Goth Music

    One of my favorite albums right now is Fallen by Evanescence.  It's a reflection of this Goth phase I've sort of entered into.  I really like Gothic music and art, its decadence able to fill the hollowness in my soul.  However I don't dress in dark and dreary drab like a true Goth would.  Despite all the unusual and obscure things that interest me, I still look like your average Joe, the guy next door who seems as normal as they come.

    The best songs for me on the album are My Immortal, Tourniquet, and My Last Breath.  They are alive with pain, stained by loss, the attraction of death and suicide used to perfection.  When you relate as strongly as I do to the sadness and desperation in Amy Lee's voice, songs like these let you know you're not alone, that you're not the only one whose loneliness has caused you so much suffering.  They are tremendously valuable in that respect.

    Like Manson and Garbage, Evanescence has broken through to become a significantly popular Goth band.  I'm not sure why these bands became so popular, yet the many artists on the Metropolis label have not.  I'm thinking of Theater of Tragedy, Tristania/Sirenia, Wumpscut, Velvet Acid Christ, Funker Vogt- all seriously talented bands with some catchy tunes.  Then there's Delerium, one of my favorite bands, who never made it big despite changing their sound into a more pop friendly one.  

    I guess these labels don't think a mass market for Goth music is there, though it clearly is.  Fallen is one of the best-selling albums of the year.  Artists like these deserve more exposure.  Rock could use a little dark age, as the age of alternative seems to be sputtering out.  I think we'll either see it evolve with a renaissance of Gothic rock, or it will continue to fade out of the mainstream, like the jazz era before it.