I’d contend that it’s nigh on impossible to paint the complete picture of subculture in post-industrial society without having at least passing familiarity with “Goth”. For explaining certain tendencies spread across all modern subcultures, it can be a kind of Rosetta Stone (also, as it so happens, the name of a veteran Gothic rock band). Reflected in Goth’s obsidian surfaces, we can see how excessive or exaggerated types of pageantry are used not only to stave off boredom and fight against dead time, but to occasionally offer a trenchant critique of more acceptably normative behavior: sure, you may laugh at the kids playing at being “morbid countess” or “tormented vampyre” on the basis that this masquerade of identities is “fake,” but they can always turn this criticism on its head by critiquing their parent culture’s own investment in false identities (e.g. does your identification with your car, shoes, or other material objects not act as a form of “masking” itself?) This sly reversal, which shifts our locus of attention from the static person to a dynamic performance in which stable “identity” is no more than a succession of masks, is one of the enduring lessons of subcultural activity in general: although, as we’ll see, it’s one that Goths themselves occasionally fail to learn.
Though I don’t have much of a Goth pedigree (and especially don’t have a bill of health which would allow me to smoke an unending chain of regular and kretek cigarettes), I can see why this subculture’s howl of exuberant defiance has become a multi-generational tradition: when it comes to outright defiance of post-industrial societal conventions, there are few subcultural enthusiasts more immediately identifiable than Goth’s eternally black-clad, tragic denizens. Against a regime of “for the greater good” utilitarianism, modern Goths unashamedly resurrect ideals of dissipation and decadence. Against the rational, scientific dis-enchantment of the world, they likewise retrieve the wreckage of the Romanticist aesthetic from the depths. Against a society in which managerial principles of efficiency and “zero defects” perfectibility are applied to every cultural form from fashion to cuisine, Goths proudly insist on a celebration of Dionysian excess and mythic fatalism: a combination that helps them to de-couple from obligations to perfect a doomed civilization (even if there are plenty within the scene who are actively involved with social causes).
Those who self-identify as Goth can surely identify the modern cultural manifestations of such concepts while in their sleep, but still many aspects of the scene will remain enigmatic to non-initiates: nothing less should be expected from a culture which acts, as outlined above, as a sort of neo-Romantic mystery engine. So, as long as Goth-dom continues to be surprisingly resilient, there is always going to be some market for secondary literature aimed at the perplexed (or at the insiders looking for an additional social proof of their validity). The latest entry from this explanatory canon comes from Lawrence “Lol” Tolhurst, co-founding member of The Cure. Being associated with one of the unimpeachable musical cornerstones of the movement, Tolhurst’s opinion clearly counts for something, and his easily approachable tone throughout this book will definitely find a niche among curious readers not ready for the more dense and analytical “cultural studies” feel of signature works like Goodlad and Bibby’s Goth: Undead Subculture.
Tolhurst’s narrative adheres to a generally simple template: the author provides introductory thumbnail sketches of consequential bands, venues etc. within Goth music’s widely-acknowledged halcyon period of the 1980s, then follows up with autobiographical material that argues for the relevance and distinction of these phenomena. Along those lines, Tolhurst also advocates repeatedly for the unexpected value that these phenomena have, or had, as therapeutic tools to achieve more of a psychic balance: in Tolhurst’s reckoning, Goth writ large allows us to “be in touch with [our] unease”, to craft artworks from “emotional vulnerability as opposed to bravado and certainty” and to embrace an “all-inclusive” philosophy (that is, one which is preoccupied simultaneously with death and love) without feeling this is a morbid preoccupation. Given Tolhurst’s repeated emphasis on Goth music / literature / art as a harmonizing agent, much is said about how its most enduring personae were exceptional enough to not just redefine popular music, but to transform social relations in some meaningful way: Siouxsie Sioux, for example, is lauded as much for her feminist challenge to prescribed, accepted female codes of conduct as for any artistic accomplishment.
