the dark side of the pop-scene

A spoonful of sugar is rumored to help the medicine go down.

I wonder if that same rationale applies to industrial music, the genre that often is a bitter pill that’s hard to swallow.

Add a little pop, so sweeten the sound.

And so it becomes goth pop.

Goth pop is an actual, yet rare, category some artists use to define their sound. It seems a little contradictory, if you ask me. So for Halloween, I’ve decided to investigate some darker music, while holding on to my roots as an indie pop lover as much as I can.

When I think of goth, three things come to mind: Hot Topic, black and that South Park episode (I’m not talking about the vampire kids).

Urban Dictionary defines goth pop as:

“a brand of music that takes the roots of gothic rock and waters it down into plastic, manufactured, mainstream, radio-friendly swill. Much like pop punk, but with goth music instead.” or “bands that the mainstream often perceives as goth, but, in actuality, are as far as any band can get from being so.”

That definition points out the obvious pop bands that put on a darker, “gothic” persona to appear different amongst other pop rock bands, like Creed and Nickelback. Evanescence stands out in my mind as a perfect example.

But I think there’s a difference between goth-pop and pop goths, much like there’s a difference between what people term as indie rock and just plain pop rock. I want to find out about classic pop–based in catchy beats and happy chords– and where it segments off to a darker, yet still pop, sub genre; that’s where goth pop is born.

And apparently there are a lot of artists who find their music oddly enough mixes both the contagiousness of pop as well as the darkness of goth.

Betty Curse‘s music is just that. It’s danceable and catchy like your standard indie pop, but all her songs are tainted with morbid, painful lyrics and subjects. Megan Burns, of Liam and 28 Days Later, started her musical career as Betty Curse in 2006, with her debut album Hear Lies that dropped that same Halloween. Island Records dropped her from their label in 2007 and she has yet to release any new material.

She Wants Revenge approaches goth pop from a more electronic stance, comparable to The Faint. The duo just released an album, Up and Down, Sept. 22 and just finished playing a few Californian shows with Echo and the Bunnymen.

After all my searching, I think it’s safe for me to deem The Cure as one of the hallmarks of classic goth pop. It’s not a coincidence that the song played every time the goths kids appear in that South Park episode sounds as if it could be a Cure instrumental. If you listen to any self-declared goth pop artist, you will be able to hear some influence from the Cure in their songs.

Am I missing any crucial goth pop bands? Do you disagree? Do you have other criteria to add to my definition of goth pop?

Check out some more goth pop:
Siobhan Fahey
L’ame Imortelle