Teen Gothic

It's a point of common knowledge among goths that the label wasn't really universally accepted or even liked by many of the seminal artists we come to consider forerunners of the genre, the most popular and well-known goth artists never took themselves under that label and often were very resentful of the term being applied. I don't think i need to belabor this point further or to list out who they were, we all know.

Which leads me to ask, who was the first musicians or band who actually openly declared themselves to be goth and proudly took it upon themselves as a moniker? I'm sorry if this is a stupid question but it's being asked sincerely. I hear so much about how this artist or that rejected the label despite being either pioneers of the genre or important to it's further development, and never about any musician who proudly claimed to be part of a nascent musical culture. Even today i feel like many musicians, wanting to be taken seriously, do not label themselves as goth because they feel it limits them creatively.

Just curious how many of you out there are musicians and what type of music you play.

Edit: Feel free to elaborate in the comments if you play goth music.

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Just tell me your absolute favorite from all the goth bands and musicians you know, that’s it! About to expand my goth-music horizon