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Welcome to my list of goth stuff! I have a major focus on music-first views, which also means I cover all the major threes of the modern subculture. I can't write you a goth bible of songs and fashion and who's who, but I can tell you who to jam to and who has the most subculture staples. Goth is music-first, and I know a lot of music and try to listen to new things every time I tune in. The natural side effect is I can't name a single song until I come home to look at my lists, but that's what this page is for.
I kind of do a blend of genres, honestly. In many cases, post punk and darkwave have the exact same vocalizations anyway, and they all go well together, so why not. I do mark what genre/period a band belongs to if I know it for sure, though.
The way this works is that I spend all my time listening to goth music for the sole purpose of archiving an artist and a song, it gets logged to my Last.FM (the sole reason I'm still using Sp*tify of all things), and then I eventually come back and update this page and my rankings. I think it's the least I can do, since this site is so heavily leaning towards actual gothicisms and goth stuff.
Jump to:
The list shifts a lot and is a living list/archive of songs. I'm going for a kind of dynamic
exploration vibe where you come along with me as I learn more and more about the subculture. I think
a lot of goths 'know' a lot of songs when they play, like oh yeah, that's xyz... But my goal is to
know artists and their history/discography overall.
Plus, it gives me something to do here, really. Something I can keep coming back and updating.
I listen to a lot of Rosetta Stone... I like most of their songs, obviously. I know a good
bit of them, I'm sure not all of them. My favorites by them are
(The Witch
,
An Eye for the Main Chance
,
People
,
In Black)
...? And more, but I can't think of them. I've been trying to get through their newest
releases recently but I keep forgetting lol
Band so peak that when you finally listen to them, you realize you've been missing out on
banger after banger... I somehow just found out about them but they're already #2 on my list
for a reason. I would recommend
LASCIVIOUS (and everything from the album it belongs to
really),
Kiss of Death, Animal,
Put Your Lips On Me
I love this band, they have a very familiar sound in that you can tell a song belongs to
them and then be surprised in a good way when they do different things with it all. You can
see it best in their album Vitrioli, which im sure is their most popular. If you know them,
you would probably know like..
Billie Was A Vampire,
There Must Be Somebody,
Give Me A Reason
I'm not up to date with the 'lore', but I love that they also have sung in a few different
languages. Like I managed to stumble upon one of their older tracks, La Industria Del Sexo,
and they're singing in Spanish?
What I do know is that Selofan is important for many different reasons, especially in the
darkwave genre. I'll have to get into it later, but not here. I might make a music history
page at some point & include darkwave starting around Xymox.
In the meantime, She Past Away and Lebanon Hannover will be your next listens here. I think
further down (since I go back and forth editing these) I even mention She Past Away.
This band wants you convinced it's dracula behind the mic and carmilla is the one who poses
for the one album cover. They like themes of vampires and just general death and darkness.
I don't remember what their most popular songs are actually, but I personally like Empire of
the Vampire, as far as albums go.
Patricia in Pain
and
Nocturne
stand out a lot on there.
If I'm remembering correctly, they do obviously have non-vampire songs, but they're not as
popular, so I think I only ever heard one or two. And apparently I heard
She Wants the Sea
once, but I don't think it hits as hard as their more popular tracks. Still pretty good,
though.
I'm not sure how to describe it. They's a group of anarchy/anti-establisment musers that
press into themes of social/society related things, and it's most noticable on tracks like
Consolation Prize
where they take the traditional stance of anti christian bigotry. It's a kind of outlier
views society kind of vibe.
You hear a lot of that in both Living for Nothing and In Darkness You Will Feel Alright. I
mean, the second features
I Like It When A Soldier Dies
, if you had any doubts.
This one is a bit harder to review for you. It's got a different vibe that makes it
essentially like the goth version of a pop ballad type song, if not just pop rendered
through darkwave. Still, its a legit band, and the songs could clear for goth just by the
lyrics and the emotions it draws from the listener.
Anyway, I don't wanna list a bunch of songs for her, surprisingly. I'll leave you with
Salvation and Saving Face ,
Ill And Getting Worse ,
Once In a While (probably their most goth sounding) , and
Another Dead Soul
A very serious band with serious lyrics. To my knowledge, all the songs have backstories and
so, or are just very, very well written from an imaginative/outsider's perspective. It's
dark and moody, and the singer's voice can go from that same moodiness or a cry that sounds
like a genuine person in suffering. If you were new to the scene, I'd watch this band
specifically...
As for a recommendation, I don't want to list any songs. I'll give you their song
I was introduced to (Walking on Both Sides), but I really just want to recommend whole albums of theirs.
I'll say If Two Worlds Kiss, Meta, and Tainted. They released an album last year called
Black Swan, it'll be one year old on the 28th. I haven't listened to it yet, but it had kind
of a revival effect for them, so check that out as well.
I'll be honest, they're hard to get into for a lot of people, no shame in it. Even I can
only listen to the more traditionally melodic/Sisters sounding songs. The only thing we
don't do is make fun of those garage sounding homemade tracks, because without them, we'd be
nothing. That being said, everything you've heard can come back to Bauhaus and Siouxie in
one way or another.
My personal playlist mainstays are:
The Passion of Lovers
,
Dark Entries,
She's In Parties,
Kick in the Eye
And if you were curious or you didn't like these, you might also like
Stigmata Martyr?
