A Life Less Lived: The Gothic Box CD2 Poll

This one's definitely not as good. : /

What's "goth" about "I Go Crazy?"

Critics have been saying that Blood Bitch will be influencing mainstream rock and roll music for years to come. But right now its fair to say it is a favorite of the underground set.

ha

Clan of Xymox!!

This one's definitely not as good. : /

OTM

seems like they should have spread those songs on CD1 to other CD's. that being said it's a toss up between "Muscoviet Mosquito." "Incubus Succubus II" and "Rain."

wow what a drop in quality! So weird that they frontloaded CD1 with all the heavy hitters. Anyway, Xmal DE for the win.

Yeah, wow, I see what you mean by the rapid drop-off in quality. I had a hard time picking the best of a stellar bunch on the last one, now I'm having trouble picking the least bad of a terrible bunch. And lots of these songs/bands aren't the slightest bit goth!

I mean, my fave song on this album is either Echo and the Bunnymen or Cranes, but I wouldn't put *either* of them particularly in the Goth genre.

Right, the Jesus and Mary Chain are goth now, are they?

hmm.

ended up voting "Weeping song" but that's not goth either.

Blimey, CD2 and it's all gone, already?

That said, is that the cover(ing) up top? wow!

Agree that there aren't so many stand-outs, but I like they way they've nailed the dreary, rainswept feel of mid-eighties Britain. Not all what would be seen as Goth now, but a pretty accurate shot of what black-clad people with spiky hair were listening to then. Tracks here I haven't thought about since back then. XDE clearly out in front, though I'm a bit suspicious of the 'II' - was this a rerecording of their biggest track for a new label?

"IS II" is the more well know version of the song. Its a re-recording of their debut single IIRW

but a pretty accurate shot of what black-clad people with spiky hair were listening to then

It takes a while for a genre to get codified. Which is when it generally ceasing to be interesting, isn't it? Like in 1980, Elvis Costello might still be referred to as punk rock. Five years later, no one would have been saying that, once there was plenty of bands and records that defined the style.

Also, I don't recall the fanzine network effect really kicking in until the end of the eighties- when it suddenly became much easier to find out about many, many bands in a given subgenre. In 1988, I couldn't do enough to discover psychobilly bands, but by 1996, I couldn't swat the damn things off of me.

This CD blows, flat-out. "Cuts You Up" is a decent song. "God's Zoo" is all right. I'm a huge Nick Cave song but "the Weeping Song" is only good live. Not voting in this election.

The only song I really love on this one is X-Mal Deutschland.

Compared to CD1, these are really stupid choices. I mean Cocteaus, Mirandas, Chameleons, DCD or the Bad Seeds have so much better/gothier songs

and wait, there are songs by Southern Death Cult, Death Cult and The Cult on this?!

I didn't even see Rain - I utterly love love love that song, but it's not GOTH in the slightest! It's like metal-tinged neo-psych!

i'd have gone for x mal if it had been "incubus succubus" but they cleaned the song up too much for my taste and lost a lot of the energy on "incubus succubus ii". i'll go for the chameleons.

oh boy, if you think THIS is a drop in quality, wait until we get to disc 3

uh hoh

Goth authenticity aside, at least there are a bunch of nice songs on this disc. Disc 3 has London After Midnight and AFI on it.

hahahahah

Good ol London After Midnight.

I actually saw these guys at the Palace in the old days

?!?!! You're a bold man to admit that. Then again I'm surprised I didn't at least encounter them as an opening act somewhere -- this is how I first saw Human Drama opening for Peter Murphy at the Wiltern in 1990.

well they were the supporting act - can't rememember who was headlining

Lots of ok bands on this disk but they seem to have picked all the wrong tracks.

Right, the Jesus and Mary Chain are goth now, are they?

This seems to have been created by someone the same age as me (i.e. someone who just missed out on early 80s actual goth scene/s but caught up a couple of years later). JAMC had spiky hair, black clothes, pointy boots, said "dead" a lot, were miserable/cool as fuck and got wasted a lot - so they qualified. I don't know any goths who didn't like JAMC. I do remember JAMC fans who hated being labelled as goths but then most goths claimed to hate being labelled as goths.

The liner notes for this box basically say the exact same thing; the compilation is really more about "what people listened to" than it is about specific genre definition; they probably would have thrown even more industrial acts on there if they thought they could have gotten away with it.

cuts you up

JAMC at the time were often labelled as goths by people who didn't like JAMC.

Also when I saw JAMC in the mid-late 90s the poster said "GOTH LEGENDS" next to their name!

Sorry folks, but the idea of JAMC as goth in any way, shape or form is just not gonna fly with me. Echo & B. aren't really goth either, but "All My Colours" is kindof goth-in-spirit, and I've been particularly digging that song of late, so I might vote for that one. Oh wait..."Blood Bitch" is on here. Never mind. Even as far as Cocteaus tracks go, that one is especially good, I think. In fact, I think I'll play it right now!

This comp was the first time I heard "Blood Bitch", which basically caused me to wonder exactly how much of my life I'd wasted up to that point.

ended up voting for Clan Of Xymox.

Still on tour!

I sat around in a hot bath listening to "Don't Fall" on repeat until the water was freezing.

DLed Miranda Sex Garden's "Fairytales of Slavery", which I'd never heard. Better than I'd expected, kind of like a female Shockheaded Peters.

