text:
Talk:Girl group

"power manager"
In fact, the all-girl band with the power manager-producer goes back further (yes, I'm a personal friend of the author, but this is an unsolicited endorsement!): Sherrie Tucker, Swing Shift: "All-Girl" Bands of the 1940s (ISBN: 0822324857). --MichaelTinkler

Indeed, and no-one who's seen Some Like It Hot can forget "Sweet Sue and her Society Syncopaters".

I just don't think of groups like that in the heading of "Girl Bands". The musicians written about in "Swing Shift" were exactly that: musicians. I mean, all the members of Led Zeppelin were male, but it didn't make them a boy band :) I suppose you could argue that people like The Andrews Sisters were the spiritual heirs of the Spice Girls, though.

 * Not all members of girl bands are talentless bimbos - some of them *can* actually sing and dance rather well and would probably feel quite comfortable in, say, a Broadway production or make a career singing backing for other acts. However, the girl bands from the 1940's were from an era when professional songwriters, arrangers, band leaders, and record producers applied the same production-line approach to virtually all popular music.  The distinction only really arose with the arrival of rock and roll and the tradition of the singer-songwriters, IMHO. However, if you do have information about the 40's girl groups, I can't see any reason not to add it here. --Robert Merkel
 * Oh, absolutely. And I wasn't trying to suggest you shouldn't; I was just explaining why I hadn't. -- GWO

Most of the 60s groups were highly talented. Most of the lead singers had pipes on them reminiscent of Bessie Smith, and they knew how to use them. On another note, I don't think the wall of sound typifies girl groups, so I'm going to try to modify that section. Trontonian

Does this title mean to include 'all women groups'? Then we would also be including The Slits, The Runaways, The Shaggs, Feminist Improvising Group, Fanny and others.... quercus robur 00:40 Feb 5, 2003 (UTC)

Why is this here instead of girl group, which is far more common, I think. It wins on google by about 20,000 hits. Tokerboy

Why is this article listed under soul music? There are lots of girl groups that are not soul music performers. RickK | Talk 06:11, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * Because there are two different meanings to the term girl group. It can mean any all-female pop band, but is also used very specifically to refer to a kind of early 60s girl groups (e.g. The Angels, The Shangri-las).  These girl groups were soul.
 * On a google search using quotes around "girl group", the top ten results include

 * Two totally unrelated
 * 5 appear to be specifically about early 60s groups
 * One more generally applying to any female pop band (usually rock, I think)
 * One is about both (this very Wikipedia article)
 * One is a list of cds, some of which are totally unrelated male singers, others fall in between the two uses

Tuf-Kat 06:39, Apr 2, 2004 (UTC)

Terminology (Girl group vs. Girl band)
What is the difference between a girl group and a girl band?? (This question was brought to my mind when I saw Zanimum's recent edit to Crystal (disambiguation). 66.32.247.47 23:36, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

See Template talk:Popmusic. Brianjd 07:30, 2004 Dec 13 (UTC)

Name of that band in Kill Bill: Volume I?
Yeah, I know'rit's a japanese band consistin' only of chicks in Kill Bill 1, but, hey...What's their EXACT name? I'm unsure, so I betted a wild-card at 5-6-7-8's. Anyone more..."renemberable", than me? With better memory, i.e.?--OleMurder 23:48, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
 * The 5.6.7.8's. - dcljr (talk) 04:22, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Things to Do
the article is kind of a mess. Things that would help:

A discussion of the relationship between girl groups and the Philly Soul sound of the 70s.

A streamlining of the discussion of 80s and 90s girl groups, and an effort to put it in some kind of context. Just listing groups that happened to be girl groups is not a helpful way to organize the article.

I'll try to get to these some day, but it'll take a while. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by NoahB (talk • contribs) 15:46, 30 December 2006 (UTC).

I agree about this article. It is a mess and has no citations for sources. What is the meaning of the Top Girl Groups section? It has random percentages of impact with no meaning behind the percentages or a source for these percentages. There are also weasel words in the final section that need to be corrected. TVguy85 09:52, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I wrote most of the final section; I reread it, and am not sure what weasel words you are talking about. Specifics would help. Could you provide some? Or better yet, make changes yourself?NoahB 02:13, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

 * All right, in the absence of any clear explanation of why the neutrality is disputed, I am going to remove the tag. Please don't put it back unless you are able to explain exactly what your objections are.  (Personally, I think there are problems with the article, but I don't agree that neutrality is one of them; but I am of course open to discussion on the matter.)  NoahB 15:04, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

The Term "Girl Groups"
The person(s) who wrote this article are obviously very young, and did not do their homework, either.

The term "girl groups" is used to describe the girl groups of the early to mid-1960s, such as The Shirelles, The Chiffons, Martha and The Vandellas, The Supremes, The Jaynetts, The Marvelettes, The Shangri-Las, The Orlons, The Angels, The Crystals, The Ronettes, The Murmaids, The Toys, The Dixie Cups and others. Some of these groups have been described in the article in brief, but they deserve MUCH more mention. Most of the article devotes itself to the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. This article is completely wrong, in other words, and is misleading to anyone who is reading it.

We are not talking about groups in the '40s, '50s, '70s, '80s, '90s, or after. The "Girl Group Era" is over, and it took place in the early to mid-1960s. Slater79 00:29, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

The girl group era was indeed in the 60s; however, the term is often used to refer to later groups who work in a similar vein -- TLC and Destiny's Child are both often referred to as girl groups, for example (and for obvious reasons.) If you'd like to add more info about earlier groups, that would be super, though. NoahB 13:39, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

 * Excuse me, but I don't see much of a genre there if you group up Ronettes and Destiny's Child in there. It needs a rewrite. --186.85.72.77 (talk) 09:52, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Real Sales of Best-Selling Female Groups
TLC ''Ooooooohhh.... On the TLC Tip:'' 6 million CrazySexyCool: 15 million http://archive.gulfnews.com/articles/06/07/01/10050737.html FanMail: 10 million 3D: 2 million Now and Forever, The Hits: 1 million Singles: 11 million Total: 45 Million

Destiny's Child Destiny's Child: 2 million copies The Writing's on the Wall: 13 million http://www.ticketnest.com/concert-tickets/Beyonce/index.php Survivor: 10 million 8 Days of Christmas: 1 million This Is The Remix: 500,000 copies Destiny Fulfilled: 6 million #1's: 3.5 million Singles: 16 million Total: 100 million???? impossible..

Spice Girls Spice: 23 million http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6251176.stm Spiceworld: 11 million Forever: 3 million Singles: 18.2 million Greatest Hits (not included in the total): 1.7 million Total: 55 million http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6246448.stm —Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.72.236.62 (talk) 20:35, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Best-Selling Groups??
It doesn't seem right.

Destiny's Child: Destiny's Child: 2 million copies worldwide The Writing's on the Wall: 13 million worldwide Survivor: 10 million copies worldwide 8 Days of Christmas: 500,000 copies This Is The Remix: 500,000 copies Destiny Fulfilled: 7 million copies worldwide #1's: 3 million copies worldwide 36 million

Spice Girls: Spice: 23 million worldwide Spiceworld: 15 million worldwide Forever: 1.4 million worldwide 39.4 million

How does DC3 have 100 million? That is a hoax!!! I think solo sales SHOULD NOT count (cough*Beyonce*cough).

Seriously Destiny's Child have NOT sold 100 million thats just crap. Spice Girls are the biggest selling female group. Not to mention the fact that they did it with less albums...

