Metal vs Goth

All Hallows Eve is nigh! And all that jazz. Today's chin-scratcher: Is dark metal the new goth? Did one cross into the other? Are yesterdays goths today's metal-heads wearing clown makeup, er, sorry, "corpse paint"? They all wear black.

I never understood how industrial - an electronic urban modern music - came to be mixed with goth and all its' pseudo-Victorianisms, but apparently it happened. Metal makes more sense, although they did use to be two very different camps - blue-collar dudes vs art-school chicks. But that was in the day of, say, Motley Crue vs The Cure. Nowadays, the two musics don't seem too different to my ears...or are they? What do I know, I still call it "death rock."

Gothic metal has existed for a couple of decades at this point, making occasional forays into the mainstream, a la Type O Negative and H.I.M. It can be good cheesy fun when you sense the participants have a sense of humor - see the gothic black metal of Dimmu Borgir, or the glammy horror metal of King Diamond, for example - but a real drag when the protagonists think they're imparting some sort of deep secrets about the way the universe really works, which I think is how the current crop rolls.

Then there's Ghost, who certainly took some of gothic metals trappings of the last 20 years and made it into a gently satirical cottage industry. The fact that all those catchy pop metal hooks are wrapped around blatantly Satanic lyrics will keep them off the radio for their entire career, but I'm constantly amazed at how far they've gotten as a concert act. It doesn't take much digging under the surface to see it's all in good, spooky/silly fun - see the videos they make every time they "retire" a lead singer - but I often wonder how many of the kids at their shows think they're getting something profound out of those cheekily ridiculous constumes. I guess as long as you can sing along to "Square Hammer" (as I have more times than I can count) it doesn't matter.

Ironically, "Square Hammer' actually got lots of airplay on American rock radio despite lyrics that are clearly about using Masonic rituals to call on Satan for power. I love the fact that they kicked off their first album with a song featuring an absurdly catchy chorus about conducting human sacrifices to bring about the birth of the anti-Christ.

Based on my experience seeing Ghost live, I'd say most of their fans get the campy humor. During one of the opening numbers -- a taped Gregorian chant chorale -- one guy in the audience shouted out, "Welcome to church, bitches!" That drew a good laugh all around.

So did the old-school Bauhaus goths move into this area, or is it a whole other scene? Gang rumble!

I remember King Diamond/Mercyful Fate from the '80s, and he was strictly for the head-bangers. Don't think you'd have seen a pale-faced "vampyre" in a Nitzer Ebb shirt at his shows.



Post Edited (10-19-18 11:14)

It's ironic - yes, King Diamond was definitely a metalhead thing and not a goth thing, but I'd argue his work is closer to the tenets of gothic then the disco goth stuff.

I don't know of any members of the British goth contingent that moved into metal, though there's a strain of British death metal that dived into goth in a big way: Paradise Lost, My Dying Bride, the infamous Cradle of Filth. PL even has an album entitled Gothic.

On the American side, didn't Christian Death move into metal territory after Valor Kant took over? I haven't listened to any CD beyond the Rozz Williams years (and even that not in many years).

I saw a couple of goth metal acts from the Century Media/extreme metal wing in concert once - Moonspell (basically Peter Murphy's solo music with heavier guitar and no keyboards) and Lacuna Coil (the blueprint that Evanescence took to the bank). It was fun enough, though it didn't inspire me to listen to their records.

The best gothic metal show I've ever seen, though, was King Diamond at Fun Fun Fun Fest. He had his full stage set - a two story cutaway of the kind of mansion you see in old horror flicks - plus all the props, makeup, etc. It was essentially a greatest hits set, since his most recent record was (and still is) a best-of. It was highly choreographed in spots, but left enough room for some looseness, and everybody both onstage and off seemed to be having a blast. It was all pretty silly, but King revels in the B-grade movie feel of it all. Probably the best "theatrical" rock show I've ever seen. Better than Alice Cooper, who I saw a year or so later, though Alice's catalog is far superior to King's.

