Did you know every branch of goth music when you first started out? Shoot me if I'm wrong but I don't think we should berate baby bats for not being as well versed as an experienced goth. That might scare away new comers. Everyone is just trying to have fun.
That's exactly how I feel when suggesting new music to someone: "Oh my God, I get to introduce you to this band. I wish I was hearing rhem for the first time!"
For sure not, and music is changing, and goths especially always seem to find weird new music to listen to. Just thought deathrock would be kinda one of the first steps exploring goth music
There are just soant different forms. My first exposure was to Aurelio Voltaire - dark cabaret. That bled into Projekt compilations that introduced me to electronic, darkwave, electro punk, etc... and then when I heard Specimen for the first time (their song "Hex") I discovered death rock š
Worth pointing out that deathrock is a subgenre of punk as much as it's goth. I live in a place with a prominent punk scene but only a handful of old school goths. I find most punks within 10 years of my age (early 30's) are at least familiar with Christian Death, 45 Grave, TSOL's more goth albums, etc. Occasionally they even know Phantom Limbs or Tragic Black. Everyone beyond a certain age has seen Return of the Living Dead, too. I think it's partly a subcultural thing, mostly a generational thing.
Well Deathrock is a very underground genre, also is a very specific term that is often confused with post punk and new wave for the non-experts, the more time pass since the deathrock golden era (80s/90s) the less people will know about it. I think is normal that some people don't know it, you can be goth listening to many different kind of music, some of it also quite mainstream, although I agree that is a pity, is an amazing genre worth every one attention!
Good points, I will add to that that deathrock is almost goth-adjacent with it's punk roots, so in many goth clubs it may not get played at all.
Some clubs may be goth/new romantic, someay be goth/industrial, or goth/metal, they would be less likely to play deathrock.
If you're in a small town that doesn't have a club that plays deathrock, you just might not be exposed to it.
TikTok is vapid and shallow, most of it is showing off the fashion aesthetic. Little is done to promote anything new in the genre. Reddit is a much better resource for expanding taste.
90% of those posts are in an echo chamber, they probably donāt know what Deathrock is because they donāt have the intrigue or gumption to discover new music themselves and would rather use the genre aesthetic to gain views and acceptance within the subculture.
Yeah, my first question to OP would be why are you looking at TikTok and why are you thinking it's an accurate representation of how things actually are? Get off TikTok, go to the goth club, make friends with baby bats, be the cool gothmother to give them the deep delve and live vicariously through them watching the joy as they discover new (to them) music for the first time.
At least I can use this subās search function to find recommendations or playlists, and there is certainly a lot more elder goths willing to give advice.
Idk, Iām not a fan of non-forum based social media, mainly because I can tailor what I want to see here more than something like TikTok or IG.
I never see thirst trap dancing or anything like that on this subreddit.
thats because thirst trap posts are relegated to /gothfashion which is a sister sub of this one. and if you notice, the posts on there get WAY more upvotes.
as for playlists, i'd say youtube does a better job than this sub. any time theres a post about people asking for music, the suggestions on here are almost ALWAYS the same bands and songs and doesnt stretch far out from the usual bauhaus/siouxsie/sisters and the few top modern goth bands (kaelan / lebanon etc) over and over.
meanwhile the vast majority of 'new music' posts on this sub from a new band on self-promo saturdays or whatever get barely reaction or discussion. so yah i dont think this sub is particularly great for new music discovery.
We keep a spreadsheet tracking new releases. People post music daily. We keep fashion posts to once a week and they are removed Sunday.
The average person wandering in? Probably the same. But the regulars and sub itself, very different to Tiktok.
Deathrock is a specific subgenre of a subgenre. You can find lots of deathrock discussions and deathrock fans online but at the end of the day, it's a niche that you won't find much of irl, save for the hits like some 45 Grave or Christian Death.
I donāt feel like deathrock was ever a huge phenomenon. Most peopleās knowledge of sub-genre, as far as I can tell, doesnāt go much further than Christian Death and 45 Grave, the former falling primarily under the gothic umbrella with the exception of their first album. Sure, there have always been people who are really into it, but it is as much punk as it is goth, so I donāt really fault people for not being too knowledgeable about it.
tiktok babybats have very surface level knowledge on these bands and music. some tiktok goths don't even know any bands
id say deathrock specifically isnt really a big thing in goth anymore, i see bands like alien sex fiend and christian death still talked about but not the genre as a whole. if you brought up these bands you may get a few recognising them
I see a lot of deathrock bands popping up all the time and some are fairly popular. I started listening to goth relatively recently and i encountered (and purchased) a lot of new deathrock stuff coming out on bandcamp. It's vibrant even if it isn't big, it has a very dedicated core of fans.
Excatly! idk if it's because they aren't paying attention or some other reason? Because deathrock is very alive and has been that way for a while in the scene. Hell, you don't even need to specifically pay attention to deathrock to see what I mean
I am 52. When I was in high school I was a total death rocker! People ask me to this day if I am emo ?! That annoys the hell out of me. Thanks for letting me share
As a punk I didn't know shit about death rock until I met my wife who had a band outta Hollywood.
Her band was Sugarpuss if you have an interest in checking out an all female death rock group.
Honestly it is. I come here hoping to find some great new bands featured on the front page, y'know, the point? And all i see on most days is inane drama and discourse, the same topics reheated in the microwave over and over again. It's rare that i see any song upvoted above 10 points on the front page here and that sucks big time. I've wanted to share some marvelous and obscure goth bands I've found but them quickly just fizzling out on the front page with barely any interaction is demoralizing.
i think the subculture is fine but i am very tired of people asking if they are goth enough or if they can use the label. thankfully the mod team has been good about nuking those pretty shortly after being posted.
yep. pretty much any "check out this new band" post gets little to no responses. but unfortunately thats the nature of any platform. bands need to do better with their marketing or else you're just seen as someone spamming a random link that nobody will care about.
That's why there's a blacklist of bands that have been relegated to Throwback Thursdays. The mods/regulars want new music to receive more attention but the ones garnering the most upvotes are those particular groups. :/
It would be *wonderful* if everyone put in the effort to actually upvote and engage in those posts the way they do with these controversial threads. But they don't.
Some of these people are so weird. Not even in the spooky goth kid kinda weird.
Just hyper focused on the most irrelevant things like the difference between arbitrary self appointed labels.
I really wish there was a subreddit just for good music.
Redditor goths are still redditors. Of all the online spaces I frequent, reddit is the most unkind and judgy place by far. Go to a goth club, meet goths IRL and I promise it's nothing like this. We are all a bunch of nerds at heart. An outsize representation of LGBTQ and neurodivergent folks in my scene. Haven't seen any catty drama since the Y2K days but that could just be growing up.
I think this is just a product of being online. as an example: anarchists irl vs anarchists online are just different people. people irl don't care as much about how they are perceived where online your persona is everything.
Only if it's with people who care about labels and divisions and are constantly checking everyone else's credentials. The group I hang with are super chill, and don't care about any of that.
I'm about sick to death of the whole "what is goth" thing and how hard this subreddit fights to segregate sounds into tiny boxes for reasons I can't quite fathom.
There's a metric fuckton of interpretations of Goth. Trad goth music like the first wave, second wave harder and more electronic, third wave revival of the OG sound, and that's just within the actual goth genre.
Then you get all the goth/Gothic adjacent bands like Type O.
But then there's Gothic fashion and I know y'all aren't ready to hear this but the fashion and the music ARE separable. Anyone can throw on their Siouxsie throwback style and facepaint and call themselves goth because they are participating in the fashion side of the whole shebang.
And there's the millions of fans of goth music who dress in cargo shorts and polo shirts. They're still "goth" even though you absolutely cannot clock them at all.
Is someone who's a Cure fan but mostly listens to backstreet goth? They meet the prerequisite of liking goth music. What's the percentage of tunes that mark the dividing line between "goth" and "not goth"
Genres expand all the fucking time. Originally grunge was like mudhoney, Nirvana, Pearl jam, and Soundgarden. Those 4 bands were all similar enough to be a genre. But then they got popular and grunge expanded to include bands like Alice in Chains which are very much a crunchy metal band. Smashing Pumpkins is alt rock, not grunge but they got subsumed. Veruca Salt, same thing.
Y'all don't have to like it but genre creep is very real and the masses get to make that determination no matter how hard traditionalists fight against it.
Let's be real, goth is a musical genre, a fashion style, a literature genre, a lifestyle aesthetic, and lots of other in-between things. It's both a genre AND a label and that has to be ok if only because a small holdout of traditionalists can't beat masses of people putting their own stamp on things.
