Gothic rock
The poetic sensibilities of the genre led gothic rock lyrics to exhibit literary romanticism, morbidity, existentialism, religious symbolism, or supernatural mysticism.
"[8] Early gothic rock had introspective or personal lyrics, but according to AllMusic, "its poetic sensibilities soon led to a taste for literary romanticism, morbidity, religious symbolism, and/or supernatural mysticism.
"[8] Critic John Stickney used the term "gothic rock" to describe the music of the Doors in October 1967, in a review published in The Williams Record.
[9] Stickney wrote that the band met the journalists "in the gloomy vaulted wine cellar of the Delmonico hotel, the perfect room to honor the gothic rock of the Doors".
[9] Musicians who initially shaped the aesthetics and musical conventions of gothic rock include Marc Bolan,[10] the Velvet Underground, the Doors, David Bowie, Brian Eno, and Iggy Pop.
[13] With its stark sound, somber lyrics, and Nico's deliberate change in her look, the album became a crucial music and visual prototype for the gothic rock movement.
[16] Pitchfork wrote: "Although it abandoned the psychedelic color palette and exchanged alien worship for a vampire cult, goth kept glam's theatricality intact, as well as its openness to experimentation.
[17] Reynolds retrospectively described Kate Bush's 1978 song "Wuthering Heights" as "Gothic romance distilled into four-and-a-half minutes of gaseous rhapsody".
In a live review about a Siouxsie and the Banshees' concert in July 1978, critic Nick Kent wrote that concerning their performance, "parallels and comparisons can now be drawn with gothic rock architects like the Doors and, certainly, early Velvet Underground".
For journalist Alexis Petridis of The Guardian, "A lot of musical signifiers... – scything, effects-laden guitar, pounding tribal drums – are audible, on... Join Hands".
[24] When their final album Closer came out a couple of months after the suicide of their singer Ian Curtis, Sounds noted in its review that there were "dark strokes of gothic rock".
[23] At the time, NME considered that "Siouxsie and the Banshees, Adam and the Ants and even... Joy Division" opened up "a potentially massive market" for newcomers like Bauhaus and Killing Joke: journalist Andy Gill then separated these two groups of bands, pointing out that there was a difference "between art and artifice".
[36] With the Birthday Party's Junkyard album, Nick Cave combined "sacred and profane" things, using Old Testament imagery with stories about sin, curses and damnation.
[43][44] That same year, Ian Astbury of the band Southern Death Cult used the term "gothic goblins" to describe Sex Gang Children's fans.
[45] Southern Death Cult became icons of the scene, drawing aesthetic inspiration from Native American culture and appearing on the cover of NME in October.
[11] That year, myriad goth groups emerged, including Flesh for Lulu, Play Dead, Rubella Ballet, Gene Loves Jezebel, Blood and Roses, and Ausgang.
[51] The Sisters of Mercy, who cited influences such as Leonard Cohen, Gary Glitter, Motörhead, the Stooges, the Velvet Underground, the Birthday Party, Suicide, and the Fall, created a new, harder form of gothic rock.
[60] In their wake, the Mission, which included two former members of the Sisters of Mercy (Wayne Hussey and Craig Adams), achieved commercial success in the mid-1980s to early 1990s,[61] as did Fields of the Nephilim and All About Eve.
[63] Other bands associated with gothic rock include All Living Fear, And Also the Trees, Balaam and the Angel, Claytown Troupe, Dream Disciples, Feeding Fingers, Inkubus Sukkubus, Libitina, Miranda Sex Garden, Nosferatu, Rosetta Stone, and Suspiria.
[70] Gothic fashions within the subculture range from deathrock, punk, androgynous, Victorian, to Renaissance and medieval-style attire, or combinations of the above, most often with black clothing, makeup and hair.