This also means Tolhurst spends hardly any time on the more contentious phenomena to have been touched by the hand of Goth: i.e. the “martial” Gothicism of Death in June or the “Social Darwinist” variants promulgated by those artists in, say, the Church of Satan’s orbit. At least one artist to have waded through the familiar morass of Nazis-and-serial-killers content - Rozz Williams of Christian Death - is in fact profiled here, but his embrace of these themes is also carefully excised by Tolhurst’s authorial scalpel. The author can, of course, do as he pleases here: there are only so many musical reference points that can be put into play before the work becomes solely a directory, and has diminished utility in arguing for the legitimacy of a given subculture to the previously uninformed (Tolhurst states as much in the book’s afterword, and we should also note that he doesn’t use the definite article in the subtitle - this is not meant to be taken as the History of Goth).
So, although the previously uninformed might benefit more from discussion of phenomena like Berlin’s “Genial Dilettanten” or Chicago’s WaxTrax! Records, rather than the introductions of All About Eve and And Also The Trees, Lol really makes no claims to be telling anything other than a regional (first U.K.- and then Los Angeles-centered) account, or a “memoir” as he specifically calls it. Not surprisingly, it is one which focuses on cultural flashpoints that directly, personally associated with The Cure.
These aren’t the exact grounds on which I’d base a critique of this book. As hinted above, I do find it disappointing that there isn’t a more concerted effort to investigate the “dark side of dark” alluded to above, and to more closely examine why this decadent and intentionally provocative scene still has its own verboten acts and “red lines” beyond which its excesses become “too” excessive. Nor would I pan this book merely on Tolhurst’s tendency to occasionally toss out generic terms like “authoritarianism” when describing the oppressive forces that plucky and obstinate Goths stand arrayed against. In this day and age, I tire of the use of such general terms to refer to specifics that it’s just “understood” will be intuited by the reader…are we referring here to a “Trump”-y brand of huckster authoritarianism, or critiquing the compelled utopianism of the World Economic Forum, or what?
The main problem with Goth does, in the final estimation, relate to a certain kind of incompleteness different from those already mentioned, and it’s one that Tolhurst hints at when recalling the “door policy” of the notorious Batcave club in Soho: “At play was a basic truth: when outcasts start casting out others, they’ve basically become their own establishment.” This exact situation did come to pass not long after the period that Tolhurst mostly covers in this book, and it did so to such a notable degree that it could be played for laughs via South Park’s skewering of the subculture with its “Goth Kids” characters (remember that, as the joke went, you had to pattern your lifestyle EXACTLY after the Goth Kids to become a true “non-conformist,” as they were). Goth is, after all, a subculture that often falls prone to the ideal of authenticity, which has become a socially acceptable way of forming hierarchies and power relations of “distinction” where these concepts would be otherwise be scorned as “mainstream” preoccupations.
As scene member and scholar Agnes Jasper has noted, Goths rarely ever self-identify as “authentic” (and, perversely, will just as often dance around even self-identifying as “Goth”). Yet, all the same:
… notions of authenticity seem to morally hover above everything they do. Being 'authentic' seems to be a subcultural necessity; it seems to be some kind of unspoken morale. One will find that subcultures and notions of authenticity and identity are intricately intertwined.1
Goths can and will proudly point, for example, to the wholeheartedness of their commitments and to a richer, fuller realization of their fantastic desires that the more ambivalent mainstream denies itself. Much is made of the fact that their scene commitments are a lifelong obligation rather than a transitory “phase” or fashion, and that they are willing to take calculated risks (such as accepting jobs less likely to offer steady professional advancement) in order for this commitment to remain the defining feature of their identities.
This can be admirable when compared against the lifestyles of those who allow themselves to be psychologically manipulated into accepting any transitory fad without even understanding how or why it appeals to them, but once this lifelong cultural commitment is seen as a moral prerequisite, we are already perilously close here to that religious idealization of authenticity whose end result is a static self. Yes, the Goth identity may be for the most part self-professed rather than dictated by more socially powerful forces, but this alone does not exempt it from being one of many self-professed identities that eventually neuter their creative potential by seeking out a limiting purification process via authenticity.
