Teen Gothic

It feels weird to call myself a ‘baby bat’ when I’m almost 30, and I don’t know if that’s even the proper term for a newbie? So let’s just go with: I’ve been in the fashion side of the punkesque subcultures since I was in highschool, I was all about pop-punk music as a kid as well as gothic metal. It was only recently that I’ve started to dip my toes into honest to goodness goth music. I figured if I wear the clothes I should probably listen to the music, or at least try it. I like it, it will probably have a hefty presence on my spotify wrapped this year. I just suck at finding music, and Spotify doesn’t know the difference between Goth and Gothic Metal. It keeps giving me Ghost and Evanescence, which while I love those bands, they are not quite the vibe!

A few recommendations were given to me a while ago when I really didn’t know anything, based on my preference for strong melody, and background with pop-punk and gothic metal, and one that really stuck to me was Inkubus Sukkubus. My first song from them was ‘Wytches’ which I’m sure is a surprise to absolutely no one, and I went from there. I’ve been going through their discography slowly. They have a lot of things I like in any genre: a strong melody, clear lyrics. I particularly love the album Belladona & Aconite because of the addition of symphonic elements, and sometimes what almost sounds like surf guitar in places?

Yeah I’d like to find more bands with similar sound. Or even just more bands that have a strong melodic component. I have a background in classical music as well (violin) so bands that add in symphonic elements and/or bowed strings are also welcome.

Or like idk, recommend to me your favourite band and tell me why it’s your favorite I’m here to learn new things.

This is what I observed from a year of going to goth clubs in the capital of germany. The age average is 40 mainly. I am in my 20s and I rarely see young people. I guess it makes sense bc people in their 40s and over were teenagers when the goth subculture was at its peak. These days not so much. Or maybe the young goths dont go to clubs and participate in the online scene instead?

for me, it's swedish post-punk duo "dial m for murder!". they released 1 awesome album in 2009, but seems to have fallen into obscurity, unfortunately.

anyone else bothered by this? it doesn't really bother me but I just think it'd be nice to be friends with fellow goths, I don't have friends with the same tastes, but in my country (Tunisia, in north africa) there's barely any alt people yet alone goths, no scene no underground no nothing lol, the only person I found that listens to goth music ended up ghosting me too lmao, so basically I have no hope of making goth friends IRL, but at least there's the internet 🙂

I've tried Shazam and some other apps and also searched in many playlists.

As a gothic rock artist, it's nice for me in terms of networking if people do, but I don't see it as particularly negative if they don't. Especially here in Finland, which is quite dominated by metal music, it's common for people to associate the gothic adjective with metal bands like HIM and certain American bands, etc., without even having heard bands that I consider self-explanatory, like Sisters of Mercy.

I usually try to gently enlighten them by saying, "Did you know that goth music originated long before those bands, and they actually turned it into something else, something of their own?" However, I don't see the point in forcing the issue. We all have our individual music tastes and viewpoints about these movements. On the contrary, it's kind of cool when people outside the goth scene fall in love with my music and are amazed by it because they've never heard anything like it before, since they are unaware of my biggest influences.

Let me know what you think about the matter!