It’s the cry of protest from every reasonable, open-minded, down-to-earth goth act throughout the ages: “Oh, we’re not one of those pretentious goth bands.” And, on the face of it, who’d argue with that? No one wants to appear ridiculous. Better to let everyone know where you stand in advance, after all.
In this context pretentiousness refers to any desire to creatively overreach, to be more than you currently are. Such tacky ambition is very much bad taste in the goth scene these days. If the gothic revival started with the mock-medieval monstrosity of Strawberry Hill House, it ends today with Goth quite happy with it’s two-bed semi in Wolverhampton which has good neighbours, low crime and a bus that goes directly into town. Goth is quite at home in the suburbs and is doing just about fine, thank you very much.
Of course this is essentially par for the course with goths, for whom denial is never just a river in West Yorkshire. Every cornerstone, foundational goth act denied being a goth act and instead preferred broader, more generic labels to hide behind. To the traditionalists, it was always a little bit naff to accept the ‘goth’ label when you could call yourself anything else – until the musical winds change, and then 32 years into a career it doesn’t seem such a bad idea to accept the goth label after all, if it helps to pay the bills.
This is firmly in keeping with musical tradition. After all, the three iconic heavy metal acts – Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple – all firmly denied the ‘heavy metal’ label at various times. This was a reaction to the preponderance of absurdity that made up their successors, a cringe reflex about every stupid cliché that was linked to the genre. But ultimately the only reason such clichés existed – the orchestras, the occult iconography, the drum solos, the Stonehenge stage monuments – was because these acts invented them in the first place. It was simply that metal’s second wave became comfortable with the label, much in the same way that goth’s third wave acts in the ‘90s embraced the G word.
However, it’s one thing to distance yourself from those pretentious goth acts – but who exactly do we mean? Setting aside Sopor Aeternus & the Ensemble of Shadows (who are the universal gold standard of gothic pofacery), who are we referring to? Fields of the Nephilim are not considered one of those bands, but they have a developed occult aesthetic and a Thelema performance philosophy – isn’t that a little pretentious? Jaz Coleman of Killing Joke often expresses his music through a variety of conspiracy theories and New Age ideas, so isn’t that pretentious? In fact, nearly all of goth’s prime movers are dripping in the clichés of pretension – from Bauhaus’ art-school aesthetics, to Andrew Eldritch running off to Hamburg. Isn’t this kinda what we’re all about?
In reality it’s probably fair to say that forming a goth band is actually one of the very most pretentious things you can do – with the exception of writing a love letter in blood, in Romanian (which you might end up doing anyway). Forming a generic ‘rock’ band holds no preconceptions, but anything more specific than that takes a certain philosophical commitment. When four skinhead blokes form an Oi! band called The Wankers, they are probably self-consciously aiming to be unpretentious; when a goth band is formed called Velvet Shadows (or something) then it’s safe to say will be on the other end of the pretentiousness spectrum.
In fact, isn’t pretentiousness the very essence of goth? Rather like Zizek noted the cultural trend to want products that are the Thing without the core element that makes it the Thing – coffee without the caffeine, cola without the sugar, beer without the alcohol, burgers without the meat – do we really want goth without the pretension? To paraphrase Robespierre, do we really want Goth without the Goth?
Maybe this is indeed what some people are after. When scene hipsters reel off a list of bands that goths should be playing they are always distinguished by two things: by the fact most of the acts they list have already split, breaking on the crest of the waves of mainstream indifference, and by the fact these bands are essentially paired-down and pale reminders of what goth bands sound like. The clove cigarettes and skinny black jeans may be the same, but without the drama and poetry of goth they simply become a stark post-punk pulsebeat: goth, shorn of its ideology, and sounding very much like any dark indie band with a nondescript name – Prague Winter, Beige Torso, Child Simian, or so on.
Perhaps this is the stage that aging goths get to – when the dressing up and the drama takes its toll, seeking refuge in bands that aren’t one of those pretentious goth bands. Indeed, if they both basically sound like Joy Division, then what’s the difference? One is demanding, the other isn’t – so very tempting then to crack open the claret and take the path of least resistance.
Nor is this a matter of humour – goth acts are often in a strange position of taking their militant unpretentiousness incredibly seriously. The old Eldritch maxim of taking the music seriously, but yourself less so, has been inverted by a severe need not to be misconstrued as being sincere.
Ultimately, isn’t the real issue one of self-consciousness? Goth acts getting their excuses in early, pulling their sonic punches, hedging their bets? Until relatively recently a lot of UK goth acts felt comfortable marketing themselves as ‘theatrical burlesque vampire art-cabaret’, even if all they did was pretend to play a synthesizer, and people actually believed that Marilyn Manson and Cradle of Filth would headline a UK goth festival; but today, in the post-AltFest era, people furrow their brows at the prospect of throwing a gig at their local pub. Maybe, burnt before, UK goth has just become low-key and bashful as a result of not-so-glorious failures. But, we all have to snap out of it and clamber back onto the black horse eventually.
Maybe it’s time not to say “We’re not one of those pretentious goth bands”, but rather to say “We’re not one of those self-conscious goth bands”? Why not let your ideas overreach themselves until they become truly preposterous once again? Because, as someone who wasn’t afraid of being pretentious said, “Ridicule is nothing to be scared of”….
Voodoo Diplomacy 