74.95.5.130 21:58, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

 * At the 2000 Brit awards, it stated that Spice Girls had sold 35.2 million albums. Therefore 39m is clearly inflated. As for the Destiny's Child 100 million, again, not possible. Music World Entertainment (their label) is reported to have sales of 100 million which is inclusive of Destiny's Child. Their 2007 report also specified that Destiny's Child was their biggest group wth sales of 60 million. Hence the reference was changed to this. Overall, from the current verifiable references, Spice Girls are not the biggest selling girl group. So please stop fictionalising the sales figures and go as per references. Maggott2000 03:25, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

The Brits were in 2000. The information is not very up to date. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.233.72.140 (talk) 21:53, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

^^^ Destiny Child hasn't sold over 60 million records..Its funny, in 2005 when the group performs survivor (You can look at the videos on Youtube). You can see when beyonce says "sold over ten million." She says over 50 million and in 2004. Its over 40 million..Clearly, there sales dont add up to 60 million records because they only sold 20 million singles and 34 million albums —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.252.95.253 (talk) 04:23, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

DESTINY'S CHILD NO.1
FIRST of all Destiny's Child has sold over 100 million records and when you are talking about sale they are not only talking about album sales that also is single sales you can go to KellyRowlandonline.com and it will be in front of your face and that web site that was made by Columbia Records and think they would know how many they sold and on top of that the World yes the World Music Awards would've not gave them award for being the The BEST SELLING FEMALE GROUP OF ALL TIME and that award show is base on records sales and for the record The Spice Girls FIRST album did not sale 23 million because the biggest selling album by a female group is TLC's Crazy,Sexy,Cool that sold 15 million copies worldwide and next in line is Destiny's Child album The Writing's on the wall which sold over 11 million worldwide. Spice girls last album did not even sale thats why they broke up hello there time was done.....i understand that you'll like the spice girls,but Destiny's Child are No.1 i mean every time one of them come on and t.v show they  say she is 1/3of the bestselling female group of all time no matter if its Kelly,Michelle,or Beyonc'e  I mean it was on VH1 when they did the girl group thing when the Dreamgirls movie was coming out they said it then the biggest selling female group Destiny's Child, and one more thing Destiny's Child left on top something NO GROUP HAS DONE!!!!!!!

Edit: They say that Nana Moskouri has sold over 300 million! HOAX!! So don't listen to Colombia, Universal etc. They make hoax everytime, and TV show say the same stupid things. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Special:Contributions/ (talk)

Edit: The Spice Girls FIRST album if sold 23 million copies and is the best-selling albums in history by a female group http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6251176.stm —Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.72.236.62 (talk) 19:55, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Sales
First of all, when you talk about sales, you don't count singles, or you say "total" with "X" single sales. Somebody has erased the details so I'll give you a link to see that they didn't sold 100 million. 100 million = More than David Bowie, Prince, the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Sting, Bob Marley, Genesis, Dyla, Mc Cartney etc come on! It's a hoax made by Columbia! Here you are, click on The spice girls and watch carefully, then on Destiny's child :

http://www.chartsinfrance.net/communaute/index.php?s=49309e465b998e634969362f20ceb1b6&showtopic=6523&st=0&start=0

Read and search for information before doing the fanboy/girl.

 * This can be done two ways, both being correct. The media reports the artist has sold xxx records, this is generally inclusive of albums and singles. Or they will report xxx albums, and xxx singles. So when talking sales, you 'can' be talking combined albums and singles Maggott2000 03:31, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

The Runaways
If the Bangles and the Go Go's are listed, why not The Runaways as well? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sheilamarie (talk • contribs) 23:36, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

I personally think The Bangles and The Go Go's should be removed from this list. Though you could argue that they had significant help from producers, I think they share more in common with the all-female rock bands that are specifically mentioned as not being Girl Groups. But I'm not a big Wikipedia contributer or anything so I'll just leave it to the people working on the page. -Kris Wright —Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.128.136.46 (talk) 01:34, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Terminology
This article seems to be claiming that "girl bands" play instruments and "girl groups" don't, but a moment's research with Google will show you that the term "girl band" is extremely widely used for vocal groups (Spice Girls, Girls Aloud etc. etc.); c.f. Boy band. Where did this idea come from? 86.134.53.136 (talk) 02:51, 4 March 2008 (UTC).
 * The term boyband was used in the UK music press in the 90s for cheesy teenybopper male vocal groups as it was part alliteration, part British sarcasm...as most members danced and didn't play any instruments. If they did they would have probably been seen more as a male/boy band..with that space/no space in the word boyband probably being an important factor in the confusion between girl bands and girl groups when trying to flip the gender and equating Fuzzbox with the Spice Girls.
 * — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.154.172.116 (talk • contribs) 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with Image:Supremes-a-go-go.jpg
The image Image:Supremes-a-go-go.jpg is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here. In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Please check

 * That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
 * That this article is linked to from the image description page.

This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Media copyright questions. --02:02, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Sugababes vs Girls Aloud
The article contradicts itself,

"In the UK, Sugababes formed in 1998, and have been named the most successful all-female act of the 21st century in the UK. They have achieved 7 #1 singles and sales of more than 5 million albums in the UK alone."

"However, in the UK, Popstars: the Rivals, Girls Aloud was formed in late 2002 and is still recording and performing together as a group to this day to widespread acclaim and success they are the only girlband to have 20 consecutive top 10 hits including 4 number ones, they are the decade's most successful girl group in the UK, selling over 5 million in 6 years."

Is there a difference between the terms 'all-female act' and 'girl group' ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by I teh yuh (talk • contribs) 16:17, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

GIRLS ALOUD SALES

ALBUMS

Sound of The Underground     : 335,000+ http://www.girlsaloud.org/music.php?go=sotu      (PLATINUM)

What Will The Neighbours Say? : 600,000+ http://www.girlsaloud.org/music.php?go=wwtns    (2X PLATINUM)

Chemistry                    : 375,000+ http://www.girlsaloud.org/music.php?go=chemistry (PLATINUM)

The Sound of Girls Aloud     : 950,000+ http://www.girlsaloud.org/music.php?go=soga      (3X PLATINUM)

Tangled Up                   : 420,000+ http://www.girlsaloud.org/music.php?go=tu        (PLATINUM)

Out of Control               : 650,000+ http://www.girlsaloud.org/music.php?go=ooc       (2X PLATINUM)

(Girls A Live)               : ~15,000  http://www.girlsaloud.org/music.php?go=ooc

ALBUM TOTALS: ~3,345,000+

SINGLES : http://www.girlsaloud.org/music.php?go=singles

Sound of The Underground : 600,000+ http://www.girlsaloud.org/music.php?go=singles/sotu (PLATINUM)

No Good Advice          : 123,000+ http://www.girlsaloud.org/music.php?go=singles/nga  (N/A)

Life Got Cold           :  85,000+ http://www.girlsaloud.org/music.php?go=singles/lgc  (N/A)

Jump                    : 200,000+ http://www.girlsaloud.org/music.php?go=singles/jump (SILVER)

The Show                :  90,000+ http://www.girlsaloud.org/music.php?go=singles/show (N/A)

Love Machine            : 150,000+ http://www.girlsaloud.org/music.php?go=singles/lm   (N/A)

I'll Stand By You       : 190,000+ http://www.girlsaloud.org/music.php?go=singles/isby (N/A)

Wake Me Up              :  66,000+ http://www.girlsaloud.org/music.php?go=singles/wmu  (N/A)

Long Hot Summer         :  52,000+ http://www.girlsaloud.org/music.php?go=singles/lhs  (N/A)

Biology                 : 120,000+ http://www.girlsaloud.org/music.php?go=singles/bio  (N/A)

See The Day             :  62,000+ http://www.girlsaloud.org/music.php?go=singles/std  (N/A)

Whole Lotta History     :  44,000+ http://www.girlsaloud.org/music.php?go=singles/wlh  (N/A)

Something Kinda Ooooh   : 185,000+ http://www.girlsaloud.org/music.php?go=singles/sko  (N/A)

I Think We're Alone Now :  74,000+ http://www.girlsaloud.org/music.php?go=singles/itwan(N/A)

Walk This Way           : 120,000+ http://www.girlsaloud.org/music.php?go=singles/wtw  (N/A)

Sexy! No No No... : 96,000+ http://www.girlsaloud.org/music.php?go=singles/snnn (N/A)

Call The Shots          : 240,000+ http://www.girlsaloud.org/music.php?go=singles/cts  (SILVER)

Can't Speak French      : 145,000+ http://www.girlsaloud.org/music.php?go=singles/csf  (N/A)

The Promise             : 400,000+ http://www.girlsaloud.org/music.php?go=singles/tp   (GOLD)

The Loving Kind         :  80,000+ http://www.girlsaloud.org/music.php?go=singles/tlk  (N/A)

SINGLE TOTALS: ~3,122,000+

GRAND TOTAL: ~6,467,000+

SUGABABES SALES

ALBUMS

One Touch               : 220,000+ (GOLD)

Angels With Dirty Faces : 916,000+ (3X PLATINUM)

Three                   : 855,000+ (3X PLATINUM)

Taller In More Ways     : 886,000+ (3X PLATINUM)

