Month: January 2018

Today’s challenge: A song when you’re (they spelled it “your” — Oh well) feeling dark or goth.

I always considered myself goth-adjacent. In the 80s & 90s, listened to tons of goth music, was seriously into horror literature and monster movies, eventually got into running Vampire and other World of Darkness games… but I never really did the fashion that would have identified me as “goth” (mostly due to a lack of money to spend on leather, lace, velvet, etc.).

In fact, I listened to SO much goth music, that it’s become impossible for me to pick a single favorite for this post, so I’m going to cheat and post two.

Today’s challenge is a big one for me. Anybody who knows me will tell you that New Wave (as it was applied in the US, to everything from post-punk to ska to synthpop) is probably my favorite genre, if I was forced to choose one. So it’s incredibly difficult to narrow down for me. That said, the challenge reads “a song by a favorite New Wave 80s band” — so I’ll take comfort in the fact that it doesn’t make me choose my all-time single favorite song.

I’ll go with a track from the transformative year of 1982, from a band who most folks only know for “Safety Dance”:

Today’s challenge: A song by a band you obsessed over as a teen. I’m going to have to do a little bit of arrangement here, since I see that tomorrow’s challenge is New Wave, and there’s a significant degree of overlap there.

I was undeniably obsessed with U2 as a teenager. Then they discovered America, and it ruined them. They had me through Unforgettable Fire, and started to lose me with Joshua Tree. I’m solidly early post-punk U2.