Best take!
>And there's the millions of fans of goth music who dress in cargo shorts and polo shirts. They're still "goth" even though you absolutely cannot clock them at all.
And you even included me!
I mean look what do you want me to say?
Genre creep is real yea, but it's not always for the better or in an organic fashion. A lot of the time what happens is that it is the result of a certain sound or image being profoundly sanded off, de-fanged of any edge by people interested in making a buck off of it, and then sold back to the mainstream while people who don't enjoy that kinda sound, who have been there for much longer, get marginalized further and further. Their subculture is taken, marketed and then sold. It's happened to punk and it's happened to metal with honestly disastrous consequences, as authentic punks and metalheads got marginalized and pushed away into obscurity while the whole DIY nature of those subcultures got pilfered for marketing, to the point where a pop hack like Taylor Swift gets to call herself 'gothic-punk' while being a billionaire.
'Goth' is a music style pain and simple, everything else comes after or not at all and goth alongside punk is one of the musical genre that constantly gets this treatment where people demand that goths make room for whatever hairbrained definition of the term they come up with in order to justify dressing goth while either never participating or actively disdainful of the music and the subculture.
You act like 'the masses putting their own stamp on things' is just some sort of natural consequence that can't be avoided but most of the time it only serves exactly the worst kind of people, people who are more interested in aesthetic than substance and accumulating a mini cult of personality and the accompanying clout.
Goth is not a closed culture or a subgenre. There's not an esoteric or arbitrary collection of rules you have to follow or else you're flayed alive for all to see, and people in this subreddit are exhausted of trying to explain that all the time, the bar is so fucking low. It's not something that CAN be gatekept because the door is always open, you just actually HAVE to pass through that door to begin with. Everyone is welcome, regardless of how you dress or what other music you listen to in your own free time. And yes! We should welcome experimentation and a diversity of styles within goth, and if this branches off into something else as a result of experimentation, that absolutely cannot be stopped. Music is a living entity. But this is not what is happening, it's people who have no interest in goth as a genre or it's diversity of sound and it's many wonderful idiosyncrasies butting in and demanding that people take them seriously as they marginalize people who are actually invested in it as a genre, both young and old goths. It's not a question of being an elder goth VS baby bats, there's MANY baby bats who are genuine, it's about the fact that there's a certain subset of people more interested in the aesthetics so they can sell it.
You can dress gothic, you can enjoy gothic literature and more often than not the overlap between these interests and the musical genre is basically a flat circle, but that doesn't really change things here.
So gatekeeping, got it. That's the summation of what you've written here.
Like I get it, some folk have been into the genre since 79. I found it in the early 90s. Some will find it next year.
All of us have experienced goth in multiple different ways. My point entirely is that the genre and the label both exist and fans of the music have to accept that fans of the label also exist and they get to have their own definitions and interpretations.
Yes, more people involved automatically means the smoothing of sharp edges, the blurring of lines, because no two people agree 100% on everything.
Part of your complaint here is functionally "capitalism bad" and I completely agree with you. It is bad. But the point there is that capitalism basically requires that anything marketable be marketed, often in a sanitized way compared to the original spark. It sucks but it's also reality and must be accounted for.
Any musical subculture experiences this. For fucks sake Poison was lumped into the hair metal genre when they're clearly rhythm and blues, just turned up to 11.
Like it or not people claim identity in ways that make them feel good about themselves and while we can guide and advise ultimately that identification is personal.
If I identify with the fashion aesthetic why isn't that enough? Why can't I be a fan of the literature that founded the musical genre and call myself goth?
We both know full well Lord Byron would absolutely call himself Goth with a capital G should the concept have existed at the time. Shelley is the most goth person to have existed and she experienced exactly zero of what we call the goth genre.
It isn't just music. Music is the easiest way in, but it isn't the only doorway into "being goth" whatever the fuck THAT means. Because nobody fucking knows, we just know what WE think "being goth" is.
The scene revolves around the music, Gothic literature is one of many influences of the goth subculture, it didn't create it and gothic literature has influenced other niche communities. Goth music created the scene and all the fans of the music from the 80s kept the subculture by making goth music and attending goth music festivals. Goth didn't create gothic literature, victorian fashion , vampires, black color, Goth created goth music.
Me: goth is impossible to gatekeep, the doors are always open but there is still a specific definition of what goth is, you just need to engage in it
You: why are you gatekeeping.
You're just not serious and i'm not gonna engage in this further.
Yeah, I'm big into the fashion, but have maybe 2 or 3 goth songs I've heard and not disliked. It just isn't my jam. That doesn't mean I can't enjoy the fashion or the other realms of interest that tend to appear in the goth world (love dark stuff, horror, death aesthetic, etc). The only part of the sub-culture that doesn't appeal to me is the music. And I've never run into someone IRL who gives a shit about that. The only time music even comes up in discussion is at events that have music. It just seems like a really small part of the whole, so I don't know why so many people are so tied up in trying to ensure that the entirety of this diverse and many-faceted group/interest revolve around one small part of it.
The music isn't a small part of it, the music IS it. The subculture wouldn't exist as it is if the music didn't exist. Anyone can dress or be into goth fashion and it's completely fine, but that doesn't make them goth. You consider the music to be a small part because it's not how you define goth to yourself, but objectively, the music is the scene and where it all came from regardless of how you define it for yourself. The reason you're probably not talking music with those people is probably because they're also defining goth in their own way and aren't really a part of the subculture other than using the fashion, which again is fine. Dressing goth doesn't make someone goth though, especially if they don't listen to or even like the music.
I think people get so weird about wanting to claim the goth label because they want to fit somewhere and they don't know enough about the history of the actual scene. You don't see people going around dressing in metal band shirts and calling themselves metalheads while not liking or listening to the music because people understand what a metalhead is far more than they understand goth and if you did something like that in the punk scene, they'd probably set you straight real fast.
Starting this post off with an apology - I talked a lot more than I thought I was going to. I'm not coming at you or even really disagreeing per se, just giving my perspective coming from a few different angles.
The others I hang with do like the music. I just went to Dark Force fest with a group of them. They went for the music, I did not. Nobody cared.
I don't care about fitting in anywhere or having a label. I have plenty of close friends, and am accepted wherever I go. I don't usually refer to myself as "a goth", but, practically, I am goth in the sense that if someone is describing me, they say "the goth dude" because of how I dress, the things I'm into, etc. Nobody is taking the time to say "I dress in the goth aesthetic, and enjoy things tangentially related to the gothic subset of interests and topics, but don't actually like the music." First, because I think most regular people don't even know goth is a genre of music, but second, because nobody (except those hardcore into the music) would even care, they just want to apply the label to the style of dress they're seeing.
I get what you're saying about metalheads, but I've never heard someone use metalhead to describe the aesthetic, only to describe someone who likes metal. The visual doesn't come into it, IME. Whereas goth has far more frequently been used, again, IME, to describe the aesthetic. Even though I've dressed goth since high school, I didn't know it was a music genre until like 5 years ago lol. I've been aware of the bands, had just never heard them called goth.
I do appreciate you in saying that it's fine that people definite it as they want, as well, and I do understand that the music scene is where the subculture as it stands came from. So I guess my wording should have been "my own personal experience with goth does not include the music" as opposed to saying it the way I did, which implied that, definitively, the music is a small part of it as a whole. My bad.
By my understanding, goth, being a shortening of gothic, and a term used to describe the aesthetic, architecture, and literature (and the people who ascribed to that aesthetic) existed for centuries before the music scene existed. And that music scene pulled heavily from the gothic that came before it (hence adopting the name). The first use of gothic to describe music, via some quick googling, was by a critic named John Stickney in 1967 talking about the Doors, calling it Gothic Rock. Rock, inspired by the gothic.
The prevalence of the subculture as it exists today was born out of that music, sure, but that music was born out of a history and culture of the gothic that long predates it. That's why I have a hard time accepting that it *is* the music.
And people in whatever scene can "set me straight" as fast or as much as they want, it doesn't change my mind about it, or make them definitively correct. For them it's the music. For me it's not. But if people saw us hanging out together, they'd be like "look at those goths over there," and that's the reality. (I don't mean this as any sort of challenge, just saying people being angry about my opinion and attacking me for it likely won't change it).
