Good Goth - Part 1

Summary

Ongoing History of New Music: "Good Goth - Part 1" Summary

Release Date: June 20, 2025
Host: Alan Cross
Podcast: Ongoing History of New Music by Curiouscast

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Introduction to Goth Music and Its Misconceptions

[01:00] Alan Cross kicks off the episode by addressing the widespread misconceptions surrounding goth music. He explains how certain types of music have historically been labeled as "evil," often blamed on mythical entities like Satan. Cross emphasizes that while music aims to evoke emotions, the harsh dissonance in some chords was once so unsettling that institutions like the Catholic Church deemed them diabolic.

“It sounds kind of dissonant... but that was the whole point. It evoked an emotional response, a disturbing emotional response.” – Alan Cross [01:00]

Cross highlights that modern usage of such chords is commonplace, contrasting past fears with today’s more accepting musical landscape.

The Origins of Goth Music

[04:13] Alan Cross delves into the roots of goth music, tracing its lineage back to the British punk rock explosion of the late 1970s. He credits bands like Joy Division and early Ultravox as pioneers who infused punk’s raw energy with darker, introspective themes.

“Goth is first and foremost a British creation.” – Alan Cross [08:45]

Cross explains that the economic and social turmoil in Britain during this period—high unemployment, strikes, and recession—fueled the emergence of goth as a form of expressive outlet for the youth.

Formation of the Goth Subculture

The host discusses how goth transcended music to become a full-fledged subculture encompassing art, fashion, lifestyle, and even elements of religion and politics. He differentiates between casual participants and hardcore enthusiasts, while also addressing the unfortunate stigma associated with isolated incidents linking goth culture to violence.

“Goth is not the evil thing that some people think it is.” – Alan Cross [09:10]

Key Bands and Musical Evolution

[09:31] Alan Cross introduces Siouxsie and the Banshees, one of the first-generation goth bands, noting their significant influence on the scene. He narrates the tragic story of Ian Curtis from Joy Division, whose suicide deepened the emotional gravitas of goth music.

“Some remembered that Dave Vanian of the punk band the Damned sometimes claimed to be a vampire, which was pretty interesting.” – Alan Cross [10:10]

Cross highlights Bauhaus with their seminal track "Bela Lugosi's Dead" as the prototypical goth anthem, embodying the dark, vampiric aesthetics that became synonymous with the genre.

The Batcave and the Mainstream Breakthrough

A pivotal moment in goth history, [12:26] Alan Cross recounts the opening of the Batcave nightclub in London's Soho district by the band Specimen in July 1982. This venue became the epicenter for the goth movement, fostering a community and spreading the subculture both nationally and internationally.

“Specimen was so ambitious that they decided to open up their own club.” – Alan Cross [13:00]

The Batcave's influence catalyzed goth's entry into the mainstream by providing a dedicated space for expression and performance, blending gothic and glam elements.

The First Wave of Goth Bands

[16:39] Alan Cross outlines the first wave of goth bands from 1979 to 1985, predominantly led by British groups like The Cure, The March Violets, and The Sisters of Mercy. He notes the distinctive sound characterized by tribal drums, melodic bass lines, sharp guitars, and often operatic vocals, creating a mesmerizing and hypnotic musical experience.

“The drums were fairly tribal... the guitars were sharp and thin, while the singing could be almost operatic at times.” – Alan Cross [17:00]

Cross provides examples of key tracks, including Alien Sex Fiend's "Unfeeling," showcasing the era's quintessential goth sound.

Transition and Legacy

As the first wave dwindled by the end of 1985, [18:48] Alan Cross reflects on the enduring nature of goth music and subculture. He illustrates how bands like Southern Death Cult evolved into globally recognized acts like The Cult, demonstrating goth's lasting impact on the broader music landscape.

“By the end of 1985, the first wave of goth and goth mania was coming to an end. But the music and the subculture proved, well, just as undead as some of their subjects of fascination.” – Alan Cross [18:48]

Conclusion and Teaser for Part Two

[19:58] Alan Cross wraps up the episode by summarizing goth's evolution from a punk offshoot to a significant cultural force. He hints at the genre's quiet expansion and sustained influence, promising an in-depth exploration in the next installment.