I sat around in a hot bath listening to "Don't Fall" on repeat until the water was freezing.

This is the kind of dedication I approve of.

I threw away the CDs and kept the packaging.

What about the DVD?

OK everyone saying "wtf these arent goth songs" is missing the point, or forgetting what things were LIKE in the late 80s goth scene. This is what everyone was listening to! This is what was played at clubs!

Cant decide btwn Murphy, Cocteaus (odd pick, but whatevs), and Xymox.

There was a DVD? :)

Trayce is OTM. There wasn't a goth on the planet who wasn't very familiar with Psychocandy and if it hadn't been for goths the 1st JAMC tour of the U.S. would have been half-empty rooms.

Dudes, if you're just going to make a comp of "what goths were listening to in the late 80s" then you might as well put on Mozart's Requium and some Gregorian chants and "She Said She Said" by The Beatles while you're at it. Because I heard all of those things in Goth clubs and at Goth parties and no one would say Mozart was Goth.

worst goth parties ever

No they weren't, those were the goth parties with the best acid!

lol I have "Obsession" stuck in my head now

srsly tho, reading the liner notes to this box set does put a lot of these picks into perspective; I agree that many of them "aren't goth" (in the abstract; in the practical/silly I think of a way to describe almost every artist I like as goth, including Lupe Fiasco and Nelly Furtado) but I kind of don't care because they certainly fit into an aesthetic of which "goth" was a huge component.

I would have voted for the "Lacrymosa" from Mozart's Requiem had it been included btw.

Gregorian chants at a goth party would have been roundly met with "get that shite off" regardless of how good the drugs were (also the speed outweighed the acid by miles - people looked freaky enough without their faces melting).

(at a any goth party I went to, that is)

I was kind of bummed that Enigma didn't make it onto here tbh.

A bit late to the party though, weren't they?

I didn't say having them on would make logical sense!

Things were clearly different in the US. There was one year when LSD swept the goth scene and suddenly everyone started wearing paisley and, err... maybe that was just us. It was the year we were living in the converted Brewery, that's all I remember.

Or maybe there were just different goth subscenes and I was always really part of the psychedeligoff scene.

haha Kate, surely you've seen the Tamagothi website? I thought the whole subscene thing was a given!

xp
yeah the American goth scene in/with which I grew up seemed very different from the European one. Way more kitsch/funny (I remember Army of Lovers being played quite often at the goth club for instance)

ah yes tamagothi...

For those never blessed with Tamagothi:

http://www.studiohunty.com/tamagothi/

From the official FAQ:

Q. Hey! Speaking of Edward Kaspel, you never mentioned the Legendary Pink Dots anywhere! What gives?

A. Well, actually, I couldn't really think of any category the Dots easily fit into, so I thought I'd just mention them here instead.

Q. You know, you didn't mention the majority of the bands on the Cleopatra record label either.

A. You're right. I didn't.

Ha ha, oh I had forgotten Tamagothi. ADMINISTER MORE BEATINGS AND SPEED, WE WANT TO CREATE BLIXA BARGELD!!!!

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Oh man, Tamagothi. Ned getting me all nostalgic for First Getting the Internet.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

X Mal Deutschland wins! Oh my god! That is so perverse! I love it.

And The Cult's Rain at #2! That is sweet! I <3 ILM.

&

I just want to say how much I adore the Cult's "Love" album. It's like they said "Hey! All you 80's kids! There was this thing before you were born called the 60's, you see?" LOL

Weirdest win ever.

Isn't it though? WTF, right?

Why so?

Well because for one thing, X Mal are not exactly CANONICAL in the goth sense, you know? They're not exactly mentioned up against the Cure, for example. And hey, how could they have beat Peter Murphy for gods sakes? I've got a good friend who would be horrified by that. But I'm not complaining. I think it's wonderful.

I voted for them, but tbh I don't know that many of the other songs on this. And the ones I do are not better than Incubus Succubus. Although I now have to seek out the original version because I don't think I've ever heard it.

I mean, I like Bauhaus and all, but do I really need to care about Peter Murphy's solo stuff?

Hahahah! I'm with you there, dude. I mean Murphy is fine, but god my friends have played him to DEATH in my presence and I am TIRED.

also Colonel you should get on AIM right now

I like 'Cuts You Up' alright but yeah Incubus Succubus is the best and gothiest thing on this.

Disc 3 is going to be the true measure of pain.

(The DVD should be done too, with YouTube links.)

BRING IT ON

I am listening to Fields Of The Nephilim in honour of this thread.

"X Mal are not exactly CANONICAL in the goth sense, you know?"

No? Huge, churning, Banshees riff, scary diabolical lyrics, and best of all, it's in German! I remember them being huge with the black and spiky crowd at the time, and much lionised in the Mick Mercer-era ZigZag magazine. (And if there is such a thing as a Goth canon, Mick probably keeps it in his garage.) They were up against better-known acts here, but none of them represented by their best or Gothiest tracks.

Bit surprised to see the Danse Society so sadly overlooked. Didn't actually LIKE them, but that was one huge record in its day. Sneaked an advance look at disk 3. There are tracks there I'll defend to my last can of Insette 'Spiky' hairspray: BRING THE PAIN!

Xmal Deutschland were pretty great live.