Re: Gothic/Horror Songs
All of those songs are great. I chose is it scary as the song feels like you are driving through a damp mountain valley with forest on each side of a steeply sloping canyon and you are climbing higher throught the forest and rain and then you break out of the forest into the alpine meadow and the rain turns to snow.
It also sounds like the aural equivalent of a gothic revival building built in 1859 with black stones covered in moss and needing a waterblast and they have pointed arches in the windows and there is even a human skull bricked into the arches. (I have a very overactive imagination)
Gothic is a word used out of context, it actually means a style of ecclesiastical (Church) architecture started in Germany around 1150 with dark and solid stones, soaring arches and windows, used mostly for churches and monasteries between 1180 and about 1550. Europe is full of gothic architecture which includes lacy arches, balustrades, screens thin windows with pointed arches (The arches were borrowed off Moorish architecture). It was to salute God and used on a few castles. How it got misconstrued for Horror purposes, was the 19th century (1801 -1900 not 1900s!!) revival, where Gothic architecture was used for all forms of public buildings, churches, schools, hospitals, lunatic hospitals, town halls, train stations, post offices, shops, personal homes. Earlier on it was used to describe a style of novel writing which involved ghosts, vampires, devils, skulls etc (Frankenstein is a classic Gothic novel). Gothic revival caught on after 1840 and peaked around 1870 with many gothic buildings survivingg today, as Victorians built things solidly.
Victorians loved gothic revival as it symbolised the harmonious and Victorian past, mostly used in Britain and her empire, it was also very popular in the USA and other parts of Europe and their colonies. Often gothic architecture was used in far off colonies (My country New Zealand is full of beautiful 1860 -1900 era Gothic revival buildings). Usually it was very elaborate and required much maintenance to keep looking good. Heavy stone buildings leaked and were cold and draughty and even sank into damp ground. After a few years of neglect, these buildings looked run down and quite creepy, hence why your stock image of a haunted house is usually some c.1880 mansion that has been neglected and there will be at least steeply pointed arched window and elaborate carving.
Also too as Gothic revival was the preferred architecture for mental hospitals, jails and any other punitive institution like a workhouse or some hospital where people are tortured, plus the image of a medieval dungeon or basement lab, will always have have gothic revival connotations. Just think of it. Gothic revival died off after 1900, but there was a movement for Collegiate gothic in the 1910 - 1930 period and this 1920s style was used mostly on Universities in the British empire and the USA, unlike 1800s they used bricks, concrete and lighter materials with more flattened pointed arches (Perpendicular), based heavily on the 15th century Kings College at Cambridge. This type of gothica was more positive than that of 1880s.
So why are we using "Gothic" to describe horror or a type of music?