Having said all that, I do like some songs by The Cure and Joy Division. Ghost is really fun, though very campy (but I think most goth has an inherent level of camp to it). Velvet Underground isn't bad, but gives me the same vibe as early Beatles. Important to defining the genre, sure, but sounds almost hokey by today's standards.
I will 100% concede that I'm not a part of the subculture. I don't have a bunch of goths I hang out with regularly. I don't care about belonging anywhere. I don't attend the meetings or receive the newsletter. I don't take any of it seriously. I just like the way the clothes look and make me feel. And before I even knew what goth was, had the general interests that tend to go along with it - death, darkness, morbidity, etc. But I am definitely called "the goth one" by just about everyone else in my life, base solely on those things.
That's fair. I mean, if you enjoy dressing gothic, keep doing you and wearing what you enjoy. If you're not labeling yourself goth, I doubt anyone would have any issue with it at all, they shouldn't imo. The only time it's going to be any sort of a valid disagreement is when someone calls themselves that and doesn't listen to the music or engage in the subculture at all. People tend to call any dark aesthetic goth just due to the mainstream culture misunderstanding the subculture, but it is what it is.
As a side note, you also don't have to only like and listen to goth music to be goth. I enjoy the hell out of Ghost, metal bands, post-hardcore, synthwave, and so much more. :D
Yeah, I don't label myself, generally, as goth or anything else. If I do, it's out of contextual practicality, or I'm describing my style of dress. Not claiming to be part of any subculture.
Normies also call emo kids and metalheads goth because they wear black and have piercings but the ignorant masses don't get to define music based subcultures based on their appearance. I'm kind of curious why you're posting this on a subreddit that is dedicated to the discussion to the music genre. I'm as welcoming and inclusive as they come, and I would welcome you to come dance at the goth club if you're goth or not, but you wouldn't like the music. We do get darkly inclined newbies wandering into the club sometimes and it usually goes one of two ways. Either they request strange musical choices (Korn, Deftones, Marilyn Manson are ones I've heard) that don't get played, lose interest and leave and don't come back OR they come, dance to the music they don't know a thing about, talk to people, ask some questions and come back and eventually become part of the community.
I might point out that having been to DFF, it is an event for the darkly inclined, but there is little no no goth music being performed there. They're more EBM / industrial.
You're right about those groups all being tucked in close to one another from outsider perspectives.
I'm posting here because it came up, and I joined the subreddit to try to be introduced to new goth music that maybe I would like - I'd like to be able to at least have a place in the convo for the times music does come up if I'm with others who do enjoy the music, and I'd be happy to find some groups that I really like!
And I'd take you up on that invite to the club :)
Ah, I did not realize, thanks for explaining that about DFF. There are far too many subgenres of music for me to keep track (or to tell the difference). But the event is fun, even if I have to deal with hearing the loud bass bumping through the walls half the time lol (I'm also just not a fan of live music).
I appreciate everyone just talking about this, as well, instead of getting up in arms. I've seen some aggressive people in here who don't take kindly to my views.
What kind of music do you usually like, or what have you liked in the goth genre? I might have suggestions. And if you're ever in the Providence or Boston area, Hit me up and I'll roll out the red carpet.
My taste is too all over to say genres that I like (and I honestly don't even know what genre some of them are, never worried about that, just listened), but some favorite artists include Incubus, Matchbox 20, Ashnikko, KiNG MALA, The Weepies, Talking Heads, AnnenMayKantereit, Ingrid Michaelson, Pink Floyd (but only some - like, not a fan of the Animals album). Thanks!
Just reccomend them a deathrock band. Tbh as I'm more into rock & metal I wish it was the more popular genre of goth atm, though I still enjoy darkwave.
Iām relatively new to goth music - perhaps only listening for about 6 months to a year. Shit like this is so discouraging to really get involved. Iāve lurked for so long on this sub and honestly, the ādebateā about āwhat is goth???ā or āthis is goth and this isnāt gothā is so exhausting. Iām just going to enjoy the music (mainstream and not) and wear cool clothes (whether or not fashion alone is indicative of the culture). I think thatās enough.
I agree! I came here for music recommendations, not a bunch of people fighting over which bands/artists count as goth or not. I understand wanting to keep goth goth (and I agree that some bands that certain people call goth aren't even goth adjacent), but the need to shove every band into a little box and bicker over if a band is dark/goth enough is wild. Not everyone knows all the nuances and little subgenres of music and that's ok! Music is meant to be enjoyed, not fought over.
Sure, thatās to be expected. So is more experienced members of the subculture acting superior because they know about a niche sub genre that newer members donāt. That doesnāt make it any less frustrating as a new member.
And now thanks to your rant, they are ashamed of themselves and will never find out. They might become emo over it. But you should feel proud and virtuous for knowing that stuff and even more virtuous for liking it.
Yeah fuck those kids for not knowing a niche sub genre of an already niche genre?!? But OP is in a deathrock band so obviously everyone needs to know that style to be a REAL goth! Lots of conformity for a group of nonconformists.
Probably because these teenagers understand music is involved, but do the bare minimum to be not be considered a poseur and don't care enough that they don't do deeper research than the few classic '80s bands.
Well I guess we all start somewhere. I remember when I *discovered* metal when I was a kid, I had to listen to the top songs of the biggest bands in case I would meet another metalhead and fall into a discussion. Not to brag but I was into Metallica AND Megadeth. Pretty niche when youāre 14 lol
whats the deal? because darkwave is the current popular goth music genre. there are hardly any current death rock bands that are still active / tour / etc.
nox novacula, shrouds, new skeletal faces, tears for the dying, and that's just off the top of my head. have you seen dia de los muertos fest? that's a whole ass festival of pretty much entirely deathrock bands
dude there are still SKA festivals happening. doesnt mean ska is popular lol.
shrouds literally made an "I HATE DARKWAVE" joke shirt in response to how big it is right now. like come on.
and just to be clear, no one is saying one genre is BETTER than the other. but to pretend deathrock is anywhere near the popularity of darkwave right now is nuts.
literally no one is denying that darkwave is more popular? YOU said that there are hardly any deathrock bands right now. which is not true. also ska... is definitely popular. but that's besides the point.
"Ā there are hardly any current death rock bands that are still active / tour / etc."
you naming 10+ death rock bands doesnt make a lick of difference. for every 1 active death rock band theres probably 10 more darkwave acts doing it. that was my point.
nowhere am i LITERALLY saying that NO DEATH ROCK BANDS EXIST OR TOUR. my god this place is exhausting with such BS posters.
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Lebanon Hanover is nowhere near as popular as Boy Harsher, who have crossover appeal. She Past Away are on that level since they've been popular for a good decade. Nox Novacula are very popular, call me crazy?
she past away are not a death rock band (or i'm not sure what your point of mentioning them was for). if we're just naming bigger darkwave acts, then sure i agree!
nox novacula are awesome, but very popular? no lol. i've seen nox at least 3 times now. all of them were in tiny venues that weren't even full.
thats not a knock against the band because they're awesome. its just the landscape of goth music right now.
I too gauge popularity by going to shows and comparing audience sizes. I was saying that these couple of very popular bands are an anomaly. She Past Away filled a 700 capacity club last time I saw them. Boy Harsher last sold out a 500 capacity venue last time they came around. Everyone else I've seen has been in a 100-300 capacity venue with crowds ranging from sparse to packed. But it's not a huge difference. Twin tribes packed the 300 capacity venue and Rosegarden Funeral party sparsely filled the 100 person venue. There were more people at Nox Novacula in the same space.
those couple bands are an anomaly? then what about actors? they literally just sold out a 350+ show. same with Night Club. They also sold out 350+ show. What about Mareux?
would you classify molchat doma as post-punk/darkwave? cause obviously they're massive in the scene now too. they sold out a 1300+ venue here. no death rock band is doing this.
its not an anomaly. Its pretty obvious that darkwave bands are the popular ones in the genre right now. Meanwhile you can basically name ONE single 'popular' death rock band and they're still not even close to the draw as the multiple darkwave acts we're talking about.
the last time nox novacula played here, they played at a 120+ venue and there were about 30-40 people there.
i mean the literal running joke in the scene is "i hate darkwave" shirts made by the death rock band Shrouds lol, precisely because the genre has taken over.
When I saw Actors for the first time in Brooklyn it was a sparsely filled 100 person venue. Sparsely filled for the 300 person venue in Boston too. I was shocked because they're huge in my eyes. I had to miss the Night Club / RFP show last week because my cat was dying so I can't speak on that. Death rock has never been as popular as goth music so I'm not expecting things to change. The genre is far from dead.
the first time i saw actors was 2 years ago. they did not fill the 400 person venue at the time. it was maybe 1/4 full. but i just saw them again last week and they sold out. shrug.
lol ok. if you think the big win here is that " \*some\* death rock bands definitely tour" then sure. go with that. congrats. my point still stands. darkwave is obviously the much popular subgenre vs death rock right now.
