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Gothic music is a kind of music composed by a lot of genres.

Post-Punk

During the first wave of punk, roughly spanning 1974–1978, acts such as the Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Ramones, Patti Smith and The Damned began to challenge the current styles and conventions of rock music by stripping the musical structure down to a few basic chords and progressions with an emphasis on speed. Yet as punk itself soon came to have a signature sound, a few acts began to experiment with more challenging musical structures, lyrical themes, and a self-consciously art-based image, while retaining punk's initial iconoclastic stance.

Classic examples of post-punk outfits include Genghis Khan, The Sound, Section 25, Sad Lovers and Giants, The Chameleons, Orange Juice, The Psychedelic Furs, Devo, The Birthday Party, The Fall, Gang of Four, Public Image Limited, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Lords of the New Church, Joy Division, New Order, Killing Joke, Echo & the Bunnymen, The Cure, Bauhaus, Magazine, Wire, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Talking Heads, and Tubeway Army. Bands such as Crass also came within the scope of post-punk, as with several outfits formed in the wake of traditionally punk rock groups: Magazine was formed by a member of Buzzcocks, for instance, and Public Image Ltd derived from the Sex Pistols. A list of predecessors to the post-punk genre of music might include Television, whose album Marquee Moon, although released in 1977 at the height of the punk movement, is considered definitively post-punk in style. Other groups, such as The Clash, remained predominantly punk in nature, yet were inspired by the experimentalism of the post-punk movement, most notably in their album Sandinista!.

Championed by late night BBC DJ John Peel and record label/shop Rough Trade (amongst others, including Postcard Records, Factory Records, Axis/4AD, Falling A Records, Industrial Records, Fast Product, and Mute Records), "post-punk" could arguably be said to encompass many diverse groups and musicians.

The influence of this "new sound" was significantly carried throughout the world. Although many North American and other non-British bands failed to achieve worldwide recognition, some notable exceptions include North Americans Pere Ubu, Suicide, Mission of Burma, and early Hüsker Dü, Australia's The Birthday Party and The Church, Ireland's U2 and The Virgin Prunes.

Around 1977, in North America, the New York-led No Wave movement was also tied in with the emerging eurocentric post-punk movement. With bands and artists such as Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, Glenn Branca, Rhys Chatham, Mars, James Chance and the Contortions, DNA, Bush Tetras, Theoretical Girls, Swans, and Sonic Youth. The No Wave movement focused more on performance art than actual coherent musical structure. The Brian Eno-produced No New York compilation is considered the quintessential testament to the history of No Wave.

The original post-punk movement ended as the bands associated with the movement turned away from its aesthetics, just as post-punk bands had originally left punk rock behind in favor of new sounds. Many post-punk bands, most notably The Cure and Siouxsie & the Banshees, evolved into gothic rock (formerly a style of the larger post-punk movement) and became identified with the goth subculture. Some shifted to a more commercial New Wave sound (such as Talking Heads), while others were fixtures on American college radio and became early examples of alternative rock (such as U2).

Gothic Rock

Origins and early development

The term "gothic" was initially loosely applied to certain post-punk groups. In the late 1970s, the word "gothic" was used to describe the atmosphere of post-punk bands like Joy Division. In 1979, Martin Hannett described Joy Division as "dancing music with Gothic overtones". The same year, Tony Wilson described the band as "gothic" on the television show Something Else. Not long after, the term was used in a derogatory fashion in reference to bands like Bauhaus and Siouxsie & the Banshees. However, the term was not adopted as "positive identity, a tribal rallying cry" until a shift in the scene in 1982. In addition, Simon Reynolds identifies The Birthday Party and Killing Joke as essential proto-goth groups. Despite their legacy as progenitors of gothic rock, these groups disliked the label. Adam Ant's early work was also a major impetus for the gothic rock scene, and much of the fan base came from his milieu.

