Focusing on Goth through the internet, this indispensable book details bands, clothes, clubs, people, sites, fanzines, web rings and more in the biggest single resource of Goth and Goth-related information ever published.
Mick Mercer reports from the Goth scene in the UK, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Holland and the USA, as well as Japan, South America and some more unexpected parts of the old world. If you are new to the Goth world, start here. If you have read any of Mercer's previous books on the subject, 21st Century Goth is the update you have been waiting for.
This is my new book, the fourth, about Goth, published in May 2002 by Reynolds & Hearn. 276 pages, with 174 photos, including 20 stunning full-page photos. This book concentrates on what is on the Net that is Goth-related, and breaks it down into sections - but not into geographical boundaries like my last book.
Some people have asked whether this offers anything that they couldn't find themselves through standard searches. Obviously, I wouldn't have bothered afterwards. Given that I was online nearly all day, every day, for over a year writing this, and most people have only a few hours a day available for such activity, you can work it out yourself, or have a look at the review from the well respected Sentamentalist magaine:
"Mr. Mercer has done it again! His fourth book chronicling the gothic culture, and it's affiliate sub-genres of the scene (i.e. ethereal, industrial, ambient, etc...), succeeds in the overwhelming feat of capturing all the best of what's going on in the ever-changing internet realm. With a striking full-colour cover, and thoughtful, clever introduction by the author, Mick shows that he sincerely cares for this scene which he has been writing about for the past two decades ~ expressing his concerns, and hopes for it's future. The book itself is a vast directory of just about any website related to the gothic scene that you could imagine ~ from bands, to online shops, webrings, to personal pages, there are well over 5,000 sites reviewed! The ambitious book is kept visually interesting with almost two hundred photos, twenty of which are stunning full page images! This is an amazing resource as well as a treasured example to save for posterity a moment in time in a constantly evolving culture."
I've have already had excellent, supportive publicity through Starvox, Dark Culture and Morbid Outlook, and across sites worldwide who are also conducting interviews with me. You don't get experienced commentators on the scene stating their respect for something unless it's valid.
It is a huge resource, and something I got very excited about, going 50,000 words past my original word limit, but the publisher liked it so much he didn't even complain!!! I have looked specifically for things which are of use but also the very best of everything else I found. For every site included many of the more boring ones have been ignored.
Sites are either reviewed or listed within the sections. The contents are as follows:
Bands (960 reviewed - 982 listed/categorised)
Clothes/Goth-related Businesses (371 reviewed - 34 listed/categorised)
Clubs (159 reviewed - 60 listed/categorised)
Goth People (709 reviewed - 404 listed/categorised)
Goth Sites (285 reviewed - 108 listed/categorised)
Locations (241 reviewed - 124 listed/categorised)
Resources (44 reviewed - 47 listed/categorised)
Zines (192 reviewed - 27 listed/categorised)
Webrings (47 reviewed - 76 listed/categorised)
Visual Rock (33 reviewed - 31 listed/categorised)
Sites Of Interest - which contains much weird material (417 reviewed - 166 listed/categorised)
There are also two interviews, because I wanted to play around with the layout! One with Laura McCutchan who does Morbid Outlook zine, which many of you will be familiar with, and then the band Mothburner, who you may not. They have only a tiny net presence and have serious problems even affording recording. They represent Goth at its finest, but also Goth on the edges of the genre's society!
If this book does well then I should be able to do a new Goth book every eighteen months, concentrating on bands and individuals, so if any of you can please include news on your own sites about this and direct people here so that they can order it through the Amazon link on my site, I'd appreciate it.
