Subculture
What does Goth mean?
A British post-punk tribe of crypt-toned bands, nightclubs and a black look that school still confuses with emo.
Definition
The sound comes out of late-1970s British post-punk. Bauhaus released Bela Lugosi's Dead in August 1979; Siouxsie and the Banshees, Joy Division and The Cure sit on the same tree. In the early 80s the scene became a tribe around two clubs: the F Club in Leeds, opened as a punk house in 1977, and the Batcave in Soho, on 21 July 1982. In February 1983 NME was still calling it positive punk. By June John Peel was already saying goth.
Across the Atlantic the cousin is deathrock, with Christian Death and 45 Grave. The tribe also had a ball and a festival — Sisters of Mercy on the floor, Whitby Goth Weekend on the Yorkshire coast, Wave-Gotik-Treffen in Leipzig. In the 1990s–2000s mall goth went through the shopping centre and Hot Topic. Emo comes from Washington hardcore, another genealogy: both wear black, the discographies do not mix. School still merges the two looks; the club remains the test.
Origin
The name is short English for gothic, which covered the literature and the architecture first and only later the sound. In 1981 Sounds already wrote punk gothique, Steve Abbott on UK Decay. The lyric of Bela Lugosi's Dead jokes with a cinema vampire; the tribe stuck in the club. A Batcaver was a Batcave regular, coffin necklace at the throat.
History
From the British 80s the scene opened branches. Deathrock took California, darkwave the continent, the festival Whitby and Leipzig. In the 90s–2000s the look leaked into the mall and picked up mall goth. TikTok now piles goth, emo and e-girl into the same blush and bangs; the disco still plays Sisters and the Cure. The crypt joke — dark humour in the grain of the records — came with the music.
How it emerged
Post-punk needed an adjective for tongue-in-cheek crypt sound, with its own club and look. The short word stuck when positive punk dropped and Peel used it. School, decades later, still wants a name for the black backpack.
Usage examples
The club is still more goth than the filter.
She goes goth on Saturday and in uniform on Monday.
Translations
- pt goth / gótico
- en goth
- es goth / gótico
Synonyms
- gothic
- gothic rock
- Batcave
- mall goth