276°
Posted 20 hours ago

The Art of Darkness: The History of Goth

£9.9£99Clearance
ZTS2023's avatar
Shared by
ZTS2023
Joined in 2023
82
63

About this deal

ABOUT USLouder Than War is a music, culture and media publication headed by The Membranes & Goldblade frontman John Robb. Online since 2010 it is one of the fastest-growing and most respected music-related publications on the net.

The Art of Darkness: A History of Goth by John Robb The Art of Darkness: A History of Goth by John Robb

Ok, I love this book; it covers a period of music I lived through and still listen to this very day. The style is very detailed and lyrical, covering the bands and the times. If you have any interest in the history of this music, this is the book to get.

The Cure said they definitely weren’t goth, but for many fans they of course absolutely were, and that inherent contradiction is fascinating,” Robb said. “Despite not believing they were goth, they made one of the most iconic goth albums with ‘Pornography’. It was a template for many goth bands to follow and a game changer.”

John Robb - The Art of Darkness: A History of Goth

The Cure – Robert Smith, Clifford Leon Anderson, Paul ‘Porl’ Thompson And Lol Tolhurst, Covent Garden – 1984 Joy Division may not be everyone’s idea of a Goth band, but it can’t reasonably be denied that their take on Post Punk was hugely influential. As Robb puts it “ There would be few bands in the future Goth scene that did not take something from the Joy Division sound – whether it was those melancholic melodic bass lines, that baritone vocal style or the death disco motorik rhythms of the drums.”This is a glorious book, exploring Gothic from its historical roots to the cliches, caricatures and catcalling of the present age. The music, dance and fashion are sumptuously brought to life, but more than that, Robb manages to take us into the psyche, fantasies and imaginations of a plethora of fascinating Goths. The go-to book on all things Goth.' This is a lovely book about the darker side of Post-Punk that I would recommend to anyone, even though the promised ‘deep dive’ into Goth turns out to be an elaborate paddle, so let’s concentrate on the good bits first, and why you should buy it, as this is impressive.

The Art Of Darkness – John Robb | Monorail Music Goth: The Art Of Darkness – John Robb | Monorail Music

This really wasn't what I was expecting when I'd read the blurb that promised it to be 'the first major overview of goth music and culture'. While impressive and ambitious that that the book begins so far away in the fall of Rome (410AD!), it makes it lose its detail. Slowly it becomes a little indulgent, with Robb clearly focusing in on personal favourites and rather than going into things like the critical reception at the time and cultural impact. I think Goth is part of our DNA,” concludes Unsworth. “The Goths in my book, and the Gothmothers and Gothfathers before them, all recorded the traumas of their times in memorable ways and their spiritual descendants will go on doing so. We remember Jerusalem, we remember The Mask of Anarchy, and future generations will hear Joy Division and know exactly what Manchester felt like at the end of the ‘70s, better than any historian could have recorded it.” The last word should go to John Robb himself –“ It’s been a long, dark and strange journey into the heart of the darkness– and we wouldn’t have it any other way.” It’s a thought-provoking question that the author leaves open-ended. But like Schrödinger’s experimental cat, it is clear that Goth is currently both dead and very much alive. Tolhurst’s engaging historical memoir is the third of three books this year to examine Goth music and culture, following on from John Robb’s Art of Darkness: The History of Goth and Cathi Unsworth’s Season of the Witch: The Book of Goth (published in May).

Location

youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yy9h2q_dr9k&w=560&h=315]Bela Lugosi’s Dead (Official Version) – YouTube Other parts of the book focus on highlighting the female artists who were central to the scene, and the importance of grassroots venues to the development of sub-cultures like goth. “Places like The Batcave in London and The Phono in Leeds were massive in bringing the goth movement together,” Robb said. A history of goth and the context of how the music genre came about. How you feel about the book will probably depend on your interests in the individual artists as often the artist's connections to goth will be somewhat thin or denoting a very brief part of that artist's history. This leads to weird cases where Adam Ant (an artist I've never seen associated with goth) gets equal space to Bauhaus or Sisters of Mercy. After the latter the book sort of peters out, which is a shame. While this does take a while to get through it is worth it to set the scene before we get to the bulk of the book which, of course, focuses on the musical trend that began in the late 1970s through to the mid-1990s (he does go beyond this as ‘goth’ didn’t suddenly vanish in 1995, but this period is the main focus). Their journey could be said to encapsulate all aspects of what would become Goth, including a journey out of punk, a literate approach to their music, intense emotions and, ultimately, tragedy. Joy Division’s musical and literary influences are discussed, as is their approach to songwriting and recording with “ mad professor” Martin Hannett and, of course, their sad and untimely end.

The Art of Darkness: A History of Goth - The Wee Review The Art of Darkness: A History of Goth - The Wee Review

Robb said it was similar to old interviews he carried out with The Cure’s Robert Smith, who also didn’t identify with the term. Editor probably needed to take a few more passes as well as there's a few times where what's in the footnotes reappears in the text (and vice versa). To say nothing of some questionable language used towards trans/non-binary artists... Gloriously knowledgeable and inclusive, rich with words like crystalline, lysergic, spectral, and stuffed with stories about the bands who changed your life as a teenager." Irish Independent Attention is given to the fact that Goths emerged away from London, then generally regarded as the epicentre for new musical movements. Leeds and Bradford came to be creative hubs for the new music that was now emerging across the country and Liverpool held its own with its post-punk psychedelia-lite and its Planet X club, although London club The Batcave is given its due in helping Goth become a scene. Another expert who spoke to Robb for his book was Johnny Marr. “He’s a musical encyclopaedia and a Bauhaus fan, so that helped a lot,” said Robb.Literature and art also feature heavily in these early chapters. As John Robb himself explained “ What I’ve realised is that every generation is dealing with its blues and dealing with it in the contemporary technology of the time. So, in the 19th century, you’d have a quill and write a poem or something, but in the post-punk period, because music was central to our culture, music was where people embraced melancholy and found the beauty of melancholy.” Siouxsie and the Banshees were to create more shimmering Goth classics such as Spellbound, Happy House and Arabian Knights, keeping their pole position for many years. There are a few chapters devoted to filling in gaps that cover bands like Play Dead, Bone Orchard and Red Lorry Yellow Lorry and then more to outliers who were never Goth themselves, but attracted a Goth audience, such as Depeche Mode and Cocteau Twins. In this general sweep, there are a few acts whose inclusion might raise an eyebrow or two (Billy Idol, Toyah), but those of us who grew up on the dance floors of Goth clubs will recognise the logic of this. All the children are insane, or people are strange: the (un)holy trinity: The Doors/Velvets/Stooges The Art of Darkness takes a roughly chronological approach, certainly in its early chapters. The book starts by looking at the VisiGoths and the fall of the Roman Empire, so we can see that this is no lightweight look at the subject. Starting the book with the VisiGoths may seem more like etymology than musical study, but Robb seems determined to leave no stone unturned in his exploration of the roots of Goth culture.

Asda Great Deal

Free UK shipping. 15 day free returns.
Community Updates
*So you can easily identify outgoing links on our site, we've marked them with an "*" symbol. Links on our site are monetised, but this never affects which deals get posted. Find more info in our FAQs and About Us page.
New Comment