Overloaded              : 633,000+ (2X PLATINUM)

Change                  : 510,000+ (PLATINUM)

Catfights and Spotlights : 150,000+ (GOLD)

ALBUM TOTALS: ~4,170,000+

SINGLES : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugababes_discography

Overload          : 150,000+ (N/A)

New Year          :  75,000+ (N/A)

Run for Cover     :  58,000+ (N/A)

Soul Sound        :  10,000+ (N/A)

Freak Like Me     : 265,000+ (SILVER)

Round Round       : 250,000+ (SILVER)

Stronger          : 115,000+ (N/A)

Shape             :  42,000+ (N/A)

Hole In The Head  : 150,000+ (N/A)

Too Lost In You   :  86,000+ (N/A)

In The Middle     :  44,000+ (N/A)

Caught In A Moment : 32,000+ (N/A)

Push the Button   : 415,000+ (GOLD)

Ugly              : 132,000+ (SILVER)

Red Dress         :  74,000+ (N/A)

Follow Me Home    :  14,000+ (N/A)

Easy              :  37,000+ (N/A)

Walk This Way     : 120,000+ (N/A)

About You Now     : 453,000+ (GOLD)

Change            :  86,000+ (N/A)

Denial            :  78,000+ (N/A)

Girls             : 155,000+ (SILVER)

No Can Do         :  40,000+ (N/A)

SINGLE TOTALS: ~2,881,000+

GRAND TOTAL: ~7,051,000+

The Sugababes have sold ~600,000 more records than Girls Aloud, meaning they are this decade's best selling British girl band. —Preceding unsigned comment added by I teh yuh (talk • contribs) 17:39, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

The Saturdays should get a little more mention in the part about Europe girl groups in the 2000's. They are currently the only british Girl Group out right now. It doesn't have to be big maybe one or two senteces since they are at the top of the article —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.118.206.8 (talk) 17:10, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

mass removal of original research unsourced content
The article has been tagged for needing sources for content since 2007. I have gone through and removed the WP:OR / WP:V content. Active Banana    (bananaphone  15:35, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
 * with over 15000 potential sources, it should be realitively easy to build an article that meets the content requirements. Active Banana    (bananaphone  15:43, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Pussycat Dolls section amended
The 2000s section had a massive, 5-paragraph detailed description of the entire career, membership, singles and albums of the Pussycat Dolls. Basically, there was about five times more information on them than almost any other group, including the entire short little 1970's section! It had to be cut down, which I did.

On the other hand, the article completely ignored far more successful girl groups such as Wilson Philips, Destiny's Child and TLC!! Therefore, they were added into the 1980's-1990s section. --Mezaco (talk) 23:29, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Milestone groups not cited
Why no mention of the Go-Gos? Or for that matter the Lennon Sisters?99.2.69.235 (talk) 10:57, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

wtf
WHERE DID PUSSYCAT DOLLS GO?? — Preceding unsigned comment added by XHugoTheNerd (talk • contribs) 00:38, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
 * It went where it's supposed to go: gone. the pussycat Dolls were not some revolutionary group that changed the face of girl groups forever. At best they deserve an single line, and they certainly don't deserve a whole paragraph detailed every member change while pretending they were the best thing since sliced bread. DragonFury (talk) 22:43, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Page Expansion
Should the article be more in depth like the boyband one which features a 2010s section,key factors of the concept,music genres,controversy and 10 best selling girl groups table? This has really helped expand the boyband page and cover all aspects of the genre both pros/cons.

Is this for real?
At the History section it says, quote: "During the Music Hall/Vaudeville era, all-girl singing groups were mainly novelty acts singing nonsense songs in silly voices." - non-sense? silly voices!?. Masterpeace3 (talk) 00:24, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

The Term "Girl Groups", round two
Simply put: This needs a revamp and, most likely, some sort of split, and here is why.

Specialized music sites such as allmusic (1, 2, 3), Pitchfork (pardon me!), this site or (not useful for a source, but it does give you a general idea) Rate Your Music acknowledge the idea of "Girl Group" as a specific and separate genre with mainstream popularity peak around the apparent demise of rock and roll in the late 50s and before the so-called "British Invasion", and with influence and association not only to the format of "girl group" presented here but to an infinity of artists in rock music (whether it is The Beach Boys or Jesus and Mary Chain). It seems a little weird to think of these really closely associated (sonically) bands getting lumped in the same group as really disparate musicians (even between themselves) as TLC, Pussycat Dolls or Spice Girls. Sure, all of them are pop and sung by girls, but that's it. "Purist" sources such allmusic or RYM would have an issue grouping all of those acts together and having the apparently practical but actually misleading "infobox genre" next to it.

Ergo, I think we can make a distinction here of:

 * "Girl group", a pop music format of "several young female singers who generally harmonise together", present in most decades since the 50s, interchangeable with the term "(all-)female music group".
 * "Girl group", a specific pop music genre that incorporated specific elements of doo-wop, rock and roll, and (early) r&b, popular during the late 50s to mid 60s and with influence to the songwriting and sound of a myriad of bands, as well as credited for starting and popularizing the above mentioned format.

Therefore, I've decided to propose we split the contents of this article. This page can remain as describing the developments (mainstream, it seems) of girl groups as a format just as, say, "rock band" would (or renaming to "Girl group (format)" or "All-female group"? though I think it's easier to leave it like that), but it seems urgent to me to create a "Girl group (genre)" page to distinguish the style and its sound/influences/aftermath.

It also seems that this idea is already shared in the Girl groups category, and we could perhaps create a specific category for those bands, too. Thoughts? --186.85.72.77 (talk) 11:00, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

PS: About.com seems also as a good source that consolidates the idea of girl group as a specific form of pop music: http://oldies.about.com/od/girlgroups/Girl_Groups.htm (specifically, http://oldies.about.com/od/girlgroupsfaq/Girl_Group_Music_and_Artists_FAQ.htm and http://oldies.about.com/od/girlgroups/g/girlgroup.htm ). It also tends to associate it with Brill Building in the musical sense. --186.85.72.77 (talk) 11:10, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

 * I see no evidence or citations supporting this as a genre. There is a rush to label everything a genre even when they are nothing more then labels.  I further see no reason why the genre if there is one would need it's own separate article.  Find, develop, and source the information here if it exists. I have removed the split tag as it has been in place for 3 months with no interest. Ridernyc (talk) 18:20, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

It's not just "girl group" as being applied to 1) the classic-era girl groups such as the Ronettes etc. and 2) later female singing groups such as the Spice Girls, but also 3) earlier groups such as the Andrews Sisters. There's a whole para about those groups at the top of the History section.

There's no need for a split, but there are two meanings to the term "girl group": 1) young female singing groups generally, from the early 20th century (maybe even earlier, dunno) til now, and 2) the Ronettes and groups like that with a specific style that flourished in a specific brief period -- the heyday of the girl groups.

There's no reason why we can't include all this in one article, and a split would present naming problems -- what are you going to have, Girl group (general) and Girl group (1950s-1960s)? But if enough material is added, that might be called for. Anyway, I rewrote the lead to help clarify all this. (I removed some material because it wasn't really correct (it's not just the 50s-60s groups who had separate songwriters, high production values, and a designated lead singer) or in the interest of brevity. Discussion of my edits is welcome. Herostratus (talk) 06:06, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

 * Also K&J. The  Ja.Wikipedia looks well developed in demarcation (perhaps more so and with better WP:CSB than here).

 * IMO, any worthwhile/robust re-demarcation of this page will endeavour to coalesce with Ja and Ko.Wikipedia pages.  For the moment, all three pages (this, Ja & Ko) are about the same thing, just with a different perspective/foreground.

 * IMO, this page would far better WP:CSB with the addition of two+ short lead paragraphs on 20$th$C and 21$st$C Ja+Ko-influences/scene. – Ian, DjScrawl (talk) 11:21, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Changing tones away from sales/success
So while working on this article, I noticed a tendency to try to prove a certain group has been incredibly successful in sales and performances and longevity. I understand why this might be important in establishing notability for inclusion on the page, but it doesn't make this particularly informative article in regards to how girl groups came about and have since evolved. There is a greater context to the inclusion of women and girls in groups for musical performances and record sale numbers only gets us part of the way through in explaining that. I am asking for some help with re-writes on the 1990-present section to talk about the significance of having a series of mega-groups. I welcome anyone who would like to provide some input on the importance of Spice Girls' Girl Power mantra or the significance of having Girls Generation be some of the most influential figures in East Asia. Also, I've been trying to articulate the well-documented practices of girl groups singing songs penned by other people (often men or husband-wife duos).