Bauhaus's debut single "Bela Lugosi's Dead", released in late 1979, is considered to be the beginning of the gothic rock genre. Around the same time post-punk bands like Siouxsie & the Banshees and The Cure fully embraced the goth sound. With their fourth album, 1981's Juju, the Banshees established many of the classic Gothic qualities, lyrically and sonically. Steve Severin attributes the supernatural lyrical aesthetic of the album to the influence of The Cramps. The Cure were the most commercially successful of these groups, eventually recording two double platinum albums. The Cure's style was atmospheric and withdrawn, contrasting with their contemporaries The Birthday Party, who drew on funk music, blues, and spastic, violent turmoil. Their 1981 single "Release the Bats" was particularly influential in the scene. Killing Joke were originally inspired by Public Image Ltd.. borrowing from funk, disco, and dub music, and later, heavy metal. Calling their style "tension music", Killing Joke distorted these elements to provocative effect, as well as producing a morbid, politically-charged visual style.

Gothic rock thrived in the early 1980s. Clubs such as the Batcave, in London, provided a venue for the goth scene. In 1982, Ian Astbury of the band Southern Death Cult used the term "gothic goblins" to describe Sex Gang Children's fans. Southern Death Cult were themselves icons of the scene, drawing aesthetic inspiration from Native American culture. The group appeared on the cover of NME in October 1982. The emerging scene was described as "positive punk" in a February 1983 article in NME. Journalist Richard North described Bauhaus and Theatre of Hate as "the immediate forerunners of today's flood" and declared, "So here it is: the new positive punk, with no empty promises of revolution, either in the rock'n'roll sense or the wider political sphere. Here is only a chance of self awareness, of personal revolution, of colourful perception and galvanisation of the imagination that startles the slumbering mind and body from their sloth." That year, myriad Goth groups emerged, including Flesh for Lulu, Play Dead, Rubella Ballet, Gene Loves Jezebel, UK Decay, Blood and Roses, The Virgin Prunes, and Ausgang. The 4AD label released music in a lighter, more ethereal style, by groups such as Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance, and Xmal Deutschland. The Icelandic group Kukl also appeared in this period, which included Björk and other musicians who later participated in The Sugarcubes.

Simon Reynolds speaks of a shift from early Goth to Gothic rock proper, advanced by The Sisters of Mercy. As journalist Jennifer Park puts it, "the original blueprint for gothic rock had mutated significantly. Doom and gloom was no longer confined to its characteristic atmospherics, but as the Sisters demonstrated, it could really rock." The Sisters of Mercy, influenced by 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. In addition, they incorporated a drum machine. Reynolds identifies their 1983 single "Temple of Love" as the quintessential Goth anthem of the year, along with Southern Death Cult's "Fatman". The group created their own record label, Merciful Release, which also signed The March Violets, who performed in a similar style. The Violets toured with The Danse Society, a group inspired by The Cure in their Pornography period..

Dark Wave

Dark wave, also written as darkwave, is a music genre that began in the late 1970s, coinciding with the popularity of New Wave and post-punk. Building on those basic principles, dark wave added dark, introspective lyrics and an undertone of sorrow for some bands. In the 1980s, a subculture developed alongside dark wave music, whose members were called "wavers" or "dark wavers". The British post-punk groups that inspired Gothic rock provided initial impetus for the movement. As a result, dark wave is linked to the Goth subculture. 1980 The term was coined in Europe in the 1980s to describe a dark and melancholy variant of New Wave and post-punk music, such as Gothic rock and dark Synthpop, and was first applied to musicians such as Bauhaus, Joy Division, The Cure, and Siouxsie & the Banshees, The Chameleons, New Order, Cocteau Twins, Anne Clark, Killing Joke, Chris and Cosey, Fad Gadget, Soft Cell, Gary Numan and Depeche Mode.