“So what happened next? Well, goth got bigger, but quietly. I'll explain next time on part two.” – Alan Cross [19:58]

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Notable Audio Interludes

Throughout the episode, listeners are treated to snippets from iconic goth and related bands, including:

• Nine Inch Nails covering Joy Division’s "Keep on Calling Me" ([04:13]).
• Bauhaus performing "Bela Lugosi's Dead" ([10:27]).
• Nick Cave and the Birthday Party with "Release the Bats" ([15:14]).
• Specimen from their album "Batastrophe" ([14:06]).

These interludes serve to illustrate the discussed points and provide an authentic auditory experience of the goth era.

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Final Thoughts

Alan Cross successfully demystifies goth music, presenting it as a rich and complex subculture rather than the misunderstood and villainized genre. By tracing its origins, key players, and cultural significance, the episode offers listeners a comprehensive understanding of goth’s place in music history.

For those new to the genre or seeking to deepen their appreciation, "Good Goth - Part 1" serves as an engaging and informative introduction, setting the stage for continued exploration in subsequent episodes.

Transcript

[Alan Cross]

Hey, it's Alan and I just wanted to let you know that you can now listen to the ongoing history of new music. Early and ad free on Amazon. Music included with Prime.

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Get suggestions, inspiration and answers from your glasses. Ray Ban Meta Glasses Iconic Style meets Meta AI it is a fact of human history that certain types of music will scare people. They get scared because this music allegedly comes from Satan himself. The Dark Lord has been blamed or credited with creating or inspiring the creation of evil music. Music that will make mere mortals do, well, bad things, or at the very least, think bad thoughts. Satan, working under pseudonyms such as Lucifer, Beelzebub, Abaddon, Apollon, Apollyon, and the ever popular Prince of Darkness, has always had the ability to freak people out. Take the case of the Catholic Church. Not so long ago, it once declared that a chord sounded so, well, evil that it had to be composed by the devil himself. I mean, it only stood to reason, right? I mean, evil sounding chord, somebody evil had to write it. They called it Diabolicus in musica, the Devil in music. It sounds kind of dissonant, which means it's not entirely pleasing to the ear. But that was the whole point. It evoked an emotional response, a disturbing emotional response. Not that again. Wait a second. Isn't all music about emotion? Well, anyway, for the Catholic Church back in the day, it was a little too much and they banned the use of this particular chord and composers were forbidden from using it. It was all very, oh very scary. Now today things are a little different. People use Diabolica synd musica all the time. If you want to know what it sounds like, what this evil Dark lord chord sounds like, run the theme to the Simpsons through your head. It's loaded with what is called the Devil's Tritone. Now, rock music was, and in some corners of the planet still is, considered to be the product of the wicked one, the dark angel, the father of lies and deceit. Some will single out specific branches of rock as being particularly evil. There are certain types of metal that are pretty close with Satan, especially the kind that comes out of Norway. Norwegian death metal people are pretty hardcore when it comes to their relationships with the devil. And another easy target is goth. Now, it seems that goth music and goth followers are often targeted when someone flips out and does something weird or awful, like shooting up Columbine or Dawson College. So maybe it's time we offered a bit of perspective, at least from the music side of things. Don't be afraid. Please don't be afraid. This is the real scoop on the music they call Goff. This is the ongoing history of new music podcast with Alan Cross.

[Nine Inch Nails]

Keep on calling me, Keep calling me Keep on calling me.

[Alan Cross]