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这本书的叙事节奏非常独特,它不追求情节的推进,而更像是在营造一种持续的、弥散的情绪场域。它成功地捕捉到了“后现代厌倦感”的精髓——那种对一切宏大叙事的怀疑,以及在碎片化信息中寻找个人意义的徒劳挣扎。作者没有试图去“解释”哥特文化在当代的复兴,而是让这些角色自己去“生活”在这种矛盾之中。我尤其欣赏书中对材质和触感的描绘,那些皮革的冰冷、蕾丝的脆弱、金属的坚硬,这些具象的细节,让抽象的情感有了重量和实体。每一次对服装的细致描写,都像是对角色内心状态的一次心理侧写。它展示了如何通过精心挑选的外在形式,来构建一个足以抵御外界侵蚀的私人堡垒。这本书的魅力在于它的“不妥协”——它不试图迎合任何人,它只是冷静地记录下那些选择生活在阴影边缘的人们所经历的复杂情感。读它需要耐心,因为它要求读者放弃被动接受的习惯,主动去品味那些微妙的、难以言喻的氛围。
评分说实话,一开始我以为这会是一本矫揉造作的时尚指南或者一部略显肤浅的次文化速写,毕竟“21世纪”这个标签很容易让人联想到追逐潮流的快餐文化。然而,深入阅读后,我发现作者展现出一种近乎人类学的严谨态度,去剖析这种美学如何渗透到当代青年的日常生活肌理中。它细致地描绘了那些藏在加密论坛深处的对话,那些关于地下音乐场景的微妙变化,甚至是如何利用社交媒体的算法反击,将原本小众的亚文化符号放大成一种无声的集体宣言。这本书的叙事结构非常大胆,充满了非线性的跳跃,就像一部剪辑失控的艺术电影,你得自己去拼凑出那个关于“不适感”的完整图景。其中对于“数字化哀悼”的论述尤其深刻——在万物皆可存档的时代,如何才能真正地、有分量地去哀悼逝去的美好和不可能的未来?作者没有给出答案,而是提供了一系列极具视觉冲击力的场景作为脚注,比如在废弃的数据中心里进行的秘密聚会,或是穿着天鹅绒长袍在自动取款机前进行的沉思。这本书的重量感并非来自页数的堆砌,而是来自它对现代人精神困境的精准捕捉,它让你意识到,那些看似疏离的黑色着装,其实是最真诚的“在场证明”。
评分阅读体验简直像被拖入了一场精心编排的梦境,那里充满了符号的堆叠和潜意识的闪回。我特别喜欢作者在处理“颓废”这个概念时的微妙平衡。它没有美化绝望本身,而是将其视为一种强大的创作驱动力。想象一下,那些在廉价公寓里,对着电脑屏幕上闪烁的代码和老旧的黑胶唱片做斗争的年轻人,他们既是技术的产物,又是对技术的无声反抗者。这本书的遣词造句充满了古典的厚重感,却又时不时地被突兀的现代俚语或技术术语打断,这种张力非常令人着迷。它像一把解剖刀,剖开了主流审美对“幸福”的定义,然后用阴影和破碎的镜像来重新构建一个更诚实(也更令人不安)的世界观。我感觉作者对艺术史的理解极其深厚,随处可见对浪漫主义、象征主义,乃至更早期巴洛克风格的致敬,但所有这些古典的重量,都被包裹在一种极具未来感的、几乎是赛博朋克的透明外壳之下。读完之后,我发现自己开始用一种全新的、带着怀疑和审视的眼光去看待日常生活中的光线和色彩。
评分这部作品对我来说,更像是一面被故意磨旧、布满划痕的镜子,反射出当代社会中那些被边缘化的、却又至关重要的美学思考。它没有采用那种典型的“文化研究”的冷静笔调,而是以一种充满诗意和私密性的视角,深入挖掘了“黑暗”作为一种主动选择的力量。书中对音乐场景的描绘简直是神来之笔,那些在地下酒吧里回荡的、充满合成器和低音炮轰鸣的音乐,被赋予了超越声音本身的哲学意义,它们是集体身份的暗号。作者对“真实”与“表演”之间界限的探讨非常精妙,在今天的世界,我们每个人都在某种程度上进行着身份的建构和呈现,而书中的“哥特”实践,则是将这种建构推向了极致,成为一种对“虚假”的最高敬意——通过极致的夸张,反而达到了某种纯粹的真实。我发现自己被一种强烈的“怀旧的未来感”所吸引,仿佛在阅读一本预言书,记录着一个注定要以优雅姿态走向衰落的时代。这本书的价值在于,它迫使我们重新审视那些我们习惯性忽略的美学边缘,并从中发掘出未被充分利用的人性深度。
评分这部书简直是黑夜中的一盏霓虹灯,以一种近乎挑衅的姿态,将哥特美学的核心精髓——那种对腐朽、忧郁和反叛的迷恋——移植到了我们这个充斥着滤镜和即时满足感的时代。它没有沉溺于维多利亚时代的陈词滥调,而是巧妙地将那些古老的、带着霉味的浪漫主义,与现代都市的冰冷、数字化的疏离感熔铸在一起。我最欣赏的是作者对“身份”这一主题的解构。那些主角们,他们并非简单地模仿过去的着装风格,而是将那些夸张的轮廓、深沉的妆容,用作抵御主流世界过度同质化的盔甲。他们行走在闪烁着LED灯光的街道上,骨子里流淌着拜伦式的诗意,手里却可能捧着一本关于后人类主义的电子书。这种强烈的时空错位感,让阅读过程充满了兴奋和不安。它探讨的不是简单的“酷”或“另类”,而是关于如何在消费主义的洪流中,坚守住那份对深刻体验和真实情感的渴望,即使这种渴望看起来怪异、甚至有些过时。这本书的语言风格本身也极具张力,时而像一段精心雕琢的悼词,时而又像一场午夜电台的即兴独白,充满了对社会表象的尖锐讽刺,让人在阅读时忍不住要停下来,仔细端详自己投射在窗户上的倒影。
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