Tout bien réfléchi, on ne peut évoquer le mouvement gothique sans la musique qui s'y réfère et sans lequel il n'existerait pas, alors on ne sait jamais si quelque'un a le coeur assez solide pour tout lire, bien que ce ne soit pas si indigeste lorsqu'on connait les groupes.. Bref!..
This aspect of the gothic movement took place especially in England. So, we have decided to write this part in english.
In the middle of the Seventies, the industrial cities of England became the theatre of a deep upheaval in the practices and mentalities of the culture of that time: in response to the unconcern of the hippies and their famous "peace and love", the punk movement emerged, defined by a music, an attitude (the revolt against the middle-class), a most unexpected clothing style, and a famous anthem No future. Cultivating a realistic vision of the modern society, this counter-culture generated a nebula of styles, by revolutionizing the idea of look. This heavy stylistic heritage, the various "subcultures" just like those we are going to study, also retained a particular philosophy: indeed, they wanted to be and to act by themselves.
We are going to show the three evolution periods of the musical gothic movement.
The first wave: the post-punk wave.
In about 1979, the coldwave, whose famous representatives are not other than the Cure or Joy Division, was born from the industrial crossing operated between the punk one and the first groups (Throbbing Gristle, Kraftwerk) characterized by their cold, austere imagery. Elegy, a specialized magazine, described this music in these words: "rhythmic dries, a low door and omnipresent, a total absence of look, short titles, deprived of articles" (n°1, p5, 2000).
Refusing the standards relating to the definition of the masculinity, and taking on its account the exentric nihilism of the punks, the movement "batcave" (Siouxies and the bannshees, Alien Sex Fiend), emerged at the end of the Seventies of a londonnian club , whose name it monopolized. Musically, the batcave is described as "gothic punk orientation". If they share with the punks a feeling of disillusion toward the modern society, the less subversive, less destructor "Gothics" found other means of expression: art, a neat look and a thorough intellectualism. At that time, the background is rather considered a refuge for the misunderstood, for the marginals.
With the arrival of Bauhaus, whose music briskly mixes rock of the Seventies and glam rock (David bowie), the Gothic term applied for the first time to a style of music (1979, by Martin Hammett, producer of Joy Division). The group evokes dark and mystical topics an inner hatred through its words expressing a hatred turned towards the interior, but also through the imagery in its concerts, strongly dramatized, and its introspective texts which were inspired at once by the black romanticism of the XIXe century and by the German expressionnism. One of their titles is called "Bela Lugosi' s Dead” in homage to the largest interpreter of the Count Dracula (in the theatre as in the cinema). However, "Gothic" was regarded until 1983 as a subdivision of the punk movement: “positive punk”, “posi-punk”.
Since that, the dark and morbid atmospheres come "to dirty" the coldwave, to propose a more softened and more dancing version of it, and also more commercial, the “new-wave” appeared : a musical tendency carried by groups like Depeche Mode or New Order. The electro music was going to be born from this mixture with Daf and Front 242, leaders of a primarily European scene., Like his small sister techno, born a few years after, this style is obviously minimalist and urban, the electro music is also musically qualified like a cold and virile style: sometimes associated with the "Cyberpunk" environments, its icy sonorities express this anchoring in the modern society and its technological projections. Sometimes more experimental, sometimes more chaotic, more industrial or more dancing, the electro music is today represented by formations resulting from a larger variety of countries (Face Line Assembly, Skinny Puppy), and accompany themselves with tortured words which describe, just like the gothic music, the abyssal exploration of the human heart.
Second wave: Real recognition of the kind.
The groups attached more and more importance to their imagery, their musicians, their style. In the United States, the style remained in a certain way crazy: Christian Death (of which the singer likes crucifying himself on scene) combined musical violence and "goth-punk" environment. Formed in 1980, the English group The Sisters of Mercy is regarded as the emblem of the "gothic-rock", although its members have constantly refused this label invented by the British press. Voices of in addition to-fall, dancing rhythm, and lines of low regular bass to which are added mysterious environments, such were the ingredients of their success. Fields of the Nephilism and The Mission, other giants of the dark rock, will follow them closely, until 1991, when this movement died out.
The Eighties were also marked by the appearance of a very different group from those previously quoted, but recognized thereafter like "purely Gothic", as well as The Sisters of Mercy: Dead Can Dance became the instigator of what was later named (during the last wave), the "heavenly voices". Cocteau Twins, Rajna, Speaking Silence, are its worthy predecessors. Loans of a pleasant lyric touch, this formation offers a music which travels through the times: medieval, ethnic, traditional, "romantic" tones are often accompanied by an angelic female song . This melody with a voice at the same time sweet and bewitching is not free from a blackness giving the overall tone: Gothic.
Back to the Gothic musical scene, the coldwave finds a new face with Clan of Xymox; the music is more centered on the melody, but cheerfulness is not absent. The "dark folk" (whose representatives are Death in June, Current 93, Sol Invictis), as their name indicates it, adds to the dark landscape already drawn by its predecessors some rhythms and melody typically traditional or pop with an acoustic guitar. As far as electro music is concerned, it widens its artistic field with the "dark ambient".
Blend of the heavy and electro metal, the "industrial metal" (or “indus”) comes on the underground scene with many tortured rhythms, ultra-saturated guitars and voices and celebrates the reign of the machines. This aggressive, repetitive music, with futuristic accents (like Ministry, Nine Inch Nails), lives on an heteroclite public fan of indus, metal, gothic, or electro.
Third generation: beginning, middle of the nineties.
The Nineties represent the gothic music revival, and it comes from the East with groups like Das Ich, pioneer of the "darkwave", or Project Pitchfork. The electro-gothic", also called "darkwave" or "german wave", is darker that its sister “electro” and brings us back to the Gothic imagery, with the "theater-concerts". This period displays a profusion of new Gothic groups (Faith and The Muse, (a "gothic-folk" group inspired by the Celtic mythology), Love Like Blood, London After Midnight, Rosetta' s Stone, Suspiria) and of new styles, which, according to the aged-people, do not have anything truly innovative in their musical compositions. Lots of "clones" from The Sisters of Mercy and plagiarizing electro groups emerge at that time. In search of a broader public, electronic music gets sweeter with the appearance of an electro-pop music (And One, Wolsheim), while the techno music invades the electro one with its increasingly binary rhythms.
Since the beginning of the Nineties, musical movements on the fringes have been multiplying in the metal scene, and use a dark, nightmarish imagery, drawing from funeral artifices. The "death metal", "doom metal", and "Black Metal" (the more violent one from the three) are gathered under the label of "extrem metal", in order to exhibit their difference compared to the other musical styles.
The metal approaches the gothic to create a new kind (more popular than its predecessors), with the introduction of synthetizers, chorus, sometimes of gregorian hymns, and of guitar riffs at the same time heavy and melodic. Moonspell, Thérion, Theater of Tragedy, Tristania, The Gathering represent the foundations of this majestic and powerful cathedral. "Gothic metal" uses a lot of Gothic aesthetics: crucifixes and occult symbols decorate their black and threatening clothing; religious objects, middle aged candles and environments invade their videos and their sleeves, with graphics that are often very elaborate. The romantic topics (a rose often represented in the hands of a damsel) are also needed, consequently, they use all the commonplaces of the kind.
Certain groups of black metal, like Cradle of Filth or Dimmu Borgir, introduce even symphonic elements, or lyric ones, which will drive them to the name of Black-gothic...
PiX: Bauhaus, je ne me suis pas foulée ^^..