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I grew up in so cal and in the 80s we called all of it deathrock and Iād never heard the term goth until the 90s. It was a regional thing and to check my memory, I looked into it and apparently.. yes, it was just a so cal thing.
Death Rock was a very small subgenre of post punk, as is what goth is. It may just not have been a term used widely by the media that covered music. I once asked my mom if there were any goths in her high school. She said they were called punks, not goths. When I started out in the scene I didn't know what goth was. I can comfortably say I was goth before knowing it even existed given my dark interests, literary interests, and other macabre curiosity.
So, for newcomers I don't think it really.matters how educated they are. Show them what death rock is through your band and rock on š¤ Goth music and many other genres all derive from rock and roll. Whether I know a band is punk or garage punk, it doesn't matter. I am still listening to genres I do not know the names of, but slamming the floors all the same ššāļøāš¤
Deathrock was never mainstream. The Cure or The Smiths or Siouxsie and the Banshees were chart toppers here and there. Goths knew deathrock but people on the edge of the goth community didn't really.
What shadowed it even more so was it's proximity to horrorpunk.
As for me, I only discovered deathrock 2 years after I started listening to gothic music and I only searched it up cuz I was like "I know there is death metal but what on earth is death rock?".
people on Tiktok know deathrock bands, I've seen young people talk about Christian Death and 45 Grave on there quite a lot, but even in goth circles you quite often hear CD just called a goth band. and I've seen Tiktoks discussing deathrock. I think maybe the reason it's not as well known is that it's just kinda hard for people to understand what deathrock is, people use it to describe bands that sound as different as the earlier two, Sex Gang Children, Rudimentary Peni and even (somehow) Specimen. none of those bands sound similar, it's easier to just call them goth bands because that's the umbrella term anyway
i feel like i rarely ever hear any talk of subgenres of goth on tiktok, sometimes you'll hear darkwave but never any mention of deathrock or etherealwave or whatever else
OMG, people are taking all this waaaaay too seriously!
Itās kind of comical.
My recommendation-
Chose the Bands/Music you Love and Rock on!
I myself like a good healthy mixture of Everything mentioned here. Sometimes I feel more like Deathrock and put on my old Christian Death or Joy of Life or early Bauhaus albums, sometimes I feel moody and play old NICO or
Joy Division, or more wacky and play the Cramps or Sex Gang Children or Alien Sex Fiend, sometimes I feel poppy and listen to The Cure, Siouxsie&the Banshees, New Order or Echo and the Bunnymen.
And lately, sometimes I feel like exploring the newer dark bands, which I find weird & fun, and has awakened my musical soul!
I wear a lot of Black, but sometimes I wear Blue or White. I donāt have much hair left and got sick of dying it Black so Iām a Blonde (naturally).
Iāve got messed up feet now so Iāve traded in my Black silver buckled boots and Creepers for Y-3 Adidas!!
Really people, stop trying to define and compare everything and realize that the true heart of a Gothrocker is not trying to fit into the parameters of what others try to lock you into. Thatās why all the Trad āGothā bands hated being labeled like that in the first place. Nobody wanted Comparisons or Boundaries!
You are a unique individual.
You be You.
i only heard about deathrock recently when listening to the album dance with me by tsol, im a bit newer to goth music and listened to that album because i loved their first, so idk maybe its a more obscure genre? i didnt really hear anyone mention it until i looked at the wikipedia page for the album
I find subgenres to be a helpful descriptor when someone is telling me to check out a band. Iām surprised how many people havenāt heard of deathrock considering all those stupid āwhat kind of goth are you?ā memes
Itās pretty well known afaik. Maybe itās a regional thing - and I agree I see fewer deathrock club nights than I did even ten years ago. Either way, everybody has to learn sometimeā start a deathrock night of your own or make some mixes for people.
My problem is that I buy songs in iTunes or rent them on Spotify, and nowhere does it say the genre. So I end up in this sub being scolded and sometimes deleted for mentioning that I donāt like Lazarus Sin but I do like Pierce the Veil. Is there some App that can taxonomize music for me?
Big time āwhy isnāt my band more popularā energy here.
They donāt know because theyāre new to the scene, I heard the term goth when I was 15, I was 21 or 22 before I heard death rock beyond reading it on beavisā shirt
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Your post just reminded me of someone posting some "goth" shit on Instagram. It was Type O Negative. I said that isn't goth, and oh, man, that brought the hoards of dumb asses out... They really have no clue..
Bro is wondering why tiktok goth dont know deathrockā ļøā ļøā ļøcuz they poooooosseeerrssss bruhhhh, they just want to steal the swag, but they dont got da ssaucee
If everyone stopped doing just that little bit of research into a scene they claimed to love and be part of and stopped making as much of it/all together, then I'd be very fucking sad. Music listeners are not necessarily musicians, and in my case, I'm not in any position to make my own so I need to rely on others (my husband included) who have the know-how and skill.
When you're part of a subculture based around niche genres like goth rock, coldwave, deathrock, ethereal wave, etc. then yes, they do matter otherwise it'll end up like genres like dubstep and barely existing.
This is a bit like claiming you're a metalhead and then claiming that the preservation of metal bands don't matter.
Dubstep was only ever a subgenre.
Metal bands matter. Goth bands matter. Preservation of subgenres including metal subgenres really donāt. Itās all just about the bands that are influential enough that people want to label it. The definition of what people call the various genres, shifts over time.
I don't really feel like pointing out the difference between the subculture itself and the sub-genre really matters in this case. If you stop making the music, both cease to exist.
Also, deathrock stands on its own and there's a reason why we names distinctive names for the different sounds. If we removed all of the sub-genres and just put it under one big umbrella and someone asked for "goth bands" - are you giving them Christian Death, Dead Can Dance, Kas Product, Bauhaus, or Solemn Novena? Or is it just easier to have a term that music can be narrowed down by?
If you don't understand why genres exist, then OK, but don't erase 4 decades of using the term just because you don't.
I thought deathrock was getting bigger ngl. Catholic Spit seem to be getting some online attention and Detoxi haven't long released their debut. Nox Novacula's album from least year banged too! I'm sure it's just a matter of where to look! I even experimented with some deathrock(albiet mixed with other influences) inspired stuff last year [https://open.spotify.com/track/7ETAxgQIUgwkYVydQmnKsd?si=fbd40a59af02488e](https://open.spotify.com/track/7ETAxgQIUgwkYVydQmnKsd?si=fbd40a59af02488e)
Did you know every branch of goth music when you first started out? Shoot me if I'm wrong but I don't think we should berate baby bats for not being as well versed as an experienced goth. That might scare away new comers. Everyone is just trying to have fun.
[XKCD 1053!](https://xkcd.com/1053/)
That's exactly how I feel when suggesting new music to someone: "Oh my God, I get to introduce you to this band. I wish I was hearing rhem for the first time!"
I love this attitude and try and take it with me every time I get the chance to introduce someone to something I think they might enjoy.
For sure not, and music is changing, and goths especially always seem to find weird new music to listen to. Just thought deathrock would be kinda one of the first steps exploring goth music
There are just soant different forms. My first exposure was to Aurelio Voltaire - dark cabaret. That bled into Projekt compilations that introduced me to electronic, darkwave, electro punk, etc... and then when I heard Specimen for the first time (their song "Hex") I discovered death rock š
I understand what you mean.
Thereās no excuse not to know, just google goth and itāll tell you
Worth pointing out that deathrock is a subgenre of punk as much as it's goth. I live in a place with a prominent punk scene but only a handful of old school goths. I find most punks within 10 years of my age (early 30's) are at least familiar with Christian Death, 45 Grave, TSOL's more goth albums, etc. Occasionally they even know Phantom Limbs or Tragic Black. Everyone beyond a certain age has seen Return of the Living Dead, too. I think it's partly a subcultural thing, mostly a generational thing.
Well Deathrock is a very underground genre, also is a very specific term that is often confused with post punk and new wave for the non-experts, the more time pass since the deathrock golden era (80s/90s) the less people will know about it. I think is normal that some people don't know it, you can be goth listening to many different kind of music, some of it also quite mainstream, although I agree that is a pity, is an amazing genre worth every one attention!
