Where did Goth come from?
The words “Goth”/”Gothic” were first used to describe a Germanic tribe during the Middle Ages that helped bring down the Roman Empire, the terms were later applied to a style of architecture used in building cathedrals, and then it was applied as a term to describe a type of literature from the 1800’s (like Edgar Allan Poe, Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, etc.) The term “Goth” as we know it today was coined by several different early Goth Rock bands in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. Goth Rock bands like Siouxsie & the Banshees, Joy Division, Bauhaus, and UK Decay were called “gothic” enough by the music media, that eventually the label stuck. In 1979, Tony Wilson, on the BBC program “Something Else,” described Joy Division’s sound as “gothic in comparison with mainstream pop.” In the same year, Siouxsie Sioux made the comment that her band’s music was moving in a “gothic” direction. These were the first major uses of the phrase to describe that kind of music.