After some thought, I am going to shift the Dance Pop era to 1994 to present, with the distinction being between self-formed groups and groups created through open auditions by professional manager and labels without initial input from members. Amiaheroyet (talk) 03:14, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Girl groups beyond the 1960s
Are there any reliable sources that actually define the term "girl group" beyond the phenomenon exemplified by groups like the Ronettes and the Andrews Sisters? I have no trouble seeing clear references to the 50s and 60s, but after that it seems to be rather hazy.

Peter Isotalo 12:56, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Sure, here's one.--Cattus talk 20:38, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

I am an old guy
so have perhaps an outdated notion of what this term, "Girl Group" might mean today but the current opening of the article is unacceptable. However before I start slash and burning it I want to give you a chance to step in and say or do something. Einar aka Carptrash (talk) 18:28, 2 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm assuming you have a problem with the term "harmonize"? Would you prefer "sing together"?--  Krystaleen  01:57, 3 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Be careful of making assumptions. i objected to some stuff about KARA that was almost immediately removed by an editor faster than I was at figuring out that it was some trash.  Us old guys understand harmonizing.  Though I do wonder when the term "girl groups" was first applied to the Andrews Sisters.  In my collection at home they are NOT in the "girl group" section. Carptrash (talk) 04:59, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

Which girl groups have sold >15million physical copies of their albums from 90s onwards?
Why does the intro say: "with eight groups debuting after 1990 having sold more than 15 million physical copies of their albums."

But which 8 groups have done that? Spice Girls, TLC, Destiny's Child, SWV(?), En Vogue (maybe?)....and? The modern groups don't seem to sell much physical copies, most of their sales comes from digital/streams. Does anyone know who all 8 groups are? Otherwise I'll change the sentence to something more vague/broad. Bennv3771 (talk) 05:52, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Girl group. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070306005858/http://magazine.music.yahoo.co.jp/rep/20061215_001/ to http://magazine.music.yahoo.co.jp/rep/20061215_001/

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 22:30, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Girl group. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://archive.is/20090421184343/http://www.baywindows.com/index.php?ch=arts&sc=music&sc2=news&sc3=&id=82622 to http://www.baywindows.com/index.php?ch=arts&sc=music&sc2=news&sc3=&id=82622
 * Added tag to http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20081110/news_1c10labelle.html
 * Added tag to http://www.timeout.com/chicago/articles/music/70370/the-ball-of-labelle

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 22:41, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on Girl group. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20150227112735/http://www.theshirelles.com/story.html to http://www.theshirelles.com/story.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20160413070240/https://storyofaphoenix.wordpress.com/2014/12/26/the-evolving-presence-of-feminism-and-women-in-rock-and-roll/ to https://storyofaphoenix.wordpress.com/2014/12/26/the-evolving-presence-of-feminism-and-women-in-rock-and-roll/

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 02:31, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

Infobox
Could someone please explain why this article has a music genre infobox? Girl groups are not a distinct music style, much less their own genre. The term, as I understand it, can refer to any act consisting entirely of female singers or vocalists. Although commonly associated with certain number of them, girl groups can perform any of a wide variety of genres (the article itself acknowledges this); they are not a music genre in their own right. Using a music genre infobox creates unintended implications: the light blue banner, intended solely for pop genres, would seem to indicate that every single girl group fits within the category of pop music (not to be confused with popular music), which of course is not true. Girl groups are such a broad category that it is dishonest to feature fields such as "typical instruments"—of the ones listed, which are actually utilized by most girl groups? It is likely only "vocals", and if it were trimmed to just that, the infobox would fail to convey anything about instruments that is not also true of virtually every non-instrumental music genre. Listing over twenty stylistic origins from more than eighty years demonstrates—when taken at face value—that there is nothing concrete about this supposed genre and that it has no consistent characteristics. It is evident to me, however, that this is actually a laundry list of every style that girl groups have been known to perform—this is not a problem when the template is used for actual genres. Ultimately, the main issue here is that a template intended to be used for distinct styles of music has been placed atop an article for an extremely broad range of acts that, in any given example, could be associated with many different genres. Girl groups can adopt different music styles; they are not themselves a music style, and there is no infobox that, music-wise, could ever meaningfully represent acts as disparate as the Andrews Sisters, Sister Sledge, and Morning Musume. It is for these reasons that I would opt to have the infobox removed. '''[[User:Life of Tau|Life ]][[User talk:Life of Tau|of ]]Tau''' 18:46, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
 * After more than 45 days with no objections, I have decided to boldly go forward with the removal of the infobox. I am more than happy to discuss the matter here with anyone who feels differently.  Life of Tau 05:11, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

title: Talk:Girl group


text:
Gomoku

Gomoku, also called Five in a Row, is an abstract strategy board game. It is traditionally played with Go pieces (black and white stones) on a 15×15 Go board while in the past a 19×19 board was standard. Because pieces are typically not moved or removed from the board, gomoku may also be played as a paper-and-pencil game. The game is known in several countries under different names.

Rules
Players alternate turns placing a stone of their color on an empty intersection. Black plays first. The winner is the first player to form an unbroken line of five stones of their color horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. In some rules, this line must be exactly five stones long; six or more stones in a row does not count as a win and is called an overline. If the board is completely filled and no one can make a line of 5 stones, then the game ends in a draw.

Origin
Historical records indicate that the origins of gomoku can be traced back to the mid-1700s during the Edo period. It is said that the 10th generation of Kuwanaya Buemon, a merchant who frequented the Nijō family, was highly skilled in this game, which subsequently spread among the people. By the late Edo period, around 1850, books had been published on gomoku. The earliest published book on gomoku that can be verified is the Gomoku Jōseki Collection (五石定磧集) in 1856.

The name "gomoku" is from the Japanese language, in which it is referred to as gomokunarabe (五目並べ). Go means 5|five, moku is a counter word for pieces and narabe means line-up. The game is popular in China, where it is called Wuziqi (五子棋). Wu (五 wǔ) means five, zi (子 zǐ) means piece, and qi (棋 qí) refers to a board game category in Chinese. The game is also popular in Korea, where it is called omok (오목 [五目]) which has the same structure and origin as the Japanese name.

In the nineteenth century, the game was introduced to Britain where it was known as Go Bang, said to be a corruption of the Japanese word goban, which was itself adapted from the Chinese k'i pan (qí pán) "go-board."

First-player advantage
Gomoku has a strong advantage for the first player when unrestricted.

Championships in gomoku previously used the "Pro" opening rule, which mandated that the first player place the first stone in the center of the board. The second player's stone placement was unrestricted. The first player's second stone had to be placed at least three intersections away from the first player's first stone. This rule was used in the 1989 and 1991 world championships. When the win–loss ratio of these two championships was calculated, the first player (black) won 67 percent of games.

This was deemed too unbalanced for tournament play, so tournament gomoku adopted the Swap2 opening protocol in 2009. In Swap2, the first player places three stones, two black and one white, on the board. The second player then selects one of three options: play as black, play as white and place another white stone, or place two more stones, one white and one black, and let the first player choose the color.

The win ratio of the first player has been calculated to be around 52 percent using the Swap2 opening protocol, greatly balancing the game and largely solving the first-player advantage.

Freestyle gomoku
Freestyle gomoku has no restrictions on either player and allows a player to win by creating a line of five or more stones, with each player alternating turns placing one stone at a time.

Swap after 1st move
The rule of "swap after 1st move" is a variant of the freestyle gomoku rule, and is mostly played in China. The game can be played on a 19×19 or 15×15 board. As per the rule, once the first player places a black stone on the board, the second player has the right to swap colors. The rest of the game proceeds as freestyle gomoku. This rule is set to balance the advantage of black in a simple way.

Renju
Black (the player who makes the first move) has long been known to have an advantage, even before L. Victor Allis proved that black can force a win (see below). Renju attempts to mitigate this imbalance with extra rules that aim to reduce black's first player advantage.