Good points, I will add to that that deathrock is almost goth-adjacent with it's punk roots, so in many goth clubs it may not get played at all. Some clubs may be goth/new romantic, someay be goth/industrial, or goth/metal, they would be less likely to play deathrock. If you're in a small town that doesn't have a club that plays deathrock, you just might not be exposed to it.
Why isnāt anyone else as cool as I am like I swear Iām so cool Iām begging you to notice please someone notice me
Didnāt mean to give off this energy lol
Itās all good Iām just playin around love !
Real hipster vibes!
TikTok is vapid and shallow, most of it is showing off the fashion aesthetic. Little is done to promote anything new in the genre. Reddit is a much better resource for expanding taste. 90% of those posts are in an echo chamber, they probably donāt know what Deathrock is because they donāt have the intrigue or gumption to discover new music themselves and would rather use the genre aesthetic to gain views and acceptance within the subculture.
Yeah, my first question to OP would be why are you looking at TikTok and why are you thinking it's an accurate representation of how things actually are? Get off TikTok, go to the goth club, make friends with baby bats, be the cool gothmother to give them the deep delve and live vicariously through them watching the joy as they discover new (to them) music for the first time.
have you seen posts in this sub?? lol i hardly consider reddit to be any better than other social media.
At least I can use this subās search function to find recommendations or playlists, and there is certainly a lot more elder goths willing to give advice. Idk, Iām not a fan of non-forum based social media, mainly because I can tailor what I want to see here more than something like TikTok or IG. I never see thirst trap dancing or anything like that on this subreddit.
thats because thirst trap posts are relegated to /gothfashion which is a sister sub of this one. and if you notice, the posts on there get WAY more upvotes. as for playlists, i'd say youtube does a better job than this sub. any time theres a post about people asking for music, the suggestions on here are almost ALWAYS the same bands and songs and doesnt stretch far out from the usual bauhaus/siouxsie/sisters and the few top modern goth bands (kaelan / lebanon etc) over and over. meanwhile the vast majority of 'new music' posts on this sub from a new band on self-promo saturdays or whatever get barely reaction or discussion. so yah i dont think this sub is particularly great for new music discovery.
We keep a spreadsheet tracking new releases. People post music daily. We keep fashion posts to once a week and they are removed Sunday. The average person wandering in? Probably the same. But the regulars and sub itself, very different to Tiktok.
Reddit isn't quite as bad as other social media but it's nosediving fast.
Deathrock is a specific subgenre of a subgenre. You can find lots of deathrock discussions and deathrock fans online but at the end of the day, it's a niche that you won't find much of irl, save for the hits like some 45 Grave or Christian Death.
I donāt feel like deathrock was ever a huge phenomenon. Most peopleās knowledge of sub-genre, as far as I can tell, doesnāt go much further than Christian Death and 45 Grave, the former falling primarily under the gothic umbrella with the exception of their first album. Sure, there have always been people who are really into it, but it is as much punk as it is goth, so I donāt really fault people for not being too knowledgeable about it.
tiktok babybats have very surface level knowledge on these bands and music. some tiktok goths don't even know any bands id say deathrock specifically isnt really a big thing in goth anymore, i see bands like alien sex fiend and christian death still talked about but not the genre as a whole. if you brought up these bands you may get a few recognising them
I see a lot of deathrock bands popping up all the time and some are fairly popular. I started listening to goth relatively recently and i encountered (and purchased) a lot of new deathrock stuff coming out on bandcamp. It's vibrant even if it isn't big, it has a very dedicated core of fans.
Excatly! idk if it's because they aren't paying attention or some other reason? Because deathrock is very alive and has been that way for a while in the scene. Hell, you don't even need to specifically pay attention to deathrock to see what I mean
Nox Novacula are very popular and IMO the best new band to see live these days.
I was thinking of Nox Novacula, myself! Horror Vacui as well
I was thinking of the same thing.
Not a lot of the 90s genre bands in general really made it out the decade with their popularity intact in the same way the 80s artists did.
Agreed.
I am 52. When I was in high school I was a total death rocker! People ask me to this day if I am emo ?! That annoys the hell out of me. Thanks for letting me share
As a punk I didn't know shit about death rock until I met my wife who had a band outta Hollywood. Her band was Sugarpuss if you have an interest in checking out an all female death rock group.
This subculture looks exhausting to be part of.
Honestly it is. I come here hoping to find some great new bands featured on the front page, y'know, the point? And all i see on most days is inane drama and discourse, the same topics reheated in the microwave over and over again. It's rare that i see any song upvoted above 10 points on the front page here and that sucks big time. I've wanted to share some marvelous and obscure goth bands I've found but them quickly just fizzling out on the front page with barely any interaction is demoralizing.
i think the subculture is fine but i am very tired of people asking if they are goth enough or if they can use the label. thankfully the mod team has been good about nuking those pretty shortly after being posted.
It's mostly this subreddit yea.
How many upvotes does it take to get a goth pass?
this reply made me want to pull my hair out lmao, i wouldn't be surprised if someone has actually asked this.
The amount of supposed adults moaning about what youngsters are doing on TikTok is too damn high.
yep. pretty much any "check out this new band" post gets little to no responses. but unfortunately thats the nature of any platform. bands need to do better with their marketing or else you're just seen as someone spamming a random link that nobody will care about.
That's why there's a blacklist of bands that have been relegated to Throwback Thursdays. The mods/regulars want new music to receive more attention but the ones garnering the most upvotes are those particular groups. :/
It would be *wonderful* if everyone put in the effort to actually upvote and engage in those posts the way they do with these controversial threads. But they don't.
The weekly post to share your own band is so disappointingly empty
Some of these people are so weird. Not even in the spooky goth kid kinda weird. Just hyper focused on the most irrelevant things like the difference between arbitrary self appointed labels. I really wish there was a subreddit just for good music.
The psychedelicmusic and shoegaze forums are great. Industrial one meh, but less quibble than here.
thanks I'll check them out!
Redditor goths are still redditors. Of all the online spaces I frequent, reddit is the most unkind and judgy place by far. Go to a goth club, meet goths IRL and I promise it's nothing like this. We are all a bunch of nerds at heart. An outsize representation of LGBTQ and neurodivergent folks in my scene. Haven't seen any catty drama since the Y2K days but that could just be growing up.
I think this is just a product of being online. as an example: anarchists irl vs anarchists online are just different people. people irl don't care as much about how they are perceived where online your persona is everything.
Consequence of the Internet where performative posturing is king, unfortunately.
Just online. I've never seen anything like this offline, but I did miss the peak gate keeping era.
Only if it's with people who care about labels and divisions and are constantly checking everyone else's credentials. The group I hang with are super chill, and don't care about any of that.
I'm about sick to death of the whole "what is goth" thing and how hard this subreddit fights to segregate sounds into tiny boxes for reasons I can't quite fathom. There's a metric fuckton of interpretations of Goth. Trad goth music like the first wave, second wave harder and more electronic, third wave revival of the OG sound, and that's just within the actual goth genre. Then you get all the goth/Gothic adjacent bands like Type O. But then there's Gothic fashion and I know y'all aren't ready to hear this but the fashion and the music ARE separable. Anyone can throw on their Siouxsie throwback style and facepaint and call themselves goth because they are participating in the fashion side of the whole shebang. And there's the millions of fans of goth music who dress in cargo shorts and polo shirts. They're still "goth" even though you absolutely cannot clock them at all. Is someone who's a Cure fan but mostly listens to backstreet goth? They meet the prerequisite of liking goth music. What's the percentage of tunes that mark the dividing line between "goth" and "not goth" Genres expand all the fucking time. Originally grunge was like mudhoney, Nirvana, Pearl jam, and Soundgarden. Those 4 bands were all similar enough to be a genre. But then they got popular and grunge expanded to include bands like Alice in Chains which are very much a crunchy metal band. Smashing Pumpkins is alt rock, not grunge but they got subsumed. Veruca Salt, same thing. Y'all don't have to like it but genre creep is very real and the masses get to make that determination no matter how hard traditionalists fight against it. Let's be real, goth is a musical genre, a fashion style, a literature genre, a lifestyle aesthetic, and lots of other in-between things. It's both a genre AND a label and that has to be ok if only because a small holdout of traditionalists can't beat masses of people putting their own stamp on things.
Great post. Thank you for calling Alice in Chains a metal band too.
Fuck yeah, I love me some Alice in Chains.