Nine Inch Nails with a cover of a Joy Division song from 1980. Now, Joy Division was one of the bands that helped create goth music. And the nail song was from the movie the Crow, which had a lead character who of course was also very, very goth. Okay, wait a second. We've jumped way too far ahead. Welcome again, I'm Alan Cross and the goal here is to shed some light on goth music. And don't worry, nobody's gonna melt or anything like that. Goth is a subculture, and it really is a full blown subculture. It carefully guards its membership. It's about music, but that's only part of it. Goth can also be about art and fashion and lifestyle, and in some cases, religion and politics. And like any subculture, there are varying degrees of adherence. On one end you have the dabblers, and on the other side, the hardcore. And like any subculture, there are the crazies, the extremists, the wackos who are detached from morality or reality. The tiny, tiny, tiny few who do things so monumentally dumb or evil that everyone else suffers. Stigma is for everyone. Thank you, idiots at Columbine. Thank you, Kim Veer Gil. So let's get this straight from the beginning. To be goth or to be into goth is not to be a psychopath. Yes, the fashion might remind some of an eternal Halloween and the music might be dark. And yes, it's true that a characteristic of goth adherence is to be highly opinionated about many things and especially goth culture itself. But really, goth is not the evil thing that some people think it is. Okay, that's the end of the editorial. This is a music show, so let's focus on that. Goth could very well be the biggest rock related subculture in the world. We see it in music, in comic books and cartoons and fashion, on TV and in movies. I mean, if there wasn't such a thing as goth, director Tim Burton wouldn't exist. Goth music was one of the many different byproducts of the British end of the punk rock explosion of the 1970s. Yeah, there were some American practitioners back in the day, but goth is first and foremost a British creation. At first, describing music as gothic meant that it had a doomy, gloomy atmosphere. The first uses of the word gothic in a modern sense were in description of Joy Division records. This music was gothic in the sense that it was reminiscent of themes in 19th century Literature known as gothic. The original novel Frankenstein is an example of gothic literature. Going back further, there's gothic architecture, exemplified in the churches of the middle ages. And if you want to go back even further, there were the Visigoths, the marauding tribes who helped with the fall of the Roman empire. Or it might be simpler than that. Some early goth practitioners maintain that the real reason they were tagged as goths was because some of them lived in. In an apartment block in London that was called Visigoth Towers. Goths for short. Hmm. Whatever the case, a significant number of punk refugees began to turn towards dark, gloomy music because it was, well, it was a dark, gloomy time in England. High unemployment, strikes, recession. It was pretty ugly, especially for young people. As the original punk scene died away, the darker minded slowly coalesced around those who already made dark music at least part time. That would include David Bowie and Joy Division, the first version of Ultravox, and an Irish performance art group called the Virgin Prunes. And of course, let's not forget the contributions of Alice Cooper, who was famous for being fond of the macabre, and even Kiss, who had, you know, that weird thing going for him. Early goth music was less aggressive than punk. It was also introspective and artsy. There was an intellectual component featuring trappings of traditional gothic, horror, existentialist philosophy and romanticism, along with a nice dollop of nihilism. It's very brainy, but then you have to add in the inspiration provided by the Munsters and the Addams Family and some of those great grade B horror movies from the 50s and 60s, not to mention the Rocky Horror Picture Show. So you kind of get the idea now, despite this darkness, goth was never whiny. Introspective maybe, but there was a Strength there. A strength and a conviction that needed to be celebrated. Amongst the very first were Susie and the Banshees. Singer Susie sue was a member of a group of fans called the Bromley Contingent who followed the Sex Pistols around from gig to gig. In fact, if you've ever seen or heard the famous Bill Grundy TV episode with the Pistols, the woman Grundy hits on is in fact Susie Sue. With her really striking appearance and her black hair and the makeup, Susie became an archetype for thousands. This is from 1978.

[Nine Inch Nails]

Sorry, warm to see your face confused.

[Alan Cross]

Suzy and the Banshees, one of the first generation goth bands. We'll come back to them in a bit. Other like minded groups started popping up. Johnny Lydon's Public Image Limited was pretty dark. Same with Killing Joke. And then Ian Curtis of Joy Division committed suicide at adding fuel to that fire. Some remembered that Dave Vanian of the punk band the Damned sometimes claimed to be a vampire, which was pretty interesting. And when a new group called Bauhaus came along with this song in late 1979, a song all about the world's most famous vampire actor, things began to coalesce into an actual scene, complete with an ideology.

[Bauhaus]

The Lucos is dead. The bats have left the bell tower. The victims have been bled and fell.

[Alan Cross]

Bauhaus with Bela Lugosi's Dead, the prototypical goth anthem, complete with vampires and bats and bell towers and death and doom and. Well, you heard it right. Fashion also became a glue for this new scene. Black was the dominant color. Black would have to do until something darker came along. The dark clothes would also be enhanced with styles that were popular 150 years earlier. The type of clothes Mary Shelley probably was wearing when she wrote Frankenstein in 1818. This fashion sense also extended through hair and makeup. Now, at first, to be called a goth was an insult. But by the summer of 1982, the scene reclaimed that word as its name. It also found itself a headquarters. We'll pick it up there in a second.