It is played on a 15×15 board, with the rules of three and three, four and four, and overlines applied to Black only. Renju also makes use of various tournament opening rules, such as Soosõrv-8, the current international standard.
 * The rule of three and three bans a move that simultaneously forms two open rows of three stones (rows not blocked by an opponent's stone at either end).
 * The rule of four and four bans a move that simultaneously forms two rows of four stones (open or not).
 * Overlines prevent a player from winning if they form a line of 6 or more stones.

Caro
In Caro, (also called gomoku+, popular among Vietnamese), the winner must have an overline or an unbroken row of five stones that is not blocked at either end (overlines are immune to this rule). This makes the game more balanced and provides more power for White to defend.

Omok
Omok is similar to Freestyle gomoku; however, it is played on a 19×19 board and includes the rule of three and three.

Ninuki-renju
Also called Wu, Ninuki Renju is a variant which adds capturing to the game; A pair of stones of the same color may be captured by the opponent by means of custodial capture (sandwiching a line of two stones lengthwise). The winner is the player either to make a perfect five in a row, or to capture five pairs of the opponent's stones. It uses a 15x15 board and the rules of three and three and overlines. It also allows the game to continue after a player has formed a row of five stones if their opponent can capture a pair across the line.

Pente
Pente is related to Ninuki-Renju, and has the same custodial capture method, but is most often played on a 19x19 board and does not use the rules of three and three, four and four, or overlines.

Tournament Opening Rules
Tournament rules are used in professional play to balance the game and mitigate the first player advantage. The tournament rule used for the gomoku world championships since 2009 is the Swap2 opening rule. For all of the following professional rules, an overline (six or more stones in a row) does not count as a win.

Pro
The first player's first stone must be placed in the center of the board. The second player's first stone may be placed anywhere on the board. The first player's second stone must be placed at least three intersections away from the first stone (two empty intersections in between the two stones).

Long Pro
The first player's first stone must be placed in the center of the board. The second player's first stone may be placed anywhere on the board. The first player's second stone must be placed at least four intersections away from the first stone (three empty intersections in between the two stones).

Swap
The tentative first player places three stones (two black, and one white) anywhere on the board. The tentative second player then chooses which color to play as. Play proceeds from there as normal with white playing their second stone.

Swap2
The tentative first player places three stones on the board, two black and one white. The tentative second player then has three options:

 * 1) They can choose to play as white and place a second white stone
 * 2) They can swap their color and choose to play as black
 * 3) Or they can place two more stones, one black and one white, and pass the choice of which color to play back to the tentative first player.

Because the tentative first player doesn't know where the tentative second player will place the additional stones if they take option 3, the swap2 opening protocol limits excessive studying of a line by only one of the players.

Theoretical generalizations
m,n,k-games are a generalization of gomoku to a board with m×n intersections, and k in a row needed to win. Connect Four is (7,6,4) with piece placement restricted to the lowest unoccupied place in a column.

Connect(m,n,k,p,q) games are another generalization of gomoku to a board with m×n intersections, k in a row needed to win, p stones for each player to place, and q stones for the first player to place for the first move only. In particular, Connect(m,n,6,2,1) is called Connect6.

Example game
This game on the 15×15 board is adapted from the paper "Go-Moku and Threat-Space Search".

The opening moves show clearly black's advantage. An open row of three (one that is not blocked by an opponent's stone at either end) has to be blocked immediately, or countered with a threat elsewhere on the board. If not blocked or countered, the open row of three will be extended to an open row of four, which threatens to win in two ways.

White has to block open rows of three at moves 10, 14, 16 and 20, but black only has to do so at move 9. Move 20 is a blunder for white (it should have been played next to black 19). Black can now force a win against any defense by white, starting with move 21.

There are two forcing sequences for black, depending on whether white 22 is played next to black 15 or black 21. The diagram on the right shows the first sequence. All the moves for white are forced. Such long forcing sequences are typical in gomoku, and expert players can read out forcing sequences of 20 to 40 moves rapidly and accurately.

The diagram on the right shows the second forcing sequence. This diagram shows why white 20 was a blunder; if it had been next to black 19 (at the position of move 32 in this diagram) then black 31 would not be a threat and so the forcing sequence would fail.

World championships
World Gomoku Championships have occurred 2 times in 1989, 1991. Since 2009 tournament play has resumed, with the opening rule changed to swap2.

List of the tournaments occurred and title holders follows.

Computers and gomoku
Researchers have been applying artificial intelligence techniques on playing gomoku for several decades. Joseph Weizenbaum published a short paper in Datamation in 1962 entitled "How to Make a Computer Appear Intelligent" that described the strategy used in a gomoku program that could beat novice players. In 1994, L. Victor Allis raised the algorithm of proof-number search (pn-search) and dependency-based search (db-search), and proved that when starting from an empty 15×15 board, the first player has a winning strategy using these searching algorithms. This applies to both free-style gomoku and standard gomoku without any opening rules. It seems very likely that black wins on larger boards too. In any size of a board, freestyle gomoku is an m,n,k-game, hence it is known that the first player can force a win or a draw. In 2001, Allis's winning strategy was also approved for renju, a variation of gomoku, when there was no limitation on the opening stage.

However, neither the theoretical values of all legal positions, nor the opening rules such as Swap2 used by the professional gomoku players have been solved yet, so the topic of gomoku artificial intelligence is still a challenge for computer scientists, such as the problem on how to improve the gomoku algorithms to make them more strategic and competitive. Nowadays, most of the state-of-the-art gomoku algorithms are based on the alpha-beta pruning framework.

Reisch proved that Generalized gomoku is PSPACE-complete. He also observed that the reduction can be adapted to the rules of k-in-a-Row for fixed k. Although he did not specify exactly which values of k are allowed, the reduction would appear to generalize to any k ≥ 5.

There exist several well-known tournaments for gomoku programs since 1989. The Computer Olympiad started with the gomoku game in 1989, but gomoku has not been in the list since 1993. The Renju World Computer Championship was started in 1991, and held for 4 times until 2004. The Gomocup tournament is played since 2000 and taking place every year, still active now, with more than 30 participants from about 10 countries. The Hungarian Computer Go-Moku Tournament was also played twice in 2005. There were also two Computer vs. Human tournaments played in the Czech Republic, in 2006 and 2011. Not until 2017 were the computer programs proved to be able to outperform the world human champion in public competitions. In the Gomoku World Championship 2017, there was a match between the world champion program Yixin and the world champion human player Rudolf Dupszki. Yixin won the match with a score of 2–0.

In popular culture
Gomoku was featured in a 2018 Korean drama by Baek Seung-Hwa starring Park Se-wan. The film follows Baduk Lee (Park Se-wan), a former go prodigy who retired after a humiliating loss on time. Years later, Baduk Lee works part time at a go club, where she meets Ahn Kyung Kim, who introduces her to an Omok (Korean gomoku) tournament. Lee is initially uninterested and considers Omok a children's game, but after her roommate loses money on an impulse purchase, she enters the tournament for the prize money and loses badly, being humiliated once again. Afterwards, she begins training to redeem herself and becomes a serious omok player.

In the video game Vintage Story omok boards and pieces (made of gold and lead) can occasionally be found in ruins or as part of luxury traders' inventory. The board and pieces are functional, allowing players to have actual omok matches. In-universe, omok is so far the only game surviving from the times before the Rot.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Gomoku


text:
Gegenschein

Gegenschein (lit. 'counter-shine') or counterglow is a faintly bright spot in the night sky centered at the antisolar point. The backscatter of sunlight by interplanetary dust causes this optical phenomenon, being a zodiacal light and part of its zodiacal light band.

Explanation
Like zodiacal light, gegenschein is sunlight scattered by interplanetary dust. Most of this dust orbits the Sun near the ecliptic plane, with a possible concentration of particles centered at the point of the Earth–Sun system.

Gegenschein is distinguished from zodiacal light by its high angle of reflection of the incident sunlight on the dust particles. It forms a slightly brighter elliptical spot of 8–10° across directly opposite the Sun within the dimmer band of zodiacal light and zodiac constellation. The intensity of the gegenschein is relatively enhanced because each dust particle is seen at full phase, having a difficult to measure apparent magnitude of +5 to +6, with a very low surface brightness in the +10 to +12 magnitude range.

