probably a stupid question....

[manny at telerama.com]

there's probably some truth, at least, to all three of those claims as to which
band was called 'gothic first, and seeing as how they all came about in the
same year, pretty much, it doesn't matter.

what matters more is the use of the term 'goth' to apply to an entire *genre*
of music. Siouxsie, JD & Bauhaus, at the time they were at their height were
referred to not as goth but as 'postpunk' regarding the subgenre. UK Batcave
bands (e.g. Alien Sex Fiend, Specimen & Sex Gang Children) and LA bands (45
Grave, Christian Death etc) that immediately followed postpunk were called
'deathrock' at the time. Not 'goth'.

It was not until the second half of the 80s that the term 'goth' started to come
into vogue in the independent music press and media to describe this type of
music. I was there when it happened - that's why I became familiar with the
word as a descriptive term, by reading about it. And it took several years
after that, via the mainstreaming of Lollapalooza and NIN and Saturday Night
Live's 'Goth Talk' etc, for the average person to be generally familiar with
what that term generally meant.

Meanwhile, at the same time that 'goth' was being appropriated by the media to
describe a certain Gen-X subculture, the term was reclaimed by independent,
underground bands (Faith & the Muse, Deep Eynde, Requiem in White, etc) in the
'neogoth' movement during the middle of the 90s. *These* bands were the first
group to *positively identify* as goth from within their subculture, as opposed
to having the name foisted upon them as a descriptive term from without.

So, fast forward about ten years, and I think it's easily demonstrable that
there are TWO definitions of 'goth': subcultural and pop-cultural. The
subcultural one still refers to the dark music bands and clubs and the whole
culture that surrounds them. The pop-cultural one is more encompassing -
nu-metal and juggalo kids who dress in black with baggy pants and chain wallets
are 'goth' as far as the mainstream is concerned, movies like Blade and
Underworld, TV shows like Buffy, chain stores like Hot Topic, and so on.

> On 6/9/06, Jeremy David <epistemology at gmail.com> wrote:
> > If I recall correctly, the first band to self-apply the term "Gothic"
> > to their own rock music in an interview was Siouxie and the Banshees.
> > However, the first band to be called "Gothic" by a music reporter was
> > Bauhaus.
>
> The actual origins of the word are somewhat... suspect.
> The story I always heard was that it was a snarky commetn about Joy
> Division (1976-1980) . The reporter, from NME, was using the term
> 'Gothic' in its more traditional sense in an attempt to describe the
> music as being simultaneosly pretentious, bland, plodding, and
> monotonous. It ended up being an appropriate term because of the close
> linking the music eventually formed with some aspects of gothic
> literature.
>
> Other stories indicate that the management of Joy Division used the
> word in 1979 to differentiate their style from the pop music of that
> time.
>
> Other say that it was about Bauhaus but i tend to discount that as Joy
> Division predates Bauhaus and released their first single in 1978. Had
> a Peel Session in March of '79 predating the release of Bela Lugosi by
> some months. And Ian was also on the cover of NME in early '79.
>
> Even other say that Siouxie Sioux and the Banshees were using that
> term to describe themselves before then. All in all its a confusing
> question whose answer really doesn't matter all that much.
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