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I often hear that "Bela Lugosi's Dead" (Bauhaus) was the first gothic rock song...

but on the contrary, I also hear that it was Souixzie and the Banshees(forgive me if I mispelled her name... I most likely did sweatdrop ) was the first gothic band - she was the first to call the style of music "gothic" from what I heard.

Feel free to share your opinions

::shakes head slowly::

::looks down sombrely::

Bela Lugosi is a man.

In 1978, Siouxsie and the Banshees released their first album, "The Scream". However, the album "The Scream" was pretty purely a punk album, not a goth-rock album. Their next album, released in 1979, "Join Hands" was also pretty purely punk. Their next two albums, "Juju" and "Kaleidoscope" started experimenting more, but it was their 1982 album "A Kiss in the Dreamhouse" that they became a purely goth-rock band.

Now, this isn't to say that their album ("the Scream") wasn't important to goth, nor is it to say that Siouxsie and the Banshees weren't. In fact, Siouxsie and the Banshees are one of three of the most important bands to the history of goth, the other two below.

The first goth-rock album was probably "Unknown Pleasures" by Joy Division, which was also released earlier in 1979 (april, if you must know). It marked arguably the earliest example of the style, though, some argue that it isn't goth-rock at all, but post-punk.

Bauhaus, also in 1979 (September) "Bela Lugosi's Dead" was released, and is marked as the beginning of goth largely because it was so popular, and because it did so much to bring the culture together stylistically, aesthetically, and thematically, even if it didn't create the genre itself. Their October 1979 album "In the Flat Field" was their first full album, and is also considered to be purely goth-rock.

Important to the culture more than to the music. Their earliest work was all very pop oriented new-wave. Now, they did have a pair of goth albums in the early 80's (Seventeen Seconds and Pornography) and a few later in their career (89's Disintegration and 01's Bloodflowers), but by the time their first goth work came out, Bauhaus and Joy Division already had a couple albums out.

Yeah, I guess it did. If he hadn't died Bauhaus would of never wrote that song...and they're the founders of Goth.What would the world be like without Goths? eek

On the positive side, no goths means no mallgoths.

And no mallgoths means all angsty teens will jump ship to mallcore emo.

Eh, most of them already have jumped ship to mallcore emo.