History
It is commonly stated that the gegenschein was first described by the French Jesuit astronomer and professor (1692–1776) in 1730. Further observations were supposedly made by the German explorer Alexander von Humboldt during his South American journey from 1799 to 1803. It was Humboldt who first used the German term Gegenschein. However, research conducted in 2021 by Texas State University astronomer and professor Donald Olson discovered that the Danish astronomer Theodor Brorsen was actually the first person to observe and describe one in 1854, although Brorsen had thought that Pézenas had observed it first. Olson believes what Pézenas actually observed was an auroral event, as he described the phenomenon as having a red glow; Olson found many other reports of auroral activity from around Europe and Asia on the same date Pézenas made his observation. Humboldt's report instead described glowing triangular patches on both the western and eastern horizons shortly after sunset, while true gegenschein is most visible near local midnight when it is highest in the sky.

Brorsen published the first thorough investigations of the gegenschein in 1854. T. W. Backhouse discovered it independently in 1876, as did Edward Emerson Barnard in 1882. In modern times, the gegenschein is not visible in most inhabited regions of the world due to light pollution.

title: Gegenschein


text:
Glyph

A glyph is any kind of purposeful mark. In typography, a glyph is "the specific shape, design, or representation of a character". It is a particular graphical representation, in a particular typeface, of an element of written language. A grapheme, or part of a grapheme (such as a diacritic), or sometimes several graphemes in combination (a composed glyph) can be represented by a glyph.

Glyphs, graphemes and characters
In most languages written in any variety of the Latin alphabet except English, the use of diacritics to signify a sound mutation is common. For example, the grapheme $⟨a⟩$ requires two glyphs: the basic a and the grave accent `. In general, a diacritic is regarded as a glyph, even if it is contiguous with the rest of the character like a cedilla in French, Catalan or Portuguese, the ogonek in several languages, or the stroke on a Polish "Ł". Although these marks originally had no independent meaning, they have since acquired meaning in the field of mathematics and computing, for instance.

Conversely, in the languages of Western Europe, the dot on a lower-case $⟨e⟩$ is not a glyph in itself because it does not convey any distinction, and an $⟨t⟩$ in which the dot has been accidentally omitted is still likely to be recognized correctly. However, in Turkish and adjacent languages, this dot is a glyph because that language has two distinct versions of the letter i, İ|with and without a dot.

In Japanese syllabaries, some of the characters are made up of more than one separate mark, but in general these separate marks are not glyphs because they have no meaning by themselves. However, in some cases, additional marks fulfil the role of diacritics, to differentiate distinct characters. Such additional marks constitute glyphs.

Some characters such as "æ" in Icelandic and the "ß" in German may be regarded as glyphs. They were originally typographic ligatures, but over time have become characters in their own right; these languages treat them as unique letters. However, a ligature such as "fi", that is treated in some typefaces as a single unit, is arguably not a glyph as this is just a design choice of that typeface, essentially an allographic feature, and includes more than one grapheme. In normal handwriting, even long words are often written "joined up", without the pen leaving the paper, and the form of each written letter will often vary depending on which letters precede and follow it, but that does not make the whole word into a single glyph.

Older models of typewriters required the use of multiple glyphs to depict a single character, as an overstruck apostrophe and period to create an exclamation mark. If there is more than one allograph of a unit of writing, and the choice between them depends on context or on the preference of the author, they now have to be treated as separate glyphs, because mechanical arrangements have to be available to differentiate between them and to print whichever of them is required.

In computing as well as typography, the term "character" refers to a grapheme or grapheme-like unit of text, as found in natural language writing systems (scripts). In typography and computing, the range of graphemes is broader than in a written language in other ways too: a typeface often has to cope with a range of different languages each of which contribute their own graphemes, and it may also be required to print non-linguistic symbols such as dingbats. The range of glyphs required increases correspondingly. In summary, in typography and computing, a glyph is a graphical unit.

title: Glyph


text:
Goth subculture

Goth is a music-based subculture that began in the United Kingdom during the early 1980s. It was developed by fans of gothic rock, an offshoot of the post-punk music genre. Post-punk artists who presaged the gothic rock genre and helped develop and shape the subculture include Siouxsie and the Banshees, Bauhaus, the Cure, and Joy Division.

The goth subculture has survived much longer than others of the same era, and has continued to diversify and spread throughout the world. Its imagery and cultural proclivities indicate influences from 19th-century Gothic fiction and from horror films. The scene is centered on music festivals, nightclubs, and organized meetings, especially in Western Europe. The subculture has associated tastes in music, aesthetics, and fashion.

The music preferred by goths includes a number of styles such as gothic rock, death rock, cold wave, dark wave, and ethereal wave. The Gothic fashion style draws influences from punk, new wave, New Romantic fashion and the dressing styles of earlier periods such as the Victorian, Edwardian, and Belle Époque eras. The style most often includes dark (usually solid black) attire, dark makeup, and black hair.

Origins and development
The term gothic rock was coined by music critic John Stickney in 1967 to describe a meeting he had with Jim Morrison in a dimly lit wine-cellar, which he called "the perfect room to honor the Gothic rock of the Doors". That same year, the Velvet Underground song "All Tomorrow's Parties" created a kind of "mesmerizing gothic-rock masterpiece" according to music historian Kurt Loder. In the late 1970s, the gothic adjective was used to describe the atmosphere of post-punk bands such as Siouxsie and the Banshees, Magazine, and Joy Division. In a live review about a Siouxsie and the Banshees' concert in July 1978, critic Nick Kent wrote, concerning their music, "[P]arallels and comparisons can now be drawn with gothic rock architects like the Doors and, certainly, early Velvet Underground". In March 1979, in his review of Magazine's second album Secondhand Daylight, Kent noted there was "a new austere sense of authority" in the music, with a "dank neo-Gothic sound". Later that year, the term was also used by Joy Division's manager, Tony Wilson on 15 September in an interview for the BBC TV programme's Something Else. Wilson described Joy Division as "gothic" compared to the pop mainstream, right before a live performance of the band. The term was later applied to "newer bands such as Bauhaus who had arrived in the wake of Joy Division and Siouxsie and the Banshees". Bauhaus's first single issued in 1979, "Bela Lugosi's Dead", is generally credited as the starting point of the gothic rock genre.

In 1979, Sounds described Joy Division as "Gothic" and "theatrical". In February 1980, Melody Maker qualified the same band as "masters of this Gothic gloom". Critic Jon Savage would later say that their singer Ian Curtis wrote "the definitive Northern Gothic statement". However, it was not until the early 1980s that gothic rock became a coherent music subgenre within post-punk, and followers of these bands started to come together as a distinctly recognizable movement. They may have taken the "goth" mantle from a 1981 article published in UK rock weekly Sounds: "The face of Punk Gothique", written by Steve Keaton. In a text about the audience of UK Decay, Keaton asked: "Could this be the coming of Punk Gothique? With Bauhaus flying in on similar wings could it be the next big thing?" The F Club night in Leeds in Northern England, which had opened in 1977 firstly as a punk club, became instrumental to the development of the goth subculture in the 1980s. In July 1982, the opening of the Batcave in London's Soho provided a prominent meeting point for the emerging scene, which would be briefly labelled "positive punk" by the NME in a special issue with a front cover in early 1983. The term Batcaver was then used to describe old-school goths.

Outside the British scene, deathrock developed in California during the late 1970s and early 1980s as a distinct branch of American punk rock, with acts such as Christian Death, Kommunity FK and 45 Grave at the forefront.

Gothic genre
The bands that defined and embraced the gothic rock genre included Bauhaus, early Adam and the Ants, the Cure, the Birthday Party, Southern Death Cult, Specimen, Sex Gang Children, UK Decay, Virgin Prunes, Killing Joke, and the Damned. Near the peak of this first generation of the gothic scene in 1983, The Face Paul Rambali recalled "several strong Gothic characteristics" in the music of Joy Division. In 1984, Joy Division's bassist Peter Hook named Play Dead as one of their heirs: "If you listen to a band like Play Dead, who I really like, Joy Division played similar music to Play Dead."

By the mid-1980s, bands began proliferating and became increasingly popular, including the Sisters of Mercy, the Mission, Alien Sex Fiend, the March Violets, Xmal Deutschland, the Membranes, and Fields of the Nephilim. Record labels like Factory, 4AD and Beggars Banquet released much of this music in Europe, and through a vibrant import music market in the US, the subculture grew, especially in New York and Los Angeles, California, where many nightclubs featured "gothic/industrial" nights and bands like Black Tape for a Blue Girl, Theatre of Ice, Human Drama and The Wake became key figures for the genre to expand on an nationwide level. The popularity of 4AD bands resulted in the creation of similar US labels, such as Wax Trax! Records and Projekt.

