Various Silhouettes & Statues (A Gothic Revolution 1978 - 1986)

Various Silhouettes & Statues (A Gothic Revolution 1978 - 1986)

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It's little surprise that Cherry Red - which over the fast few years has absolutely reinvented itself into a top-notch reissue and scene overview empire - is behind the latest attempt to clarify the questions of what goth is. There have been goth boxsets before - one 1990s entry was simply called Goth Box, and over in the US Rhino made a stab at it last decade - plus any number of random compilations or mixes. Rather than trying to address what ultimately has become something unwieldy, especially as newer bands emerge and older performers gain new attention, Silhouettes & Statues: A Gothic Revolution 1978-1986 sets out not only a chronological brief but a geographic one, concentrating on England, whether acts were local or relocated from elsewhere. It’s a smart decision: goth as conceived and haphazardly codified was first and foremost not merely Anglophilic but Anglocentric. Still, to get back to the original question: what’s goth? In her short introductory essay Natasha Scharf does a great job in noting how the term got associated with certain performers and acts from the late 70s on, in the creative space opened up by punk’s success. She also describes how certain musical forebears from the 60s on had laid plenty of groundwork - even digging up an intriguing use of the term "gothic rock" with reference to a 1967 Doors concert review. Still, as she flatly says at one point, “defining goth isn’t easy.” It’s just as important to look beyond the music to whatever was in the air in general. Was it due to a revived cold war? A revulsion towards Thatcherism? Just a new version of 'overeducated' (and notably white) teenage angst? Simply another return of glam in darker clothes? Present one way to approach it, and another way suggests itself. That, though, is part of what makes Silhouettes such an enjoyable (if perhaps daunting) five CDs. It may not be entirely the case with the later, younger bands on the set, but absolutely none of the earliest groups began playing together with the self-conscious idea of 'Hey, let’s be a goth band.' Genre founders by default can’t be wilfully creating something they didn’t know about until it was labelled. So the question becomes less “how do these groups all resemble each other?” and more “how does the new territory open up, and who were the explorers?” Setting aside non-English/English-based acts, it’s notable from the get-go that pretty much every name you would expect to find in such a collection is represented, except one. Siouxsie And The Banshees are absolutely noteworthy by their absence, though of course they never liked being confined by genre straitjackets. At the same time, they helped establish the idea of subverted expectations early on - not just musically but as a group who were able to maintain both an underground and a chart profile. And that’s what’s important to remember about this whole thing from a distance - it was simultaneously subcultural and impossible to miss, one of many sonic stews and approaches that could and did feature in NME, Smash Hits, Radio 1 and Top Of The Pops simultaneously in the ferment of New Pop.