Goth Back In Black - The Topn 50 Rarities

ALEX OGG takes a look back at the stories and rarities of one of alternative rock’s most enduring subcultures.

Ah, goth, the musical genre of which none, or few, would be a part. Yet, as a subculture, it thrives. And now, of course, as history goes through one of its 20-year wash cycles, it is being celebrated and appropriated by a new generation. Victoria Beckham embraces goth chic, Russell Brand’s Edwardian frippery is everywhere, Marilyn Manson is America’s most whispered-against and the Horrors are on the cover of the NME. How did that happen?

Not all roads lead back to punk rock, but most do. If you go back further, it’s possible to cite Screaming Lord Sutch, Jim Morrison of The Doors and Black Sabbath as antecedents. Or even old Burning Bonce himself, Arthur Brown. There’s a rich tradition of rock music exploring the darker recesses of the psyche, celebrating the deranged and the debauched.

But goth wouldn’t have happened without punk. The Damned may have been fronted by a would-be vampire, but the key influences were Siouxsie & The Banshees’ and Adam & The Ants. The former’s marriage of the silent suburban scream with childhood terror and enchantment and the latter’s pummelling fetishism and curdled, bleak humour were the movement’s first sacraments.

At this stage, it was a sensed but nameless undercurrent. The term ‘gothic’ had been used by Phil Sutcliffe of …

by Alex Ogg
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