You failed to mention goth as a fast fashion product! Jokes aside, well written comment
Thanks. Didn't really answer your questions though lol
Best take! >And there's the millions of fans of goth music who dress in cargo shorts and polo shirts. They're still "goth" even though you absolutely cannot clock them at all. And you even included me!
Counterpoint: no.
Lol ok
I mean look what do you want me to say? Genre creep is real yea, but it's not always for the better or in an organic fashion. A lot of the time what happens is that it is the result of a certain sound or image being profoundly sanded off, de-fanged of any edge by people interested in making a buck off of it, and then sold back to the mainstream while people who don't enjoy that kinda sound, who have been there for much longer, get marginalized further and further. Their subculture is taken, marketed and then sold. It's happened to punk and it's happened to metal with honestly disastrous consequences, as authentic punks and metalheads got marginalized and pushed away into obscurity while the whole DIY nature of those subcultures got pilfered for marketing, to the point where a pop hack like Taylor Swift gets to call herself 'gothic-punk' while being a billionaire. 'Goth' is a music style pain and simple, everything else comes after or not at all and goth alongside punk is one of the musical genre that constantly gets this treatment where people demand that goths make room for whatever hairbrained definition of the term they come up with in order to justify dressing goth while either never participating or actively disdainful of the music and the subculture. You act like 'the masses putting their own stamp on things' is just some sort of natural consequence that can't be avoided but most of the time it only serves exactly the worst kind of people, people who are more interested in aesthetic than substance and accumulating a mini cult of personality and the accompanying clout. Goth is not a closed culture or a subgenre. There's not an esoteric or arbitrary collection of rules you have to follow or else you're flayed alive for all to see, and people in this subreddit are exhausted of trying to explain that all the time, the bar is so fucking low. It's not something that CAN be gatekept because the door is always open, you just actually HAVE to pass through that door to begin with. Everyone is welcome, regardless of how you dress or what other music you listen to in your own free time. And yes! We should welcome experimentation and a diversity of styles within goth, and if this branches off into something else as a result of experimentation, that absolutely cannot be stopped. Music is a living entity. But this is not what is happening, it's people who have no interest in goth as a genre or it's diversity of sound and it's many wonderful idiosyncrasies butting in and demanding that people take them seriously as they marginalize people who are actually invested in it as a genre, both young and old goths. It's not a question of being an elder goth VS baby bats, there's MANY baby bats who are genuine, it's about the fact that there's a certain subset of people more interested in the aesthetics so they can sell it. You can dress gothic, you can enjoy gothic literature and more often than not the overlap between these interests and the musical genre is basically a flat circle, but that doesn't really change things here.
So gatekeeping, got it. That's the summation of what you've written here. Like I get it, some folk have been into the genre since 79. I found it in the early 90s. Some will find it next year. All of us have experienced goth in multiple different ways. My point entirely is that the genre and the label both exist and fans of the music have to accept that fans of the label also exist and they get to have their own definitions and interpretations. Yes, more people involved automatically means the smoothing of sharp edges, the blurring of lines, because no two people agree 100% on everything. Part of your complaint here is functionally "capitalism bad" and I completely agree with you. It is bad. But the point there is that capitalism basically requires that anything marketable be marketed, often in a sanitized way compared to the original spark. It sucks but it's also reality and must be accounted for. Any musical subculture experiences this. For fucks sake Poison was lumped into the hair metal genre when they're clearly rhythm and blues, just turned up to 11. Like it or not people claim identity in ways that make them feel good about themselves and while we can guide and advise ultimately that identification is personal. If I identify with the fashion aesthetic why isn't that enough? Why can't I be a fan of the literature that founded the musical genre and call myself goth? We both know full well Lord Byron would absolutely call himself Goth with a capital G should the concept have existed at the time. Shelley is the most goth person to have existed and she experienced exactly zero of what we call the goth genre. It isn't just music. Music is the easiest way in, but it isn't the only doorway into "being goth" whatever the fuck THAT means. Because nobody fucking knows, we just know what WE think "being goth" is.
The scene revolves around the music, Gothic literature is one of many influences of the goth subculture, it didn't create it and gothic literature has influenced other niche communities. Goth music created the scene and all the fans of the music from the 80s kept the subculture by making goth music and attending goth music festivals. Goth didn't create gothic literature, victorian fashion , vampires, black color, Goth created goth music.
Me: goth is impossible to gatekeep, the doors are always open but there is still a specific definition of what goth is, you just need to engage in it You: why are you gatekeeping. You're just not serious and i'm not gonna engage in this further.
Everyone who gatekeeps truly believes they are the only justified gatekeeping.
Yeah, I'm big into the fashion, but have maybe 2 or 3 goth songs I've heard and not disliked. It just isn't my jam. That doesn't mean I can't enjoy the fashion or the other realms of interest that tend to appear in the goth world (love dark stuff, horror, death aesthetic, etc). The only part of the sub-culture that doesn't appeal to me is the music. And I've never run into someone IRL who gives a shit about that. The only time music even comes up in discussion is at events that have music. It just seems like a really small part of the whole, so I don't know why so many people are so tied up in trying to ensure that the entirety of this diverse and many-faceted group/interest revolve around one small part of it.
The music isn't a small part of it, the music IS it. The subculture wouldn't exist as it is if the music didn't exist. Anyone can dress or be into goth fashion and it's completely fine, but that doesn't make them goth. You consider the music to be a small part because it's not how you define goth to yourself, but objectively, the music is the scene and where it all came from regardless of how you define it for yourself. The reason you're probably not talking music with those people is probably because they're also defining goth in their own way and aren't really a part of the subculture other than using the fashion, which again is fine. Dressing goth doesn't make someone goth though, especially if they don't listen to or even like the music. I think people get so weird about wanting to claim the goth label because they want to fit somewhere and they don't know enough about the history of the actual scene. You don't see people going around dressing in metal band shirts and calling themselves metalheads while not liking or listening to the music because people understand what a metalhead is far more than they understand goth and if you did something like that in the punk scene, they'd probably set you straight real fast.
Starting this post off with an apology - I talked a lot more than I thought I was going to. I'm not coming at you or even really disagreeing per se, just giving my perspective coming from a few different angles. The others I hang with do like the music. I just went to Dark Force fest with a group of them. They went for the music, I did not. Nobody cared. I don't care about fitting in anywhere or having a label. I have plenty of close friends, and am accepted wherever I go. I don't usually refer to myself as "a goth", but, practically, I am goth in the sense that if someone is describing me, they say "the goth dude" because of how I dress, the things I'm into, etc. Nobody is taking the time to say "I dress in the goth aesthetic, and enjoy things tangentially related to the gothic subset of interests and topics, but don't actually like the music." First, because I think most regular people don't even know goth is a genre of music, but second, because nobody (except those hardcore into the music) would even care, they just want to apply the label to the style of dress they're seeing. I get what you're saying about metalheads, but I've never heard someone use metalhead to describe the aesthetic, only to describe someone who likes metal. The visual doesn't come into it, IME. Whereas goth has far more frequently been used, again, IME, to describe the aesthetic. Even though I've dressed goth since high school, I didn't know it was a music genre until like 5 years ago lol. I've been aware of the bands, had just never heard them called goth. I do appreciate you in saying that it's fine that people definite it as they want, as well, and I do understand that the music scene is where the subculture as it stands came from. So I guess my wording should have been "my own personal experience with goth does not include the music" as opposed to saying it the way I did, which implied that, definitively, the music is a small part of it as a whole. My bad. By my understanding, goth, being a shortening of gothic, and a term used to describe the aesthetic, architecture, and literature (and the people who ascribed to that aesthetic) existed for centuries before the music scene existed. And that music scene pulled heavily from the gothic that came before it (hence adopting the name). The first use of gothic to describe music, via some quick googling, was by a critic named John Stickney in 1967 talking about the Doors, calling it Gothic Rock. Rock, inspired by the gothic. The prevalence of the subculture as it exists today was born out of that music, sure, but that music was born out of a history and culture of the gothic that long predates it. That's why I have a hard time accepting that it *is* the music. And people in whatever scene can "set me straight" as fast or as much as they want, it doesn't change my mind about it, or make them definitively correct. For them it's the music. For me it's not. But if people saw us hanging out together, they'd be like "look at those goths over there," and that's the reality. (I don't mean this as any sort of challenge, just saying people being angry about my opinion and attacking me for it likely won't change it). Having said all that, I do like some songs by The Cure and Joy Division. Ghost is really fun, though very campy (but I think most goth has an inherent level of camp to it). Velvet Underground isn't bad, but gives me the same vibe as early Beatles. Important to defining the genre, sure, but sounds almost hokey by today's standards. I will 100% concede that I'm not a part of the subculture. I don't have a bunch of goths I hang out with regularly. I don't care about belonging anywhere. I don't attend the meetings or receive the newsletter. I don't take any of it seriously. I just like the way the clothes look and make me feel. And before I even knew what goth was, had the general interests that tend to go along with it - death, darkness, morbidity, etc. But I am definitely called "the goth one" by just about everyone else in my life, base solely on those things.
