Deathrock, from the outside in. Each step is a genre and the single record this encyclopedia would put on first. Play them in this order and the last one should sound like a next step rather than a wall.
- 1 The way in
Rock 1954
The whole family: guitar, bass, drums and a beat borrowed from blues and rhythm and blues. Every branch below grows out of this trunk, metal included.
Sung. Melodic singing throughout.
Put on
The Beatles - Revolver, if you want to understand why everything branched so fast.
The Beatles, Revolver (1966) - 2 Then
Post-punk 1978
Punk asking what comes next: melodic bass up front, dry guitar, space and cold. Possibly the most fertile branch in all of rock.
Sung. Melodic singing throughout.
Put on
Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures. Martin Hannett's production is half the record.
Joy Division, Unknown Pleasures (1979) - 3 Then
Gothic rock 1979
Post-punk with reverb, chorused guitar and a baritone voice. Its aesthetic passes straight into gothic metal and doom.
Sung. Melodic singing throughout.
Put on
Bauhaus - Bela Lugosi's Dead. Nine minutes that founded an entire subculture.
The pick names a track. This is the record the encyclopedia holds by them.
Bauhaus, In the Flat Field (1980) - 4 What you asked about
Deathrock 1979
The American version, more punk and more theatrical, with tribal drums and horror-movie imagery.
Sung. Melodic singing throughout.
Put on
Christian Death - Only Theatre of Pain. Rozz Williams was nineteen when he wrote it.
Christian Death, Only Theatre of Pain (1982) - 5 Where to go next
Progressive rock 1968
Rock with classical ambitions: odd meters, twenty-minute suites, mellotron. The direct foundation of progressive metal.
Sung. Melodic singing throughout.
Put on
King Crimson - In the Court of the Crimson King. The first track tells you everything.
King Crimson, In the Court of the Crimson King (1969)
Assembled from the tree: the root, the two genres directly above Deathrock, and Deathrock itself. Deathrock has no subgenres, so the last step is the genre that rates closest to it by sound.