The movement spread internationally, spawning such developments as French coldwave. Coldwave described groups such as KaS Product, Martin Dupont, Asylum Party, Norma Loy, Clair Obscur, Opera Multi Steel, The Breath of Life, and Trisomie 21. Subsequently, different dark wave genres merged and influenced each other, e.g. electronic New Wave music (also called Electro Wave in Germany) with Gothic rock, or used elements of ambient and post-industrial music. Attrition, In The Nursery and Pink Industry (UK), Clan of Xymox (Netherlands), mittageisen (Switzerland), Die Form (France), and Psyche (Canada) played this music in the 1980s. German dark wave groups of the 1980s were associated with the Neue Deutsche Welle, and included Asmodi Bizarr, II. Invasion, Unlimited Systems, Mask For, Moloko †, Maerchenbraut, and Xmal Deutschland. In Italy bands like Litfiba and Diaframma was reaching also some commercial success.

1990s

After the new wave and post-punk movements faded in the mid-1980s, dark wave was renewed as an underground movement by German bands such as Deine Lakaien, Love Is Colder Than Death, early Love Like Blood, and Diary of Dreams, as well as Project Pitchfork, and Wolfsheim. The Italians The Frozen Autumn, Ataraxia, and Nadezhda, the South African band The Awakening and the French Corpus Delicti, also practiced the style. All of these bands followed a path based on the New Wave and post-punk movements of the 1980s. At the same time, a number of German artists, including Das Ich, Relatives Menschsein and Lacrimosa, developed a more theatrical style, interspersed with German poetic and metaphorical lyrics, called Neue Deutsche Todeskunst (New German Death Art). Other bands, such as Silke Bischoff, In My Rosary and Engelsstaub mingled dark synthpop or Goth rock with elements of the Neofolk or Neoclassical genres.

After 1993, in the United States, the term dark wave (as the one-word variant darkwave) became associated with the Projekt Records label, because it was the name of their printed catalog, and was used to market German artists like Project Pitchfork in the U.S. Projekt features bands such as Lycia, Black Tape for a Blue Girl, and Love Spirals Downwards, all characterized by ethereal female vocals. This style took cues from 1980s bands, like Cocteau Twins. This music is often referred to as Ethereal Darkwave. The label has also had a long association with Attrition, who appeared on the label's earliest compilations. Another American label in this vein was Tess Records, which featured This Ascension and Faith and the Muse. Clan of Xymox, who had returned to their 1980s sound, following almost a decade as the more synthpop Xymox, also signed to Tess in 1997.

Joshua Gunn, a professor of communication studies at Louisiana University, described American darkwave as

an expansion of the rather limited gothic repertoire into electronica and, in a way, the US answer to the 'ethereal' subgenre that developed in Europe (e.g. Dead Can Dance). Anchored by Sam Rosenthal's now New York-based label, Projekt, Darkwave music is less rock and more roll, supporting bands who tend to emphasize folk songcraft, hushed vocals, ambient experimentation, and synthesized sounds more akin to the brief 'shoegaze' movement in alternative rock than the punk styles of early gothic music. Projekt bands like Love Spirals Downward and Lycia are the most popular of this subgenre.

Wave-atypical influences

A number of other U.S. bands mixed elements of dark wave and ethereal wave with later developments in electronic music. Love Spirals Downwards, Collide, and Switchblade Symphony incorporated elements of trip hop, while The Crüxshadows combined a range of contemporary electronic dance music elements with their synth-based alternative rock style.

Death Rock

Deathrock songs use simple chords, echoing guitars, a prominent bass, and drumming which emphasizes repetitive, post-punk and tribal beats within a 4/4 time signature. To create atmosphere, scratchy guitars, spooky or sinister synths, and experimentation with other instruments are sometimes used. Lyrics can vary, but are typically introspective, surreal, and deal with the dark themes of isolation, disillusionment, loss, depression, life, death, etc.; as can the style, varying from harsh and melancholic, to upbeat, melodic and tongue-in-cheek. Deathrock lyrics and other musical stylistic elements often incorporate the themes of campy horror and sci-fi films, which in turn leads some bands to adopt elements of rockabilly and surf rock.