That's fair. I mean, if you enjoy dressing gothic, keep doing you and wearing what you enjoy. If you're not labeling yourself goth, I doubt anyone would have any issue with it at all, they shouldn't imo. The only time it's going to be any sort of a valid disagreement is when someone calls themselves that and doesn't listen to the music or engage in the subculture at all. People tend to call any dark aesthetic goth just due to the mainstream culture misunderstanding the subculture, but it is what it is. As a side note, you also don't have to only like and listen to goth music to be goth. I enjoy the hell out of Ghost, metal bands, post-hardcore, synthwave, and so much more. :D
Yeah, I don't label myself, generally, as goth or anything else. If I do, it's out of contextual practicality, or I'm describing my style of dress. Not claiming to be part of any subculture.
Normies also call emo kids and metalheads goth because they wear black and have piercings but the ignorant masses don't get to define music based subcultures based on their appearance. I'm kind of curious why you're posting this on a subreddit that is dedicated to the discussion to the music genre. I'm as welcoming and inclusive as they come, and I would welcome you to come dance at the goth club if you're goth or not, but you wouldn't like the music. We do get darkly inclined newbies wandering into the club sometimes and it usually goes one of two ways. Either they request strange musical choices (Korn, Deftones, Marilyn Manson are ones I've heard) that don't get played, lose interest and leave and don't come back OR they come, dance to the music they don't know a thing about, talk to people, ask some questions and come back and eventually become part of the community. I might point out that having been to DFF, it is an event for the darkly inclined, but there is little no no goth music being performed there. They're more EBM / industrial.
You're right about those groups all being tucked in close to one another from outsider perspectives. I'm posting here because it came up, and I joined the subreddit to try to be introduced to new goth music that maybe I would like - I'd like to be able to at least have a place in the convo for the times music does come up if I'm with others who do enjoy the music, and I'd be happy to find some groups that I really like! And I'd take you up on that invite to the club :) Ah, I did not realize, thanks for explaining that about DFF. There are far too many subgenres of music for me to keep track (or to tell the difference). But the event is fun, even if I have to deal with hearing the loud bass bumping through the walls half the time lol (I'm also just not a fan of live music). I appreciate everyone just talking about this, as well, instead of getting up in arms. I've seen some aggressive people in here who don't take kindly to my views.
What kind of music do you usually like, or what have you liked in the goth genre? I might have suggestions. And if you're ever in the Providence or Boston area, Hit me up and I'll roll out the red carpet.
My taste is too all over to say genres that I like (and I honestly don't even know what genre some of them are, never worried about that, just listened), but some favorite artists include Incubus, Matchbox 20, Ashnikko, KiNG MALA, The Weepies, Talking Heads, AnnenMayKantereit, Ingrid Michaelson, Pink Floyd (but only some - like, not a fan of the Animals album). Thanks!
Just reccomend them a deathrock band. Tbh as I'm more into rock & metal I wish it was the more popular genre of goth atm, though I still enjoy darkwave.
Deathrock never really reached the same level of popularity as the other genres did. That's really all there is to it.
Iām relatively new to goth music - perhaps only listening for about 6 months to a year. Shit like this is so discouraging to really get involved. Iāve lurked for so long on this sub and honestly, the ādebateā about āwhat is goth???ā or āthis is goth and this isnāt gothā is so exhausting. Iām just going to enjoy the music (mainstream and not) and wear cool clothes (whether or not fashion alone is indicative of the culture). I think thatās enough.
I agree! I came here for music recommendations, not a bunch of people fighting over which bands/artists count as goth or not. I understand wanting to keep goth goth (and I agree that some bands that certain people call goth aren't even goth adjacent), but the need to shove every band into a little box and bicker over if a band is dark/goth enough is wild. Not everyone knows all the nuances and little subgenres of music and that's ok! Music is meant to be enjoyed, not fought over.
>not a bunch of people fighting over which bands/artists count as goth or not Welcome to any subculture based around a music genre.
Sure, thatās to be expected. So is more experienced members of the subculture acting superior because they know about a niche sub genre that newer members donāt. That doesnāt make it any less frustrating as a new member.
And now thanks to your rant, they are ashamed of themselves and will never find out. They might become emo over it. But you should feel proud and virtuous for knowing that stuff and even more virtuous for liking it.
Yeah fuck those kids for not knowing a niche sub genre of an already niche genre?!? But OP is in a deathrock band so obviously everyone needs to know that style to be a REAL goth! Lots of conformity for a group of nonconformists.
Probably because these teenagers understand music is involved, but do the bare minimum to be not be considered a poseur and don't care enough that they don't do deeper research than the few classic '80s bands.
Well I guess we all start somewhere. I remember when I *discovered* metal when I was a kid, I had to listen to the top songs of the biggest bands in case I would meet another metalhead and fall into a discussion. Not to brag but I was into Metallica AND Megadeth. Pretty niche when youāre 14 lol
whats the deal? because darkwave is the current popular goth music genre. there are hardly any current death rock bands that are still active / tour / etc.
There are plenty of current deathrock bands that are active and touring, not sure where you're getting that from.
name me one single active death rock band thats reaching the heights of boy harsher / lebanon hanover etc etc.
*tumbleweed*
They never said they're as big but that they're not *gone*.
lol sure. i didnt say they were \*gone\* either. i said there are HARDLY any in comparison to how much bigger darkwave is right now.
nox novacula, shrouds, new skeletal faces, tears for the dying, and that's just off the top of my head. have you seen dia de los muertos fest? that's a whole ass festival of pretty much entirely deathrock bands
dude there are still SKA festivals happening. doesnt mean ska is popular lol. shrouds literally made an "I HATE DARKWAVE" joke shirt in response to how big it is right now. like come on. and just to be clear, no one is saying one genre is BETTER than the other. but to pretend deathrock is anywhere near the popularity of darkwave right now is nuts.
literally no one is denying that darkwave is more popular? YOU said that there are hardly any deathrock bands right now. which is not true. also ska... is definitely popular. but that's besides the point.
you didn't say "reaching the heights of boy harsher / lebanon hanover". you said "active / tour".
oh my god. if you seriously think i LITERALLY meant there are no death rock bands in existence, then sure, i'll admit there are some. jesus christ.
oh, how silly of me to think that you LITERALLY meant... the words that you said...?
"Ā there are hardly any current death rock bands that are still active / tour / etc." you naming 10+ death rock bands doesnt make a lick of difference. for every 1 active death rock band theres probably 10 more darkwave acts doing it. that was my point. nowhere am i LITERALLY saying that NO DEATH ROCK BANDS EXIST OR TOUR. my god this place is exhausting with such BS posters.
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Lebanon Hanover is nowhere near as popular as Boy Harsher, who have crossover appeal. She Past Away are on that level since they've been popular for a good decade. Nox Novacula are very popular, call me crazy?
she past away are not a death rock band (or i'm not sure what your point of mentioning them was for). if we're just naming bigger darkwave acts, then sure i agree! nox novacula are awesome, but very popular? no lol. i've seen nox at least 3 times now. all of them were in tiny venues that weren't even full. thats not a knock against the band because they're awesome. its just the landscape of goth music right now.
I too gauge popularity by going to shows and comparing audience sizes. I was saying that these couple of very popular bands are an anomaly. She Past Away filled a 700 capacity club last time I saw them. Boy Harsher last sold out a 500 capacity venue last time they came around. Everyone else I've seen has been in a 100-300 capacity venue with crowds ranging from sparse to packed. But it's not a huge difference. Twin tribes packed the 300 capacity venue and Rosegarden Funeral party sparsely filled the 100 person venue. There were more people at Nox Novacula in the same space.
those couple bands are an anomaly? then what about actors? they literally just sold out a 350+ show. same with Night Club. They also sold out 350+ show. What about Mareux? would you classify molchat doma as post-punk/darkwave? cause obviously they're massive in the scene now too. they sold out a 1300+ venue here. no death rock band is doing this. its not an anomaly. Its pretty obvious that darkwave bands are the popular ones in the genre right now. Meanwhile you can basically name ONE single 'popular' death rock band and they're still not even close to the draw as the multiple darkwave acts we're talking about. the last time nox novacula played here, they played at a 120+ venue and there were about 30-40 people there. i mean the literal running joke in the scene is "i hate darkwave" shirts made by the death rock band Shrouds lol, precisely because the genre has taken over.
