Wannabe

Here's an interesting article, notable mostly for the interesting comments appended to the end. Goth has a history as a movement, as one commenter notes:

I remember my goth days, I had a black mohican and wore make up even to go to the shops. And I was a second generation Goth, not even an original (so I'm talking mid to late 90s) so let's just stop this nonsense that it's all a fad. It's a youth movement that's been going for over 20 years and I still listen to the Sisters, the Cure, Nine Inch Nails and the Neo goth bands like Razed in Black, Goteki and the likes. And now I'm a 36 year old Librarian.

I've been listening to some of the Goth-oriented dance music. So far, I like the stuff quite a bit. I can see the appeal for the musicians: instead of composing dance music using tired old themes like "boy likes girl," you can explore new frontiers like "boy hates girl," or other dark story lines.

The only missing element to get a mass movement going seems to be the ethnic ghettoization of Goth among Northern-European whites: so far I see little evidence of Goth among African-Americans, Jamaicans, and other musically-influential minorities. That's probably where the dance element comes in: making the music more palatable for a much broader audience. Musicians have certainly overcome bigger obstacles before - witness the broad popularity of hip-hop and rap. Germans seem to be leading the way, although it's interesting that German groups, two times out of three, seem to prefer singing in English, even bad English, even though the German language is perfectly suited for the music (English probably sounds sounds more 'mysterious' to a German ear, or maybe it's just another effort to broaden the audience).

The musical theater crowd seems to attract few Goth-types, although the punker B. H. once explained that when she hears late-70's punk, she gets warm and fuzzy inside, because her punk parents played the stuff as lullabys when she was young.

I think I'd like to be a Goth (but what a hell of a sight I'd be with piercings and spiked hair - what little hair is left - nevertheless, more interesting than a comb-over). The impact of my makeover would probably be contrary to my interests among the engineering crowd at work, however, and might seem....bizarre, shall we say? (or is that the point?)

But then there's always the Bob Fosse musical theater solution: always wear black....always. The effect can be powerful: actor Roy Scheider wore little except black for a year after playing a character very like Fosse in the semi-quasi-autobiographical "All That Jazz" in 1979.

Hmmm....time to look at my earth-tone wardrobe.