ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to complete the circuit introduced over the course of this study. Chapter One began by discussing two goth events—Dracula’s Ball and Göttertanz—to illustrate the diversity of goth musical styles and associated practices. This diversity indeed constitutes a primary question at the heart of this study: Given the extent of the musical variation encompassed by the rubric goth (or hyphenated conjunctions such as goth-industrial-EBM), what, if anything, connects these different substyles? To borrow from Paul Hodkinson’s consideration of goth subculture, is there a goth “consistent distinctiveness” (2) of the music? And if it is the case, as this study suggests, that goth subculture organizes itself around the music—if the music is the primary “glue” that holds the scene together—is there then any consistent distinctiveness to goth subculture at all? Or should goth be considered instead as a loose confederation of discrete subcultures coincidentally sharing certain preoccupations and/or stylistic emphases?
