Goth aesthetic + music playlist series masterpost
For those interested in getting into goth music, I've built 9 playlists total with 15 songs each all surrounding common goth aesthetics so there's a bit of everything that tends to attract people to our subculture. Each playlist title links to its YouTube playlist.
The individual posts with the tracklists detailed are in this tag.
Trad goth 🦇 aesthetic and music
What started it all, straight out of the 1980s. Punk Rock gone spooky, androgynous, melancholic, experimental and often campy.
Lots of Post-Punk with a dash of Gothic Rock.
Featuring: Xmal Deutschland, Ausgang, Sisters of Mercy, Bauhaus, Blood & Roses, The Cure, Specimen, Play Dead, The Birthday Party, Skeletal Family, Sex Gang Children, Cocteau Twins, The Wake (UK), Virgin Prunes, Look Back in Anger.
Romantic goth 🌹 aesthetic and music
The exquisite agony of melancholy, the theater of grief, the elegance of a frail dying maiden and the intensity and beauty of all emotions.
Mostly Ethereal Wave, Darkwave and Gothic Rock.
Featuring: London After Midnight, Lacrimosa, Sopor Aeternus, Faith and the Muse, The Shroud, Mors Syphilitica, Lycia, Corpus Delicti, Requiem in White, Diva Destruction, Two Witches, Mephisto Walz, Die Laughing, The 69 Eyes, Witching Hour (UK).
Fetish goth 🖤 aesthetic and music
The sensuality of leather and latex, the bell-like sounds of chains, and the sweet cruelty of your master reflected in sensual synths or thrilling guitars.
Mainly Darkwave with some Gothic Rock and Post-Punk.
Featuring: Umbra et Imago, The Mission, The Eden House, Athamay, Bauhaus, Boy Harsher, Quasimodo, London After Midnight, Wisborg, Two Witches, Dark, Fields of the Nephilim, Pink Turns Blue, Her Despair, Merry's Funeral.
Vampire goth 🍷 aesthetic and music
Some launch themselves into their bloodlust with glee, some bemoan their damnation, but what truly matters is that they're hot either way.
Mainly Gothic Rock with some Darkwave and Post-Punk thrown in.
Featuring: Inkubus Sukkubus, Bauhaus, Blutengel, Two Witches, Haunt Me, The Damned, Sopor Aeternus, Immortalis Amor, Lestat, Gothic Sex, La Procesión de lo Infinito, Paralysed Age, Nosferatu, Selofan, Angels of Liberty.
Cyber goth ☢️ aesthetic and music
Cybernetic horror, machinery and humanity blurring boundaries, and a dark undeground floor to dance the futuristic dystopia away.
This one is nothing but synth-heavy Darkwave.
Featuring: Diary of Dreams, Light Asylum, Bedless Bones, Cold Cave, The Frozen Autumn, Collide, Two Witches, Hante., Android Lust, Diva Destruction, La Scaltra, Ego Likeness, FrightDoll, Neon Zoo, Boy Harsher.
Deathrock 💀 aesthetic and music
Goth's American sibling! If Post-Punk is gloomy and eerie, Deathrock is brooding and spooky. If Gothic Rock is vampires and witches, Deathrock is zombies and werewolves.
This playlist is all Deathrock.
Featuring: Chants of Maldoror, Bloody Dead and Sexy, Eat Your Make-Up, Morticia, Bat Nouveau, Phaidia, Cinema Strange, The Naked and the Dead, Requiem in White, Cemetery, 45 Grave, The Cemetary Girlz, Katzenjammer Kabarett, Spiritual Bats, †13th Moon†.
Kinder goth 🍬 aesthetic and music
What's creepier than the sound of a haunted music box and the echo of laugh of a child? Cuteness and goth are not mutually exclusive, this style proves it.
Ethereal Wave, Darkwave and Post-Punk more or less on equal meassure.
Featuring: The Cure, Switchblade Symphony, Faith and the Muse, Bella Lune, binzatina, The Birthday Party, Lycia, Cinema Strange, Virgine Dramatica, Sopor Aeternus, Collide, Mors Syphilitica, Katzenjammer Kabarett, Drab Majesty, SRSQ.
Witchy goth 🎃 aesthetic and music
The figure of the witch has always been of interest to goths; be it due to us having a large neo-pagan population, our fascination with the occult, or simply sympathy for the witch.
A balanced combination of Gothic Rock, Ethereal Wave and Darkwave.
Featuring: Inkubus Sukkubus, Faith and the Muse, Boy Harsher, Nosferatu, Pretentious, Moi?, Switchblade Symphony, Sopor Aeternus, La Scaltra, Two Witches, Die Laughing, Lycia, Rosetta Stone, Chants of Maldoror, Witching Hour UK, The Mission.
Macabre goth ⚰️ aesthetic and music
Not all goths are obsssed with death... But these ones are! Isn't that the reasonable end to dark romance? The eternity of death, the painlessness of death, the mystery of what's beyond it.
A well balanced mix of Ethereal Wave, Gothic Rock, Darkwave and Deathrock.
Featuring: Sopor Aeternus, Angels of Liberty, A Covenant of Thorns, This Burning Effigy, Paralysed Age, Ghosting, Dead Souls Rising, Soror Dolorosa, Chants of Maldoror, Faith and the Muse, Witching Hour UK, Cinema Strange, Shadow Project, Lestat, Twin Tribes.
