Bauhaus’s song ‘Bela Lugosi’s Dead’, released in August 1979, is widely regarded as the first goth single. This chapter recounts the band’s career. Formed in Northampton earlier that same year, Bauhaus quickly developed a signature style that was sexy and danceable. Extensive rotation by John Peel help turn ‘Bela Lugosi’s Dead’ into a hit track, though the band’s debut album, In the Flat Field, was widely sneered at in the UK music press. Nonetheless, they were embraced by the underground, and eventually achieved mainstream success, thanks largely to a memorable Top of the Pops appearance, before splitting in 1983. A proposed world tour in 2021 ultimately fell apart, but the band’s mystery and reputation remain intact.

Beginning with a 2022 comeback concert at Manchester Apollo, this chapter explores the world of The Damned. One of the original British punk bands, The Damned never achieved the recognition of Sex Pistols or The Clash, but they had a distinct, darkly theatrical sound and style that would be a huge influence on goth. Their zigzagging, vaudeville career produced numerous albums and iconic images. Notably, singer Dave Vanian modelled his vampiric look on the Andy Warhol film Blood for Dracula.

Siouxsie and the Banshees are one of the most important bands in the history of goth. This chapter recounts their origins and the immense effect of their debut album, 1978’s The Scream, which marked an escape from punk and set the template for bands such as Joy Division, U2 and The Cure. Central to their success was Siouxsie herself, who possessed an ever-changing style and photogenic charisma that was to prove highly influential.

With their powerful, dark and stunningly original sound, Joy Division were one of the key bands of post-punk. This chapter explores their brief but brilliant career, which ended with singer Ian Curtis’s death in 1980. Curtis’s moody lyrics, inspired by provocative writers such as William Burroughs and J. G. Ballard, combined with the brilliant, industrially tinged production of Martin Hannett to create an unforgettable sound, atmospheric and ethereal.

The second wave of goth in the UK occurred from the mid-1980s and largely took place in satellite towns and suburbs. This chapter provides brief biographies of numerous bands, including intriguing but lesser-known acts such as Play Dead, Sad Lovers and Giants, Gene Loves Jezebel and Love Like Blood. Subsequent waves have kept crashing and reinventing goth, entwining it with all forms of culture.

Liverpool post-punk had a dark, psychedelic edge, and was much more colourful than its Mancunian equivalent. At the heart of the scene was Eric’s, a nightclub that opened in 1976 and hosted The Stranglers, Sex Pistols and many more iconic punk groups. Home-grown artists ranged from Julian Cope to Pete Burns, and Liverpool’s notable goth scene coalesced around the club Planet X. Many of the key players in the city’s post-punk scene have grown to become pop culture icons, and the goth diaspora has stretched across the world.

With operatic vocals and pounding, almost tribal rhythms, Theatre of Hate would seem an obvious fit for the goth scene. The band were never part of the inner core of the scene, but they created their own unique world that saw their songs become goth club staples. Formed in London in 1980, they had a brief taste of success before splitting in 1983. Lead singer Kirk Brandon went on to form Spear of Destiny, a more stadium-oriented project that aimed to match the success of U2 but never quite succeeded.

The first chapter of the book begins with an imagined club night in late-seventies/early eighties Britain. It is a scene of nicotine, damp and strip lights – dusky, dark, dangerous and fun. Goth brought sex to the punk scene, challenging propriety with its gender blurring and kinky aesthetic. It was as much about style as about music; one of its most important touchstones was David Bowie. And yet, as modern as it seemed, it harked back to a distant past, as the next chapter will begin to show.

Glam was not the only inspiration from the 1970s that would influence the post-punk and gothic. There are many aspects of the cultural and musical core of the late-twentieth century that became part of goth. Hawkwind had a haunting, extra-terrestrial sound that influenced key bands such as Killing Joke, Joy Division and The Sisters of Mercy. And in a post-Bowie era, the search for a replacement found a candidate in Doctors of Madness. Meanwhile in post-war Germany, the nation was forming their own musical culture, which would also have a profound effect on the post-punk scene.

Einstürzende Neubauten are a band like no other. Their name translates as ‘collapsing new buildings’, which is fitting for a group that have deconstructed music and put it back together again. Fronted by the mysterious and charismatic Blixa Bargeld, the band originated in the post-punk scene of 1970s West Berlin, but their artistic journey has taken them from clattering industrial noise to stark, neo-classical beauty, all of it wrapped up in a Dada package. Still recording and performing in their sixties, the band retain an unsettling sensuality and a unique power to surprise.