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[Bauhaus]

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[Alan Cross]

Welcome back. I'm Alan Cross and we're trying to set the record straight on the subject of goth music. The big turning point for goth came between the summer of 1982 and the end of 1983. A number of goth like bands had emerged, but with no center. It was very tough for things to take root and really grow. That all changed in July of 1982 when a new club opened in the Soho district of London called the Bat Cave. The Bat Cave was founded by a group called Specimen, a very theatrical group obsessed with pushing the envelope of the live performance. For example, their first single wasn't released on record or tape. It was only released on video, which is pretty wild for the early 1980s. Specimen was so ambitious that they decided to open up their own club. They decorated the place in black and leather and lace with other design cues taken from horror movies from the 1930s. And there was a definite music policy in this place. Absolutely no funk. Instead, the goal was to reinvent glam era David Bowie and cross it with Dr. Frank N. Furter from the Rocky Horror Picture Show. That meant sex, straight, gay and everything in between. The Batcave took off. In fact, it couldn't be confined to just that one location. Organizers arranged Batcave nights in other clubs around the uk. There were franchised versions of the Batcave. They even went to New York to show off at a club called the Dancetary. In other words, the Batcave folk did a lot to spread the word on goth and they had a lot of success. Let's go back to Specimen. You want to hear what they sounded like? This is from a 1983 album called Batastrophe. It's called Kiss Kiss Bang bang Kiss.

[Nine Inch Nails]

Kiss bye bye Kiss Kiss Bang Bang Kiss Kiss Bang Bang Kiss Kiss Bang.

[Alan Cross]

Specimen, the founders of the legendary and highly influential Batcave nightclub in the West End of London. Ground zero for the goth explosion that was to follow. Goth's big break into the mainstream came in early 1983 as everyone was getting tired of the bouncy, lightweight technopop of the day. They just found it had all grown very boring. Or at least that was the opinion of the British music media for a time. The goths were the new darlings. The indie char were suddenly filled with people dressed in black, also sporting a deathly white pallor. They had teased black hair, dog collars, ruffled shirts, and of course, lots of leather. And the fascination with the undead continued. Check out this. This is from 1981. Nick Cave and the Birthday Party with Release the Bat Release the Bat Release.

[Nine Inch Nails]

The moving screw the things with eggs a sticky St. My baby's a cool machine.

[Alan Cross]

Nick Cave and the Birthday Party with Release the Bats it's really kind of tough to get much more gothic than that.

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[Bauhaus]

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[Alan Cross]

The early 1980s were a great time for goth. As the scene grew and grew and grew, goth music has come in several distinct waves. The first generation of goth bands existed from 1979 through to about the end of 1985. Britain led the way. Susing, the Banshees and the Cure were out front. Although Susie would later be accused of being too pop for goth, and Robert Smith would later claim that the Cure were never really goth in the first place. It was all a big misunderstanding, apparently. But then there were many who were proud to be called goth the March Violets, the Dance Society, Sex Gang, Children, and a ton of others. For a while, there was a goth sound. The drums were fairly tribal. Bass players played high on the fretboard and sometimes carried much of the melody instead of just providing the rhythmic foundation. The guitars were sharp and thin, while the singing could be almost operatic at times. In many cases, everything came together to form something very hypnotic and mesmerizing. Here's an example. This is a Batcave group called Alien Sex Fiend. The track is now unfeeling, zombified Alien Sex Fiend from the Batcave era. The first generation of goth bands. Okay, I'm gonna play you one more. It's a band called Southern Death Cult who often toured with Bauhaus and featured a singer who spent much of his time growing up in southern Ontario. They began as a goth band and. Well, hang on, I'll explain in a second. You might actually figure it out when you hear this. This is from 1981. The track is Fat Man.

[Nine Inch Nails]

An unhappy man takes away.

[Alan Cross]

Fat man from Southern Death Cult. Have you figured it out yet? They started pretty goth, then they shortened their name to just Death Cult and finally they just became the Cult. And yes, it is the cult that went on to sell millions of records in the late 80s and early 1990s. By the end of 1985, the first wave of goth and goth mania was coming to an end. But the music and the subculture proved, well, just as undead as some of their subjects of fascination. Alright, let's review. Goth music cleaves off from the original British punk rock explosion from the late 1970s. A scene, a sound, a fashion sense and an orthodoxy develops. A star system is created. And for a while, goth music was all over the mainstream, well, at least in the uk. But then the sun came up and it seemed that everyone went back to their Crips. I'm speaking metaphorically, of course. So what happened next? Well, goth got bigger, but quietly. I'll explain next time on part two, as we go through the full history of goth music. Technical productions by Rob Johnston. I'm Alan Cross.

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[Alan Cross]

To get you out of that house?

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[Bauhaus]

You going to list it?

[Alan Cross]

You want to tell them love it or list it?

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All new Sunday at 9 on Home Network stream on STAT TV and the Global TV app.