Fact #194243
When:
Short story:
Bauhaus release the single Bela Lugosi's Dead, widely considered the track that ushered in the era of Gothic rock.Full article:
Pete Murphy (vocalist, Bauhaus) : I know that Bauhaus presumably started what the critics coined the "gothic" genre in 1979 with Bela Lugosi's Dead, but goth was a myth dreamt up by journalists sometime back in the '80s to describe Bauhaus, Joy Division, Iggy's vocal vibe on The Idiot, and so on. The music was often unaccomplished, but made up for it with a kind of transcendent quality.
Daniel Ash (Bauhaus) : When we recorded Bela Lugosi's Dead, Bauhaus had only been together for four weeks. We never called ourselves or our music "goth." That was something that came a few years later from the press.
David Dorrell (journalist, NME) : Oh, God, it all comes back! I won't even try and make claims that I wrote an article and called them goths or whether I cribbed that off one of my fellow goth journalists - speed burns my memory. As a journalist, I noticed that the end of punk was starting to get darker. Lydon was getting dark with Public Image Ltd. By committing suicide, Ian Curtis of Joy Division not only put an end to his own life and that of his band, but allowed a vacuum to occur into which all of these other bands scurried.
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Daniel Ash (Bauhaus) : When we recorded Bela Lugosi's Dead, Bauhaus had only been together for four weeks. We never called ourselves or our music "goth." That was something that came a few years later from the press.
David Dorrell (journalist, NME) : Oh, God, it all comes back! I won't even try and make claims that I wrote an article and called them goths or whether I cribbed that off one of my fellow goth journalists - speed burns my memory. As a journalist, I noticed that the end of punk was starting to get darker. Lydon was getting dark with Public Image Ltd. By committing suicide, Ian Curtis of Joy Division not only put an end to his own life and that of his band, but allowed a vacuum to occur into which all of these other bands scurried.