The Sisters of Mercy firmly rejected the label goth, but if they were not a goth band who were? This chapter looks at group and the city that spawned them. Leeds in the 1970s and 1980s was the bastion of a ‘dark alternative’ culture, thanks in part to the Phonographique club. The Sisters of Mercy embodied all its intrigue and contradictions, fusing rock music with a sort of dislocated disco. Their music was stark and haunting, and it found an ideal frontman in Andrew Eldritch, a brooding Romantic poet who used his lack of conventional musical knowledge to his advantage. The Sisters split up in 1986, but Leeds remained a hub of musical activity, producing exciting acts such as The March Violets and Red Lorry Yellow Lorry.

The Cure are one of the most iconic bands in the history of goth, thanks in large part to the unique style of frontman Robert Smith. This chapter explores their history. Inspired, like many, by the explosion of punk music in the 1970s, the band nonetheless charted a distinctive path, producing albums that were dark, atmospheric and yet often strikingly catchy. Their 1989 album Disintegration sold a million copies, turning them into unlikely stadium rockers. Still active today, they remain one of the key influences on post-punk and goth.

The final chapter of the book looks at goth today. Twenty-first-century goth is a dark cultural shade that anyone can add to their style, even Rihanna and Kim Kardashian. Bands such as Mogwai and Savages have distinct goth elements, as do many films, 2022’s The Batman being a notable example. And goth influencers can be found all over social media. Goth is perfect for a visual age, one in which music plays less of a central role in forming culture. Like so many other trends, it has split into myriad micro scenes. And while the mainstream has cynically appropriated the surface of this darkly attractive form, the energy of post-punk and the alternative still lurk beneath.

This chapter focuses on Adam Ant, a captivating and darkly intense performer who emerged from the Big Bang of punk with his own style. Personifying sex and danger, Adam did much to develop the goth prototype. He was greeted with vitriol by some of the music press, but he and his band mates pursued their own path, characterised by art school rock and S&M visuals. In a remarkable career, Adam was the bridge between the end of glam, the beginning of punk and the brave new world of post-punk. He provided a gateway to the goth scene that he was a key influence on.

This chapter reflects on the advent of punk in the 1970s and its significance for goth. The energy that punk released inspired a generation of music lovers to explore dark new possibilities. In the early stages, the scene was centred on the boutique that Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood ran at 430 King’s Road in Chelsea, where creative sparks flew and wild ideas coalesced. The arrival of Sex Pistols marked the explosion of punk music, but the scene soon began to fragment.

This chapter moves away from the focus on individual bands to look at two seminal clubs that marked a north-south divide in the emerging goth phenomenon: The Batcave in London and Le Phonographique in Leeds. Le Phonographique took form in 1979 and became a focal point for shadowy groups at the darker end of the post-punk spectrum. Founded in 1982, The Batcave was a breeding ground for darker, artier bands, among them Sex Gang Children.

The 1980s and 1990s witnessed the rise of generation of bands marked by goth without being part of the goth scene themselves. This chapter offers brief biographies of some of the most notable, including The Smiths, Echo & the Bunnymen, The Jesus and Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine, Cocteau Twins and PJ Harvey.

This chapter traces another important thread in the history of goth: industrial music. Beginning with COUM Transmissions’ notorious performance at the ICA in 1976, which made the furore over Sex Pistols seem comparatively tame, the chapter recounts the origins of industrial pioneers Throbbing Gristle. Growing out of a wider art project, the band released three albums in its brief initial period before splitting in 1981. They spawned a remarkable proto-scene that blossomed in the post-punk era and formed the inspiration for future groups such as Nine Inch Nails.

This chapter begins in the heart of the Roman Empire, where the collapse of Rome was precipitated by the arrival of the Goths. Ever since, the term has been associated with a walk on the dark side. In the medieval era, Gothic cathedrals defied the expected, exhibiting dramatic stained-glass windows and imposing stone gargoyles. This gothic influence extended not just to architecture, but through time into media. The eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Gothic revival was an inspiration to numerous writers, leading to the windswept moors of Wuthering Heights and the monstrous loneliness of Frankenstein. The Gothic imagination was hugely influential, and this extends to the rock music of today.