gothic rock

Alternative forms

• Gothic rock

Etymology

First coined by John Stickney in reference to The Doors in 1967 and used by the late 1970s to describe the musical scene that gave rise to the goth subculture, both from a supposed aesthetic similarity to dark and moody 19th century gothic fiction and earlier gothic art and architecture.

Noun

gothic rock (uncountable)

1. (music) A style of music that developed out of punk rock in the late 1970s, with lyrics and imagery often referring to morbid, spooky or mystical ideas.
   • 2015, Isabella van Elferen, Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock, Goth Music: From Sound to Subculture, Routledge, →ISBN, page 25:

     Since the 1980s, several goth substyles have mixed the Batcave heritage with other musical genres into new goth substyles. New wave was gothed into darkwave, classic rock into gothic rock, and metal into gothic metal.