It also needs to be said that, when stripped of its cosmetic features and reduced to its oppositional attitudes, Goth is not really an exclusive lifestyle, and thus is robbed of some of the fuel that it needs to be an “authentic” one. As critic Andrew Potter insists, “Is there anyone out there who does not consider him or herself to be an “anti-hero of authenticity”…anyone who embraces authority, delights in status-seeking, loves work, and strives for conformity?”2 Just a cursory look at the American political landscape will help to answer his rhetorical question: even the most certifiably slimy, corrupt,“special interest”-adjacent candidates for political office regularly promote ideas such as “standing up for the little man”; publicly placing greater moral weight to the more marginalized segments of the electorate and supposedly rejecting “insider” status as inherently corrupt.
Now, many Goths would argue that it is not a stance of opposition that drives the culture, but rather one of aestheticized melancholy. So it is interesting to note how Goth subculture is heavily involved with a melancholic longing for what Charles Taylor identifies as the Romanticist linkage between the “self-feeling and the feeling of belonging to nature”; a sort of oceanic consciousness presumably free of too many man-made and conceptual barriers. Yet Goth subculture also seems to depend on the maintenance of numerous barriers of exclusivity in order to survive. This same problem is endemic within other cultures and subcultures that place authenticity above all: there are dramatic overtures made towards some form of all-permeating, universal creative force, and what seems to be a genuine sense of reverent awe accorded to it. Nevertheless, the stewardship of this “wider whole,” which should by all means be beyond human control, is limited to an “authentic” elect who get to interpret it and translate its decrees. The tensions between “going with the flow” of a Rousseau-ian nature and working incredibly hard at one’s cultivated self-image also seem irreconcilable, returning us to the idea that spontaneity is one of the oft-cited keys to authenticity, yet one which cannot truly be (in the reckoning of critic Simon Feldman) an “action-guiding ideal.”3
It may be obvious by now that the wholeheartedness demanded of Goths in search of authenticity leads to some of the most tragic ends within the scene; particularly the not insignificant incidences of self-harm and suicide (studies on the exact subject do exist, and though they admit in the end that “the causal mechanism remains unclear” for these actions, it may say something that Goths were chosen in the first place as a special object of scientific study)4. The fostering of deep melancholia and immersion in generalized tragedy is a potent enough mix on its own, but once we factor in the need to demonstrate an authentic, wholehearted understanding of these phenomena, situations arise in which the only way to adequately show conviction is through self-annihilation. Take for example the thoughts of Tolhurst’s bandmate Robert Smith as he was haunted by the now-infamous suicide of influential Joy Division singer Ian Curtis, and how it affirmed the potency of his band’s vision: “I remember hearing [the Joy Division LP] Closer for the first time and thinking, ‘I can’t ever imagine making something as powerful as this’…I thought I’d have to kill myself to make a convincing record.”5
In order to live a life that is completely devoted to creating or preserving a singular identity, the seeker after authenticity has to acknowledge that a willed death may be the only way to “outdo” other participants in this competition. Gothic forays into the realms of tragedy and melancholy can, on their own, be thought-provoking, worthwhile critical comments on external human developments, necessitating deeper dives into this realm and refresher courses like Tolhurst’s new offering. When these are coupled with the idealism of authenticity, though, the mask of tragedy can become a permanent fixture.
Jasper, A. (2004). “'I am not a goth!': The Unspoken Morale of Authenticity within the Dutch Gothic Subculture”. Etnofoor 17(1/2), pp. 90-115.
Potter, A. (2010). The Authenticity Hoax: How We Get Lost Finding Ourselves. McClelland & Stewart: Toronto.
Feldman, S. (2015). Against Authenticity: Why You Shouldn’t Be Yourself. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books.
Young, R., Sweeting, H. & West, P. (2006). “Prevalence of Deliberate Self-Harm and Attempted Suicide within Contemporary Goth Youth Subculture: Longitudinal Cohort Study.” BMJ 332, pp. 1061-1064.
Apter, J. (2008). Never Enough: The Story of The Cure. London / New York: Omnibus Press.