The frequently simplistic song structures, heavy atmosphere and rhythmic music place a great demand on lead vocalists to convey complex emotions, so deathrock singers typically have distinctive voices and strong stage presences.

Despite the similar sounding names, deathrock has no connection to the similarly named death metal (aside from occasionally similar lyrical themes), which is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal.

Ethereal Wave

Ethereal wave, also called ethereal darkwave in Europe and ethereal goth or simply ethereal in the US, is a term that describes a subgenre of Dark Wave music. Developed in 1983/1984 as an outgrowth of gothic rock, ethereal was mainly represented by bands such as Cocteau Twins (e.g. "Five Ten Fiftyfold", "The Spangle Maker", "Otterley", "Pink Orange Red" and "Ribbed and Veined") and early Dead Can Dance (e.g. "The Fatal Impact", "The Arcane").

Typical of this kind of music is the use of atmospheric guitar soundscapes, including sound effects like echo and delay. A second typical characteristic is the use of breathy male or high register female vocals – often with hard-to-decipher lyrical content – and a strong influence of ambient music. The website "A Study of Gothic subculture" describes it as being "most characterized by soprano female vocals combined with bass, lead guitar, and drums which creates a surreal, angelic or otherworldly effect e.g. Love Spirals Downwards, Cocteau Twins. Sometimes, a male vocalist will also be in the group along with the female vocalist. Even more rarely will there be only a male vocalist, but it is still considered ethereal if the mood created is otherworldly and surreal. The background music can also be electronic or soundscape oriented. It is currently a small division of music, and people who like this music are often called Goths.".

There are overlaps between ethereal wave, shoegazing and dreampop, with many artists being heavily influenced by 4AD bands, Dead Can Dance, Cocteau Twins, and This Mortal Coil, as well as early All About Eve and Siouxsie and the Banshees. The American Ethereal group Siddal for example described their music as follows: "A product of influences such as the Cocteau Twins, Low, Slowdive, The Cure, and Dead Can Dance, use a blend of ambient music, shoegazer style guitars, synths and sequenced rhythms."

Ethereal is strongly associated with the Projekt label, which features some of the most well known names of the US scene. Other labels that feature some of the leading lights of the movement are Tess Records (This Ascension), Yvy Records (Faith & Disease) and Middle Pillar (Aenima).

Neo Folk

Neofolk is a form of folk music-inspired experimental music that emerged from post-industrial music circles. Neofolk can either be solely acoustic folk music or a blend of acoustic folk instrumentation aided by varieties of accompanying sounds such as pianos, strings and elements of industrial music and experimental music. The genre encompasses a wide assortment of themes including traditional music, heathenry, romanticism and occultism. Neofolk musicians often have ties to other genres such as neoclassical and martial industrial.

Neoclassical (Dark Wave)

Neoclassical Dark Wave refers to a music genre within the Dark Wave movement. It is characterized by the use of ethereal atmosphere and angelic female voices but also adds strong influences from classical music. But Neoclassical Dark Wave is distinct from the academic art music form known as neoclassical music, a style of classical music dating from the early twentieth century which emphasized formal perfection, elegance of style and purity of taste. In the context of popular music the term 'neoclassical' is frequently used to refer to music influenced by classical (including elements from the baroque, classical, romantic, impressionistic music), including styles like Neoclassical Dark Wave as well as Neoclassical metal and Neoclassical new age.

Dark Cabaret

Dark cabaret may be a simple description of the theme and mood of a Cabaret performance, but more recently has come to define a particular musical genre which draws on the aesthetics of the decadent, risqué German Weimar-era cabarets, burlesque and Vaudeville shows with the stylings of post-1970s goth and punk music.

Gothic Metal

Gothic metal is not a Gothic Subculture's music style because it isn't a subgenre of post-punk or even of gothic rock, though lot of gothic members listen to it.

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