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Gothic rock music

LC control no.gf2014026840
Thesaurus/term listlcgft
Genre/Form termGothic rock music
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Variant(s)Goth rock music
See alsoAlternative rock music
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Found inWork cat.: 2002501398: Gothic, c2000.
All music guide WWW site, Dec. 30, 2002 (goth rock: offshoot of post-punk that existed primarily during the early to mid-'80s. Its reputation as the darkest and gloomiest form of underground rock is largely deserved, though today that reputation stems more from the visual theatricality of its bands and black-clad followers. Sonically, goth rock took the cold synthesizers and processed guitars of post-punk and used them to construct foreboding, sorrowful, often epic soundscapes. Early on, its lyrics were usually introspective and intensely personal, but its poetic sensibilities soon led to a taste for literary romanticism, morbidity, religious symbolism, and/or supernatural mysticism. By the end of the '80s, the original goth-rock movement had ceased to exist, but the music mutated into new forms and continued to influence many of rock's darker subgenres. During the '90s, the goth sound began to cross-pollinate with industrial music, producing hybrids that appealed to both sides, as well as the darkwave subgenre (which also incorporated '80s synth-pop and dream-pop))
Shuker, R. Key concepts in popular music (goth/gothic rock: musical genre and associated subcultural style)
Pickering, D. Cassell companion to 20th-century music (gothic: genre of heavy rock music of the 1980s and 1990s, descended from punk rock, which is characterized by unfailing pessimism and the wearing of black clothes)
White, D. Dict. pop. mus. styles world (Gothic rock: angst-driven rock style of the 1980s and 1990s; x-ref. from Goth rock)
Wicke, P. Handbuch der populären Musik (Gothic Rock)
New Grove, 2nd ed. WWW site, Dec. 30, 2002