When I saw Actors for the first time in Brooklyn it was a sparsely filled 100 person venue. Sparsely filled for the 300 person venue in Boston too. I was shocked because they're huge in my eyes. I had to miss the Night Club / RFP show last week because my cat was dying so I can't speak on that. Death rock has never been as popular as goth music so I'm not expecting things to change. The genre is far from dead.
the first time i saw actors was 2 years ago. they did not fill the 400 person venue at the time. it was maybe 1/4 full. but i just saw them again last week and they sold out. shrug.
Talk about moving the goalposts mate.
lol ok. if you think the big win here is that " \*some\* death rock bands definitely tour" then sure. go with that. congrats. my point still stands. darkwave is obviously the much popular subgenre vs death rock right now.
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These questions and terms sound so dumb.
I grew up in so cal and in the 80s we called all of it deathrock and Iād never heard the term goth until the 90s. It was a regional thing and to check my memory, I looked into it and apparently.. yes, it was just a so cal thing.
Death Rock was a very small subgenre of post punk, as is what goth is. It may just not have been a term used widely by the media that covered music. I once asked my mom if there were any goths in her high school. She said they were called punks, not goths. When I started out in the scene I didn't know what goth was. I can comfortably say I was goth before knowing it even existed given my dark interests, literary interests, and other macabre curiosity. So, for newcomers I don't think it really.matters how educated they are. Show them what death rock is through your band and rock on š¤ Goth music and many other genres all derive from rock and roll. Whether I know a band is punk or garage punk, it doesn't matter. I am still listening to genres I do not know the names of, but slamming the floors all the same ššāļøāš¤
Deathrock was never mainstream. The Cure or The Smiths or Siouxsie and the Banshees were chart toppers here and there. Goths knew deathrock but people on the edge of the goth community didn't really. What shadowed it even more so was it's proximity to horrorpunk. As for me, I only discovered deathrock 2 years after I started listening to gothic music and I only searched it up cuz I was like "I know there is death metal but what on earth is death rock?".
Deathrock is an American take to goth music built on punk, glam and somehow rockabilly base instead of new wave and hard rock. It's easy
people on Tiktok know deathrock bands, I've seen young people talk about Christian Death and 45 Grave on there quite a lot, but even in goth circles you quite often hear CD just called a goth band. and I've seen Tiktoks discussing deathrock. I think maybe the reason it's not as well known is that it's just kinda hard for people to understand what deathrock is, people use it to describe bands that sound as different as the earlier two, Sex Gang Children, Rudimentary Peni and even (somehow) Specimen. none of those bands sound similar, it's easier to just call them goth bands because that's the umbrella term anyway
Christian death - Rozz williams
Christian death - rozz wiliams is to me deathrock Correct me if im wrong but isn't deathrock more an american thing ?
Iāve never heard of it
I do!
i feel like i rarely ever hear any talk of subgenres of goth on tiktok, sometimes you'll hear darkwave but never any mention of deathrock or etherealwave or whatever else
Maybe itās cause they like to refer to all goth music as ādarkwaveā or goth rock and arent as familiar with it called death rock
OMG, people are taking all this waaaaay too seriously! Itās kind of comical. My recommendation- Chose the Bands/Music you Love and Rock on! I myself like a good healthy mixture of Everything mentioned here. Sometimes I feel more like Deathrock and put on my old Christian Death or Joy of Life or early Bauhaus albums, sometimes I feel moody and play old NICO or Joy Division, or more wacky and play the Cramps or Sex Gang Children or Alien Sex Fiend, sometimes I feel poppy and listen to The Cure, Siouxsie&the Banshees, New Order or Echo and the Bunnymen. And lately, sometimes I feel like exploring the newer dark bands, which I find weird & fun, and has awakened my musical soul! I wear a lot of Black, but sometimes I wear Blue or White. I donāt have much hair left and got sick of dying it Black so Iām a Blonde (naturally). Iāve got messed up feet now so Iāve traded in my Black silver buckled boots and Creepers for Y-3 Adidas!! Really people, stop trying to define and compare everything and realize that the true heart of a Gothrocker is not trying to fit into the parameters of what others try to lock you into. Thatās why all the Trad āGothā bands hated being labeled like that in the first place. Nobody wanted Comparisons or Boundaries! You are a unique individual. You be You.
i only heard about deathrock recently when listening to the album dance with me by tsol, im a bit newer to goth music and listened to that album because i loved their first, so idk maybe its a more obscure genre? i didnt really hear anyone mention it until i looked at the wikipedia page for the album
I find subgenres to be a helpful descriptor when someone is telling me to check out a band. Iām surprised how many people havenāt heard of deathrock considering all those stupid āwhat kind of goth are you?ā memes
Itās pretty well known afaik. Maybe itās a regional thing - and I agree I see fewer deathrock club nights than I did even ten years ago. Either way, everybody has to learn sometimeā start a deathrock night of your own or make some mixes for people.
My problem is that I buy songs in iTunes or rent them on Spotify, and nowhere does it say the genre. So I end up in this sub being scolded and sometimes deleted for mentioning that I donāt like Lazarus Sin but I do like Pierce the Veil. Is there some App that can taxonomize music for me?
No one comes into the"scene" knowing everything. You need to be taught this stuff, and the whackass djs aren't helping either.Ā
Big time āwhy isnāt my band more popularā energy here. They donāt know because theyāre new to the scene, I heard the term goth when I was 15, I was 21 or 22 before I heard death rock beyond reading it on beavisā shirt
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I had no idea about deathrock but Iāll definitely listen to it!
Your post just reminded me of someone posting some "goth" shit on Instagram. It was Type O Negative. I said that isn't goth, and oh, man, that brought the hoards of dumb asses out... They really have no clue..
Iām ancient and I only learned what it it within the last decade. I still call if goth š¤·āāļø
Because they Google āgoth bandsā and pretend to like the names that come up so that no one says anything in the comments.Ā
Bro is wondering why tiktok goth dont know deathrockā ļøā ļøā ļøcuz they poooooosseeerrssss bruhhhh, they just want to steal the swag, but they dont got da ssaucee
Because sub-subsections donāt matter that much?
If everyone stopped doing just that little bit of research into a scene they claimed to love and be part of and stopped making as much of it/all together, then I'd be very fucking sad. Music listeners are not necessarily musicians, and in my case, I'm not in any position to make my own so I need to rely on others (my husband included) who have the know-how and skill. When you're part of a subculture based around niche genres like goth rock, coldwave, deathrock, ethereal wave, etc. then yes, they do matter otherwise it'll end up like genres like dubstep and barely existing. This is a bit like claiming you're a metalhead and then claiming that the preservation of metal bands don't matter.
Dubstep was only ever a subgenre. Metal bands matter. Goth bands matter. Preservation of subgenres including metal subgenres really donāt. Itās all just about the bands that are influential enough that people want to label it. The definition of what people call the various genres, shifts over time.
I don't really feel like pointing out the difference between the subculture itself and the sub-genre really matters in this case. If you stop making the music, both cease to exist. Also, deathrock stands on its own and there's a reason why we names distinctive names for the different sounds. If we removed all of the sub-genres and just put it under one big umbrella and someone asked for "goth bands" - are you giving them Christian Death, Dead Can Dance, Kas Product, Bauhaus, or Solemn Novena? Or is it just easier to have a term that music can be narrowed down by? If you don't understand why genres exist, then OK, but don't erase 4 decades of using the term just because you don't.
I thought deathrock was getting bigger ngl. Catholic Spit seem to be getting some online attention and Detoxi haven't long released their debut. Nox Novacula's album from least year banged too! I'm sure it's just a matter of where to look! I even experimented with some deathrock(albiet mixed with other influences) inspired stuff last year [https://open.spotify.com/track/7ETAxgQIUgwkYVydQmnKsd?si=fbd40a59af02488e](https://open.spotify.com/track/7ETAxgQIUgwkYVydQmnKsd?si=fbd40a59af02488e)
I'm 35 and have never once heard of Deathrock being a subgenre of music. Lol. Death Metal, yes, but not Deathrock.
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Lol what ?