Gothtopia has a new, longer drive to the sheet-music mines every day, the upside of which is that we get to listen to a lot more music in the car. Since much of our dedicated listening time is taken up with official assignments, drive time is one of the few opportunities we have to really sit back and relax to music.
It was on the drive this morning that we revisited The Cure's 2000 album Bloodflowers. Bloodflowers is the album that will always sum up the best of goth to us. It's dark, desperation and emotional honesty makes it one of the best things Robert Smith and the boys ever put out.
However, that's just one goth's opinion. So we decided that it was high time to ask the Gothic Council which albums best sum up our beloved subculture's music.
Joining the council this week is Ex-Voto front man Larry Rainwater, Carol Daeumer of Vaniteaux Salon, model Sarah Hill, Punky Moms founder Sarah Fanning, Toby rider of the Ft. Worth goth band Ending the Vicious Cycle, and fashion designer Batty.
Gothtopia: What album best defines goth?
Larry Rainwater: For me, it's The Sisters of Mercy's 1985 debut release First and Last and Always. Everything before this more than likely in the late '70s [and] early '80s was referred to as Death Rock. Well, at least in Hollywood it was.
No one ever yelled out the window of a passing car "GOTHS! LET'S GET 'EM" until after the Sisters came about. Before then it was "Lets get them Punks or Death Rockers."
Gothtopia: Were you jumped, Larry?
Larry Rainwater: I said passing cars. No one had the balls to actually stop.
Carol Daeumer: I'm going to go with the Church's Of Skins and Heart. Not so much because it's such a great album, but because it's more obscure than anything else mentioned. As you know that's the main criteria for choosing goth music. That and I've got it on cassette.
Sarah Hill: Obscure? How about Red Temple Spirits? Or The Fields of the Nephilim's Moon Child? I love The Screaming Marionettes' "Like Christabel" and, Xtal Deutschland, and Sleeping Dogs Wake, and...
Gothtopia: How about one album, Sarah? The one album that really defines goth, and why it does so to you.
Sarah Hill: Ah, then count me out. They all have some attachment for me. But if I had to choose, it would be Siouxsie.
Sarah Fanning: I have to agree with Siousxie. I do have a soft spot for the Cure's Head On the Door and Disintegration. I grew up in Middle of Nowhere, Pa., during the heyday of classic rock and '80s metal. I knew I hated that music, but hadn't found what truly spoke to me yet. Then I was introduced to Siousxie and the Cure... bliss!
