Gothberg 2.0

I want to share something I made at the beginning of the year with you, because a lot of places where this is being shared makes it too small to be properly looked at.

I consider this to be the second Gothberg as the first one originally included some dark/alternative "goth gateway" bands, anything from alternative metal, to "emo" and mumble rap, to 80s synth-pop acts. The second version of this negates this section and firstly focusses on iconic and classic goth bands which were either popular at the time, or established key elements of the goth genre. This is why post-punk bands, such as early Adam & the Ants, The Chameleons, The Birthday Party, Joy Division, Killing Joke, etc. are here despite those bands not exactly being goth rock.

The rest of the berg follows a loose range of themes. The overall theme was the amount of Last.fm listeners they had back in January - March 2021. As the berg gets deeper, the names get more underground, obscure and/or new as there are bands in the bottom section which have released, for example, one EP/compilation/demo of post-punk, goth rock, or another goth associated genre.

Here is the original criteria, correct at the time:

For reference:

• 1st Tier includes bands that are iconic to the scene and those who have 151k+ listeners
• 2nd Tier includes bands with 149k – 32k listeners
• 3rd Tier includes bands with 31k – 9.8k listeners (9.7k is missing; a mistake)
• 4th Tier includes bands with 9.6k – 2.3k listeners
• 5th Tier includes bands with 2.2k to around 450 listeners
• 6th Tier includes less than 450 and brand new bands that have released music recently

Deus Ex Lumina "Dark Wave (Playlist)" is a good example of this - check out the EP, it's fantastic, and includes a cover of Lebanon Hanover's "Alien" as well as a cover of Röyksopp "Here She Comes Again". The artist has since moved onto synthwave/cyberpunk themed music.

Bear in mind that this isn't a complete list of every goth band, and if your favourite is missing and is popular ask yourselves if they actually play goth and aren't mainly just industrial, metal, electronic, experimental, or if they're not there and aren't popular, then the likelihood of me including them among several thousands of goth bands.

The last point I want to address is finding bands that share the same names as other bands from different countries, playing different genres. If you want to check out a band and you can’t find them, please comment and I’ll reply with a link of their Bandcamp/YouTube/music profile. For example, Dreamtime is the name of a psychedelic band too, so make sure you type in ‘goth’, after. I left out The Awakening for this very reason. If you think a band is too high/low on the list, this is because, like I mentioned before, bands share the same profile and their listeners are combined so you might find I did an estimate (Ikon, Elusive, etc.) instead.

Happy finding new bands!