Agree on King Diamond shows (though I think I would give Alice Cooper shows the nod over the King). For some crazy reason, ever since I was exposed to Mercyful Fate and King Diamond back in the `80s, I always thought he was really into the Satanic stuff and didn't like to be seen without the face-paint. Then I saw an interview with him (sans face-paint) and he was as normal as anyone. He lives in Dallas, so you can go visit him, Michael.

As for goth metal, there an offshoot of Industrial called 'Darkwave' which I have always thought fits the goth metal description. KMFDM (which is not goth) always seems to have those bands open for them. The last time I saw them ogHr opened, which I found out later was Nivek Ogre side band and they seemed to be a good representation of goth metal.

I interviewed King for the Fun Fun preview in our alt.weekly. No talk about Satanism, but a lot of talk - and I mean a lot - about the health regimen he had to adopt after his heart surgery. No more smoking, drinking or eating hamburgers for that dude anymore. It was the most mundane musician interview I've ever done.

A buddy of mine who's a Nascar enthusiast went to see a race in Dallas and ended up standing next to Diamond in his civilian identity. Apparently the guy is a big Nascar fan.

Kids today just don't respect the fact that Siouxsie and Van Halen fans were mortal enemies in the TicketMaster camp-out!

Perfectly fine. Perfectly expected.

the harbingers were there:
Coven [Jinx Dawson]
Sabbath 1st LP
Misfits
BÖC
Mercyful Fate
Celtic Frost

I suppose I've always seen goth as more of an aesthetic phenomenon than a musical style. If a reggae band all wore black and sported the make-up, they'd be tagged 'goth reggae', regardless of what they sounded like.

Are there any songs/bands you can think of as just 'goth'? I'd never label bauhaus or siouxie that way. To me they're 'popular with goths'.

I CAN understand the confusion of the post, however. The visual aesthetic of death metal bands (even as far back as early Venom) is pretty much the same as what most consider 'goth'.

Bauhaus became the prototypical goth band on the basis of "Bela Lugosi's Dead." Sometimes I think the entire genre is based on that one song. Never mind that a deeper dive into Bauhaus's catalog reveals a glam-loving postpunk band more than anything we typically think of as "goth."

I'm with you on Siouxsie & the Banshees. I'd add the Cure to that list. I get the appeal to the goth crowd, but neither of those bands fit easily under one genre designation.

I might argue for the Sisters of Mercy being purely gothic rock (emphasis on the rock), but Andrew Eldtrich would beat me up. Maybe Fields of the Nephilim? Though their faux-cowboy movie garb might disqualify them. Plus the last F of the N record I heard a few years ago was straight-up goth metal.

I think a lot of "pure' goth bands (by which we mean a certain kind of deep vocal style, pre-techno dance beats, a certain shimmery guitar sound, a lyrical emphasis on death and spooky things) came after the 80s Batcave wave, picking up on the most superficial aspects of the music and running with them (Nosferatu, etc.).

Then there's also the darkwave movement, and the classically-influenced stuff that black tape for a blue girl does, which doesn't fit the usual conception of goth, even though the band was happy to be associated with that tag.

We could also make a discrimination between "goth" and "gothic." A band like the Green Pajamas, arguably the Pacific Northwest's answer to the Paisely Underground, takes a lot of inspiration for 18th and 19th century literature, art, poetry and architecture without ever sounding "goth."

There's a recent article in the LA Weekly* called "City of Dark Angels" that, apart from pointing out how LA's punk-era 'death-rock' thing helped kick off goth, also features interviews with a few folks who would seem to confirm what Bip wrote: that goth isn't a specific musical genre, more of a fashion and attitude. One dj says he'll play anything 'dark': could be hip-hop, could be Britney Spears, whatever.


*if you can deal with their horrible website - I'm fortunate to have picked up the print version. The article is quite detailed, tho.