Tuesday, November 13, 2007

GOTH MUSIC

The bands that began the gothic rock and death rock scene were limited in number, and included Bauhaus, Specimen, Siouxsie & the Banshees,The Damned, Southern Death Cult, Ausgang, Sex Gang Children, 45 Grave, UK Decay, The Virgin Prunes, Kommunity FK, Alien Sex Fiend and Christian Death. Gloria Mundi, Joy Division, The Cure, Dead Can Dance, early Adam and the Ants and Killing Joke have also been associated.

By the mid-eighties, the number of bands began proliferating and became increasingly popular, including The Sisters of Mercy, The Mission UK, Xmal Deutschland, The Bolshoi and Fields of the Nephilim. The nineties saw the further growth of eighties bands and emergence of many new bands. Factory Records, 4AD Records, and Beggars Banquet Records released much of this music in Europe, while Cleopatra Records amongst others released much of this music in the United States, where the subculture grew especially in New York, Los Angeles, and Orange County, California, with many nightclubs featuring "gothic/industrial" nights. The popularity of 4AD bands resulted in the creation of a similar US label called Projekt Records. This produces what is colloquially termed ethereal wave, a subgenre of dark wave music.

By the mid-1990s, styles of music that were heard in venues that goths attended ranged from gothic rock, death rock, industrial music, EBM, ambient, experimental, synthpop, shoegazing, punk rock, 1970s glam rock, indie rock, to 1980s dance music. This variety was a result of the eclectic tastes of the members of the subculture.

Recent years have seen a resurgence in the early positive punk and death rock sound, in reaction to aggrotech, futurepop, and synthpop, which had taken over many goth clubs. Bands with an earlier goth sound like Cinema Strange, Bloody Dead And Sexy, Black Ice, and Antiworld are becoming very popular. Nights like Ghoul School and Release The Bats promote death rock heavily, and the Drop Dead Festival brings in death rock fans from all over the world. Goth and death rock magazines like Drop Dead Magazine (a companion to Drop Dead Festival) also help spread its popularity.

Today, the goth music scene thrives in Western Europe, especially Germany, with large festivals such as Wave-Gotik-Treffen, M'era Luna and others drawing tens of thousands of fans from all over the world. However, North America still sees large scale events, most recently, Chamber's Dark Art & Music Festival

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