The 1990s saw further growth for some 1980s bands and the emergence of many new acts, as well as new goth-centric US record labels such as Cleopatra Records, among others. According to Dave Simpson of The Guardian, "[I]n the 90s, goths all but disappeared as dance music became the dominant youth cult". As a result, the goth movement went underground and fractured into cyber goth, shock rock, industrial metal, gothic metal, and Medieval folk metal. Marilyn Manson was seen as a "goth-shock icon" by Spin.

In 1993, Jack Off Jill's front woman Jessicka coined the term Riot Goth to define music and aesthetics that were similar to riotgrrrl – bloody babydoll dresses and songs that addressed issues such as abuse, selfharm, depression and feminism. Jack Off Jill is referred to as "legendary" by Alternative Press and "cult heroes" by The Guardian.

Art, historical and cultural influences
The Goth subculture of the 1980s drew inspiration from a variety of sources. Some of them were modern or contemporary, others were centuries-old or ancient. Michael Bibby and Lauren M. E. Goodlad liken the subculture to a bricolage. Among the music-subcultures that influenced it were punk, new wave, and glam. But it also drew inspiration from B-movies, Gothic literature, horror films, vampire cults and traditional mythology. Among the mythologies that proved influential in Goth were Celtic mythology, Christian mythology, Egyptian mythology, and various traditions of Paganism.

The figures that the movement counted among its historic canon of ancestors were equally diverse. They included the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), Comte de Lautréamont (1846–1870), Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) and Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980). Writers that have had a significant influence on the movement also represent a diverse canon. They include Ann Radcliffe (1764–1823), John William Polidori (1795–1821), Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849), Sheridan Le Fanu (1814–1873), Bram Stoker (1847–1912), Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937), Anne Rice (1941–2021), William Gibson (1948–present), Ian McEwan (1948–present), Storm Constantine (1956–2021), and Poppy Z. Brite (1967–present).

18th and 19th centuries

Gothic literature is a genre of fiction that combines romance and dark elements to produce mystery, suspense, terror, horror and the supernatural. According to David H. Richter, settings were framed to take place at "...ruinous castles, gloomy churchyards, claustrophobic monasteries, and lonely mountain roads". Typical characters consisted of the cruel parent, sinister priest, courageous victor, and the helpless heroine, along with supernatural figures such as demons, vampires, ghosts, and monsters. Often, the plot focused on characters ill-fated, internally conflicted, and innocently victimized by harassing malicious figures. In addition to the dismal plot focuses, the literary tradition of the gothic was to also focus on individual characters that were gradually going insane.

English author Horace Walpole, with his 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto is one of the first writers who explored this genre. The American Revolutionary War-era "American Gothic" story of the Headless Horseman, immortalized in "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" (published in 1820) by Washington Irving, marked the arrival in the New World of dark, romantic storytelling. The tale was composed by Irving while he was living in England, and was based on popular tales told by colonial Dutch settlers of the Hudson Valley, New York. The story would be adapted to film in 1922, in 1949 as the animated The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, and again in 1999.

Throughout the evolution of the goth subculture, classic Romantic, Gothic and horror literature has played a significant role. E. T. A. Hoffmann (1776–1822), Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849), Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867), H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937), and other tragic and Romantic writers have become as emblematic of the subculture as the use of dark eyeliner or dressing in black. Baudelaire, in fact, in his preface to Les Fleurs du mal (Flowers of Evil) penned lines that could serve as a sort of goth malediction:

''C'est l'Ennui! —l'œil chargé d'un pleur involontaire,'' Il rêve d'échafauds en fumant son houka. Tu le connais, lecteur, ce monstre délicat, —Hypocrite lecteur,—mon semblable,—mon frère!

It is Boredom! — an eye brimming with an involuntary tear, He dreams of the gallows while smoking his water-pipe. You know him, reader, this delicate monster, —Hypocrite reader,—my twin,—my brother!

Visual art influences

The gothic subculture has influenced different artists—not only musicians—but also painters and photographers. In particular their work is based on mystic, morbid and romantic motifs. In photography and painting the spectrum varies from erotic artwork to romantic images of vampires or ghosts. There is a marked preference for dark colours and sentiments, similar to Gothic fiction. At the end of the 19th century, painters like John Everett Millais and John Ruskin invented a new kind of Gothic.

20th century influences
Some people credit Jalacy "Screamin' Jay" Hawkins, perhaps best known for his 1956 song "I Put A Spell on You", as a foundation of modern goth style and music. Some people credit the band Bauhaus' first single "Bela Lugosi's Dead", released in August 1979, with the start of goth subculture.

In the early 90s, Jack Off Jill, fronted by vocalist Jessicka, pioneered the 'Riot Goth' sound, combining elements of the goth and riot grrrl genres. Through their lyrics, the band tackled issues such as misogyny and racism, giving them significant underground appeal.

21st century influences
The British sitcom The IT Crowd featured a recurring goth character named Richmond Avenal, played by Noel Fielding. Fielding said in an interview that he himself had been a goth at age fifteen and that he had a series of goth girlfriends. This was the first time he dabbled in makeup. Fielding said that he loved his girlfriends dressing him up.

The game Visigoths vs. Mall Goths (2020) by Lucian Kahn is about "two versions of Goths – the ancient Roman peoples and the black-clad teenagers" and is set in LA in the 1990s.

Icons
Goth icons include several bandleaders: Siouxsie Sioux, of Siouxsie and the Banshees; Robert Smith, of the Cure; Peter Murphy, of Bauhaus; Dave Vanian, of The Damned; Rozz Williams, of Christian Death; Olli Wisdom, leader of the band Specimen and keyboardist Jonathan Melton aka Jonny Slut, who evolved the Batcave style. Nick Cave was dubbed as "the grand lord of gothic lushness".

Influences
One female role model is Theda Bara, the 1910s femme fatale known for her dark eyeshadow. In 1977, Karl Lagerfeld hosted the Soirée Moratoire Noir party, specifying "tenue tragique noire absolument obligatoire" (black tragic dress absolutely required). The event included elements associated with leatherman style.

Siouxsie Sioux was particularly influential on the dress style of the gothic rock scene; Paul Morley of NME described Siouxsie and the Banshees' 1980 gig at Futurama: "[Siouxsie was] modeling her newest outfit, the one that will influence how all the girls dress over the next few months. About half the girls at Leeds had used Sioux as a basis for their appearance, hair to ankle". Robert Smith, Musidora, Bela Lugosi, Bettie Page, Vampira, Morticia Addams, Nico, Rozz Williams, David Bowie and Lux Interior are also style icons.

The 1980s established designers such as Drew Bernstein of Lip Service, and the 1990s saw a surge of US-based gothic fashion designers, many of whom continue to evolve the style to the present day. Style magazines such as Gothic Beauty have given repeat features to a select few gothic fashion designers who began their labels in the 1990s, such as Kambriel, Rose Mortem, and Tyler Ondine of Heavy Red.

American model Gabbriette who has been known for her goth aesthetic, has been at the forefront of what has been dubbed the "Succubus Chic" trend of 2023.

Styling
Gothic fashion is marked by conspicuously dark, antiquated and homogeneous features. It is stereotyped as eerie, mysterious, complex and exotic. A dark, sometimes morbid fashion and style of dress, typical gothic fashion includes colored black hair and black period-styled clothing. Both male and female goths can wear dark eyeliner and dark fingernail polish, most especially black. Styles are often borrowed from punk fashion and—more currently—from the Victorian and Elizabethan periods. It also frequently expresses pagan, occult or other religious imagery. Gothic fashion and styling may also feature silver jewelry and piercings.

Ted Polhemus described goth fashion as a "profusion of black velvets, lace, fishnets and leather tinged with scarlet or purple, accessorized with tightly laced corsets, gloves, precarious stilettos and silver jewelry depicting religious or occult themes". Of the male "goth look", goth historian Pete Scathe draws a distinction between the Sid Vicious archetype of black spiky hair and black leather jacket in contrast to the gender ambiguous individuals wearing makeup. The first is the early goth gig-going look, which was essentially punk, whereas the second evolved into the Batcave nightclub look. Early goth gigs were often very hectic affairs, and the audience dressed accordingly.