It kind of gives a live performance vibe, but no, it just sounds like that from its first
recording. It's true peak, but it's in a league of its own half the time and isn't playlist
friendly. If you DO put it in a playlist, throw in some Depeche Mode for me, it'll mesh
well. You can also throw in She Past Away, namely
Ritüel?
A personal pick, I'll be honest. I don't think anyone else is picking Kentucky Vampires on
their top 10's, but I will because I just like their work. Crimson Curse is one of my
favorite goth albums of all time, and this is my site, so I can do what I want to.
I had the pleasure of hearing the album first online before anything spotify served to me.
It started off with
A. Marler Toccata for Organ in E Min.
, and it was immediately over. Opening from organ music to such a sharp sound of
Holy Heretic
should be a tone switch studied by all other bands.
If you like this band, I would recommend like... every other band really, but maybe Altar de
Fey or Angels of Liberty. I think this band follows a kind of Sisters of Mercy formula too,
but it's very low-key. I personally found this band alongside Screams for Tina though? So...
Pretty classic, kind of a cop-out on my part that I won't get into. I think I found this
band in a playlist of one sort or another of 'unique goth songs' where
Mephisto Waltz
played. It took me a while, but I eventually did a deeper dive on the band itself. If my
video of The Witch ever goes down, I'll replace it with the music video for Mephisto Waltz.
It's one of the more beautiful-leaning goth songs melody-wise. It's something that pushes
how far the discordant sound of our subculture can go towards an almost lullaby sounding
song.
An amusing fun-fact is that I witnessed someone get angry over
Painted Black for
ruining one of 'their songs'... then they press skip and
Alle in Asche
plays. So peak.
Confession okay. I only first listened to this band... four days ago as of writing this. But
I have an ear for music, and let me tell you. Absolutely one of the best songs to
ever grace my ears came from them as my first time listen. And what's cool is if they keep
going crazy as I listen, I'll put them alongside Black Angel in their spot. That's how good
they are to me right now.
Cats or Devils Eyes (which also seems printed as Cats or Dogs for some reason?)
I found this song, but not much else on them through the usual pathways. Underground, then?
I'm not in any communities to tell what's mainstream and what's underground, so it might
just be that or just semi-lost history in terms of the modern, digital age. But seeing
people on YT speak about this track, it definitely shouldn't be a random stray song like it
is, so what gives? I'll find out eventually.
All the shouts on the song on lastfm are from below 2011 though. I have no idea what's up
with this thing. I should ask about it, but I think I'll come away feeling stupid about it
so better not.
This isn't related, but this would go well with Baby Turns Blue and then to blend them, add
some Kick in the Eye and then Specimen. Then you have a really good playlist stem there.
Hell, that might be where you plug in your Stigmata Martyr.
Holdovers from me making lists and such. Plus, this place used to be so hard to read through that now I'm making it better.
Alter de Fey - Demons, Veil of Death, Elisa Lam, Vampires
Nox Novacula - PRAY FOR SLEEP, DRUG (BITTER PILL), Ascension
Inkubus Sukkubus - Vampyres, Vampyre Erotica Haven't gotten to listen to all their songs, but I find it amusing the first thing I come across from them are double vampire songs. To be fair, I was listening to a vampire goth playlist LOL.
Vision Video (or whatever they're gonna be next since they broke up) im weak to goth-pop but I also like their traditional goth songs too... comfort in the grave was fun though, despite it all. i also love beautiful day to die and find myself idly singing it in public lol. im happy that peppy, babybat me was introduced to them and RFP early
Angels of Liberty - Haunted, Son of the Serpent, The Last Vampire, Phantom Horse personal evolution from rosetta stone for me... idk maybe im weird. i just started listening to them but I love their band name.. i love a lot of goth band names tbh
Skeletal Family - Hands on the Clock, Promised Land, Waltz, She Cries Alone I love female voices in goth songs... my favorite one atm (it'll probably change) is She Cries Alone or Waltz. Waltz is kind of more fun in a dark way, though. Waltz is very much my kind of goth.
All About Eve (my favorite song of theirs is Flowers in Our Hair) Someone's gonna kill me but she's like if ABBA was goth lmao.. even though i don't think her music is pure goth like talking about it (it sounds indistinguishable from an ABBA or Dolly song at times, which is in no way bad btw. maybe id even go as far to call it more aligning with christian value folk songs? but then... i shouldn't do that), i listened to a shit ton of her music and she inspired my little whimsigoth look with a lighter form of goth... and then i turn around and listen to goth metal like nothing happened lol (never ask a purist goth what they think of epica.. ps i love epica a little bit but not enough to play it enough to list)
There's a band called Velvet Mist that I wanna know more about. So far I listened to Valley of Dreams by them and I like their sound. I found them through LastFM lol
I'm also getting into Switchblade Symphony? Not as a priority, but I heard Clown by them and im interested. It's the same with Cellar Darling, even though they don't share the same genre, but with them my first listen was The Hermit.
Groups of songs I heard that I can personally recommend to others without feeling completely guilty about it. I might even put non-goth songs, even though being gothic is this site's whole premise, in a sense.
If you want a really good and fun time or just think goth is about depression simulator, I recommend Scary Bitches and Specimen and whatever the pair spawned. (A lot.)
(You can click here to see what I have for playlists I created so far.)