lent dark airs to [music|psychedelic music].

In 1968 in the United States, a band called [Cooper|Alice Cooper] was discovered by [Zappa|Frank Zappa] and in 1969 released their first record, though it was their third album, 1971's Love It to Death, that was when their sound became especially dark, and practically speaking, with songs like "Black Juju" (later covered by [Family|Skeletal Family]) and "The Ballad of Dwight Frye", laid down a working prototype for the [|Deathrock] sound, almost a decade before it was called "deathrock" (also from that album includes a cover of the Australian popular song, "Sun Arise", which is referenced by [Sex Fiend|Alien Sex Fiend] at the beginning of "Ignore the Machine"). It is also noteworthy that Alice Cooper (which is also the stage name of Vincent Furnier, and the Alice Cooper now relevant), had previously been in Phoenix, AZ-area [rock|garage rock] band, [Spiders|The Spiders] (not to be confused with the 1960s Japanese band of the same name), whose sound was similar to some of the lighter songs from Love It to Death, and that [Bolles|Don Bolles] and [Cancer|Dinah Cancer] of [Grave|45 Grave] were originally from the Phoenix area, as 45 Grave is often cited as being one of, if not THE "first gothic band" (as claimed by the notes on their Sleep In Safety retrospective).

In 1969, [Stooges|The Stooges] (originally from Ann Arbor, MI) released their second album, Funhouse, much of which bore a darker sound that their self-titled debut released in '68.

In 1970, [Sabbath|Black Sabbath] released their eponymous first album, which was an especially dark psychedelic record (their sound did not really become instrumental in defining [metal|heavy metal] music until 1972's Paranoid, though that record was still technically in the genre of "hard psychedelic").

Also in the 1970s, [rock|Glam rock] and [rock|Art rock] became a key influences in later Gothic rock, and many Glam and Art rock artists would include songs that continue to get regular play at Goth nights and are considered by some music critics and historians to be key points in defining the Gothic aural aesthetic. [Bowie|David Bowie], [Music|Roxy Music], [|Jobriath], [Bush|Kate Bush], [|XTC], and others are still widely influential on Gothic music genres.

Later in the 1970s, on both sides of the Atlantic, [rock|punk rock] gained prominence. Many people erroneously describe the [subculture|Gothic subculture] and [rock|Gothic rock] to be an (implicitly direct) "offshoot of the punk scene". This is not necessarily correct. The Gothic subculture is directly influenced by the arts, whereas the only constant defining point of "punk", as a subculture, is discontent --with politics, society, art(!), and so forth. While many Goths do employ a DIY ethic common in the punk scene, that ethic was also seen amongst the hippies of the late 1960s, and punk is often regarded as a sort of a nihilistic reaction against the pie-eyed optimism of the hippie movement. While many early Gothic music and and bands were previously associated with punk rock (such as [& the Banshees|Siouxsie & the Banshees], [Damned|The Damned], [Ballet|Rubella Ballet], and a small number of other UK bands), and Los Angeles' [|Deathrock] scene was directly related to that region's hardcore punk scene, many other bands would be better described as [punk|avant-garde punk] (which is exactly how [Friday|Gavin Friday] describes [Prunes|Virgin Prunes]) or [punk|art punk] (a term often used to describe more introspective, surreal, and/or experimental bands that can also be easily regarded as "punk", such as [(band)|Television], [Hell & the Voidoids|Richard Hell & the Voidoids], [Fall|The Fall], [Gang Children|Sex Gang Children], and early material from [Heads|Talking Heads]).

The 1980s
The 1980s saw an explosion of many new sub-genres of [rock|alternative rock] often collectively referred to as [|Post-Punk] (and often retroactively so). This argueably began very late in the 1970s with [Batcave|The Batcave] and a lot of the [punk|avant-garde punk], [|synth-punk], [|Futurist], and early [rock|Gothic rock] musicians and bands that gained a following there. Then there's [|Specimen] (whose singer, Ollie Wisdom, owned The Batcave]]), who were pretty much a straight-up [rock|Glam] band, in the vein of Sweet or The Who's Tommy (Pete Townshend's influence is all over "The Beauty of Poison"), but who were playing up the music press's allegations that "glam is dead".

Also technically gaining initial prominence around 1978 and 1979 are two non-British scenes: American [Wave|No Wave] and Australian [|Swampie]s.

No Wave was a scene (often regarded as peculiar to New York City, save for Los Angeles' [|Tuxedomoon]) based on performance art, experimental music, and visual arts, including cinema. Much of the music associated with No Wave can be described as either "punk jazz" or "noise rock" or "dance punk". Artists most closely associated with No Wave are as diverse as [Lunch|Lydia Lunch], [Chance|James Chance], [Monet|Cristina Monet], and [Girls|Theoretical Girls].

Swampies were a subculture peculiar to Australia, though much music associated with Swampies are often considered to be "[|deathrock]" by American audiences, especially when Deathrock re-emerged as a reaction against the popularity of [music|Industrial music] and [|EBM] in the late [in Goth|1990s] and early [in Goth|2000s]. Swampie music can be described as a sort of fusion of punk and rhythm and blues. Similar to how a lot of early-1980s L.A. Deathrock can be linked to [Williams|Rozz Williams] in three degrees or less, a lot of the most prominent Swampie bands can be linked to [Cave|Nick Cave] in about three degrees or less, in spite of the fact that [Saints|The Saints] and [Scientists|The Scientists] both made records that pre-date any original material by The Boys Next Door (before the latter gained [S Howard|Rowland S Howard] and became [Birthday Party|The Birthday Party]).

