Thursday, March 18, 2021

goth is meant to be camp, and it becomes self-parody when you take it too seriously.

so, you look at something like skinny puppy, for example. it's usually called 'industrial', but it's variously seen as punk (due to the politics) or goth (due to the aesthetics), as well. i certainly listened to a lot of stuff in this punk/goth/industrial/techno crossover space - and still do.

but, i was fundamentally a punk in ideology. if skinny puppy had shitty politics, i wouldn't have cared much for them - which is confirmed by my total non-interest in this swath of ebm bands that came out after them, drawing from frontline assembly. i don't listen to any of that stuff, because it's broadly a bunch of fascist garbage, and it has this dominant misogynist streak in it that has always left me cold.

the cure is another example of something that was massively crossover, but they were essentially a progressive rock band at their best. i wouldn't have had much interest in it, if it were just stripped to the makeup, even if that's all that most people take away from it nowadays.

the result is that i grew up immersed in goth culture, but always had this distance from it. huge amounts of what i've listened to for my whole life are in some way goth rock, but it's always been as an overlap with something else and it's always been the something else i really cared about. i've never identified myself that way - i've always called myself a punk, not a goth.

so, yes - i'm taking the piss. and, the right cultural space, the right perspective to see it from, is from somebody like the aphex twin, who i have quite a bit in common with, overall.