By the mid-1980s, Gothic Rock was coming into its own as a genre of music, and especially with the relative popularity of bands like [Sisters of Mercy|The Sisters of Mercy], [Mission|The Mission], [Loves Jezebel|Gene Loves Jezebel], [Cult|The Cult] (formerly [Southern Death Cult|The Southern Death Cult] and then [Cult|Death Cult]), [For Lulu|Flesh For Lulu], and even [of the Nephilim|Fields of the Nephilim] gaining some mainstream visibility (but only The Cult ever seemed to truly "breakout" from being recognised as a band that largely appeals to people within a specific subculture --Gene Loves Jezebel came close, though). Some of the most surprisingly "mainstream" avenues afforded Gothic music, and especially Gothic Rock, some minor visibility in the 1980s (such as US cop drama, [of Gothic music featured in Miami Vice|Miami Vice], and many films of [Hughes|John Hughes]) but most of this visibility was fleeting and rarely contributed to long-term mainstream successes of many of the bands.

The 1990s
Electronic music became incredibly popular in the 1990s, seeing artists such as [|Bjork] and bands like [|Portishead] becoming quite prominent; while in the 1980s, electronic music was a fringe scene (due largely to backlash against Disco, at the end of the 1970s), it regained mainstream prominence in the 1990s, and this was even moreso in Goth:

The 1990s major contribution to goth came around the time of the 1993 film adaptation of [Rice|Anne Rice]'s novel, [With the Vampire|Interview With the Vampire], which became hugely popular with many goths and spawned many baby-bats. Due to the resultant interest in Anne Rice's series, [Vampire Chronicles|The Vampire Chronicles], renewing, and Lestat becoming a rockstar in [Vampire Lestat|The Vampire Lestat], a lot of (often underrated) life was breathed back into the gothic subculture. This was also the decade where a large interest in pagan religions exploded, even before 1996's film [Craft|The Craft], and while the mainstream audiences looked at this with fear and suspicion, Goths tended to embrace it. These infusions of mythologiy, folklore, and magic into the Goth subculture combined with the growing popularity of electronic music were incredibly influential on [|Darkwave] music. Prominent Darkwave bands to come out of of this period include [Symphony|Switchblade Symphony], [& the Muse|Faith & the Muse], [|Suspiria], [|Lycia], [Cruxshadows|The Cruxshadows], and increased popularity of [Can Dance|Dead Can Dance].

Electronics also are a base for modern [music|Industrial music] and [|EBM], though less prominent with first-wave Industrial such as [Gristle|Throbbing Gristle], [Ejaculation|Premature Ejaculation], and [Kittens|Lemon Kittens]. Though the fusion of Industrial and heavy metal music first started with [|KMFDM] in the mid-1980s, this didn't really become popular until the early-to-mid-1990s, with the prominence and even sometimes mainstream popularity of bands like [Inch Nails|Nine Inch Nails], [|Prodigy], [|Ministry], and [Off Jill|Jack Off Jill]. EBM such as [242|Front 242], [|Wolfsheim], and [Ebb|Nitzer Ebb], became far more prominent in the underground and goth nights, even though many such groups actually formed in the 80s.

The 1990s in goth music also saw growing popularity in the underground and counterculture of Neofolk and Martial industrial genres.

[Metal|Gothic Metal], such as [of the Nephilim|Nefilim] ([McCoy|Carl McCoy's] side-project from [of the Nephilim|Fields of the Nephilim]) [Project|Shadow Project] and [O Negative|Type O Negative], and Black metal, such as Cradle of Filth, also became popular. While many Goth purists make many flailing arguments that heavy metal has nothing to do with Goth, the noted influence of proto-metal from Black Sabbath and Alice Cooper on early Gothic rock and deathrock, and the obvious influence on 1970s hard rock and prog on Fields of the Nephilim, doesn't give those arguments much weight -- though compositionally and atmospherically, black metal has practically nothing in common with an overwhelming majority of Goth music.

Gothic rock bands, such as [Blind|Sunshine Blind], [on Stun|Children on Stun], [Stone|Rosetta Stone], [After Midnight|London After Midnight], and the re-formed [Death|Christian Death with Rozz Williams] also flourished, and in spite of many such accusations against some of these 1990s gothic rock bands, only [Merry Thoughts|The Merry Thoughts] "sounded like a Sisters of Mercy clone." If anything, there were more bands that sounded like Fields of the Nephilim.

The solo albums of [Friday|Gavin Friday] (originally from Virgin Prunes), and L.A. band [Strange|Cinema Strange] (formed in 1997) also show some of the earliest emergence of [Cabaret|Dark Cabaret], after the second and third Christian Death records.

The big elephant in the room of the topic of "goth music of the 1990s" is, of course, [Manson|Marilyn Manson]. Though Brian Warner did have some tenuous connections to the Tampa, Florida, Goth and industrial scene in the early 1990s, and his music did undeniably launch many a baby bat into existence (even if many of them ended up outgrowing it), in the underground, his music was seldom given much weight, especially as he had proved tendencies to alienate everyone he's worked with or even toured with -- which, in spite of his more recent claims of "cos Columbine massacre!", is the real reason he stopped producing Gold records in album sales after about Golden Age of Grotesque (which came out almost a decade after said massacre), as fewer and fewer creative people wanted to work with him. He's generally had very little influence on Goth, even though the mainstream media continues to associate his music with it.