In contrast to the LARP-based Victorian and Elizabethan pomposity of the 2000s, the more Romantic side of 1980s trad-goth—mainly represented by women—was characterized by new wave/post-punk-oriented hairstyles (both long and short, partly shaved and teased) and street-compliant clothing, including black frill blouses, midi dresses or tea-length skirts, and floral lace tights, Dr. Martens, spike heels (pumps), and pointed toe buckle boots (winklepickers), sometimes supplemented with accessories such as bracelets, chokers and bib necklaces. This style, retroactively referred to as Ethergoth, took its inspiration from Siouxsie Sioux and mid-1980s musicians from the 4AD roster like Elizabeth Fraser and Lisa Gerrard.

The New York Times noted: "The costumes and ornaments are a glamorous cover for the genre's somber themes. In the world of Goth, nature itself lurks as a malign protagonist, causing flesh to rot, rivers to flood, monuments to crumble and women to turn into slatterns, their hair streaming and lipstick askew".

Cintra Wilson declares that the origins of the dark romantic style are found in the "Victorian cult of mourning". Valerie Steele is an expert in the history of the style.

Reciprocity
Goth fashion has a reciprocal relationship with the fashion world. In the later part of the first decade of the 21st century, designers such as Alexander McQueen, Anna Sui, Rick Owens, Gareth Pugh, Ann Demeulemeester, Philipp Plein, Hedi Slimane, John Richmond, John Galliano,   Olivier Theyskens and Yohji Yamamoto brought elements of goth to runways. This was described as "Haute Goth" by Cintra Wilson in the New York Times.

Thierry Mugler, Claude Montana, Jean Paul Gaultier and Christian Lacroix have also been associated with the fashion trend. In Spring 2004, Riccardo Tisci, Jean Paul Gaultier, Raf Simons and Stefano Pilati dressed their models as "glamorous ghouls dressed in form-fitting suits and coal-tinted cocktail dresses". Swedish designer Helena Horstedt and jewelry artist Hanna Hedman also practice a goth aesthetic.

Films and television
Some of the early gothic rock and deathrock artists adopted traditional horror film images and drew on horror film soundtracks for inspiration. Their audience responded by adopting appropriate dress and props. Use of standard horror film props such as swirling smoke, rubber bats, and cobwebs featured as gothic club décor from the beginning in The Batcave. Such references in bands' music and images were originally tongue-in-cheek, but as time went on, bands and members of the subculture took the connection more seriously. As a result, morbid, supernatural and occult themes became more noticeably serious in the subculture. The interconnection between horror and goth was highlighted in its early days by The Hunger, a 1983 vampire film starring David Bowie, Catherine Deneuve and Susan Sarandon. The film featured gothic rock group Bauhaus performing Bela Lugosi's Dead in a nightclub. Tim Burton created a storybook atmosphere filled with darkness and shadow in some of his films like Beetlejuice (1988), Batman (1989), Edward Scissorhands (1990), Batman Returns (1992) and the stop motion films The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), which was produced/co-written by Burton, and Corpse Bride (2005), which he co-produced. The Nickelodeon cartoon Invader Zim is also based on the goth subculture.

As the subculture became well-established, the connection between goth and horror fiction became almost a cliché, with goths quite likely to appear as characters in horror novels and film. For example, The Craft, The Crow, The Matrix and Underworld film series drew directly on goth music and style. The dark comedies Beetlejuice, The Faculty, American Beauty, Wedding Crashers, and a few episodes of the animated TV show South Park portray or parody the goth subculture. In South Park, several of the fictional schoolchildren are depicted as goths. The goth kids on the show are depicted as finding it annoying to be confused with the Hot Topic "vampire" kids from the episode "The Ungroundable" in season 12, and even more frustrating to be compared with emo kids. The goth kids are usually depicted listening to gothic music, writing or reading Gothic poetry, drinking coffee, flipping their hair, and smoking.

Morticia Addams from The Addams Family created by Charles Addams is a fictional character and the mother in the Addams Family. Morticia was played by Carolyn Jones in the 1964 television show The Addams Family and by Anjelica Huston in the 1991 version, and voiced by Charlize Theron in 2019 animated film.

A recurring sketch in the 1990s on NBC's Saturday Night Live was Goth Talk, in which a public access channel broadcast hosted by unpopular young goths would continually be interrupted by the more "normal" kids in school. The sketch featured series regulars Will Ferrell, Molly Shannon, and Chris Kattan.

Books and magazines
A prominent American literary influence on the gothic scene was provided by Anne Rice's re-imagining of the vampire in 1976. In The Vampire Chronicles, Rice's characters were depicted as self-tormentors who struggled with alienation, loneliness, and the human condition. Not only did the characters torment themselves, but they also depicted a surreal world that focused on uncovering its splendour. These Chronicles assumed goth attitudes, but they were not intentionally created to represent the gothic subculture. Their romance, beauty, and erotic appeal attracted many goth readers, making her works popular from the 1980s through the 1990s. While Goth has embraced Vampire literature both in its 19th century form and in its later incarnations, Rice's postmodern take on the vampire mythos has had a "special resonance" in the subculture. Her vampire novels feature intense emotions, period clothing, and "cultured decadence". Her vampires are socially alienated monsters, but they are also stunningly attractive. Rice's goth readers tend to envision themselves in much the same terms and view characters like Lestat de Lioncourt as role models.

Richard Wright's novel Native Son contains gothic imagery and themes that demonstrate the links between blackness and the gothic; themes and images of "premonitions, curses, prophecies, spells, veils, demonic possessions, graves, skeletons" are present, suggesting gothic influence. Other classic themes of the gothic are present in the novel, such as transgression and unstable identities of race, class, gender, and nationality.

The re-imagining of the vampire continued with the release of Poppy Z. Brite's book Lost Souls in October 1992. Despite the fact that Brite's first novel was criticized by some mainstream sources for allegedly "lack[ing] a moral center: neither terrifyingly malevolent supernatural creatures nor (like Anne Rice's protagonists) tortured souls torn between good and evil, these vampires simply add blood-drinking to the amoral panoply of drug abuse, problem drinking and empty sex practiced by their human counterparts", many of these so-called "human counterparts" identified with the teen angst and goth music references therein, keeping the book in print. Upon release of a special 10th anniversary edition of Lost Souls, Publishers Weekly—the same periodical that criticized the novel's "amorality" a decade prior—deemed it a "modern horror classic" and acknowledged that Brite established a "cult audience".

The 2002 release 21st Century Goth by Mick Mercer, an author, noted music journalist and leading historian of gothic rock,  explored the modern state of the goth scene around the world, including South America, Japan, and mainland Asia. His previous 1997 release, Hex Files: The Goth Bible, similarly took an international look at the subculture.

In the US, Propaganda was a gothic subculture magazine founded in 1982. In Italy, Ver Sacrum covers the Italian goth scene, including fashion, sexuality, music, art and literature. Some magazines, such as the now-defunct Dark Realms and Goth Is Dead included goth fiction and poetry. Other magazines cover fashion (e.g., Gothic Beauty); music (e.g., Severance) or culture and lifestyle (e.g., Althaus e-zine).

On 31 October 2011, ECW Press published the Encyclopedia Gothica written by author and poet Liisa Ladouceur with illustrations done by Gary Pullin. This non-fiction book describes over 600 words and phrases relevant to Goth subculture.

Brian Craddock's 2017 novel Eucalyptus Goth charts a year in the life of a household of 20-somethings in Brisbane, Australia. The central characters are deeply entrenched in the local gothic subculture, with the book exploring themes relevant to the characters, notably unemployment, mental health, politics, and relationships.

In 2023, several books about the music genre and the subculture, were released. John Robb's The Art of Darkness: The History of Goth was hailed in The Times as a "new magestrial survey", and Cathi Unsworth's Season of the Witch: The Book of Goth was praised in Mojo as a "superb history of the dark and all its risings".

Graphic art
Visual contemporary graphic artists with this aesthetic include Gerald Brom, Dave McKean, and Trevor Brown as well as illustrators Edward Gorey, Charles Addams, Lorin Morgan-Richards, and James O'Barr. The artwork of Polish surrealist painter Zdzisław Beksiński is often described as gothic. British artist Anne Sudworth published a book on gothic art in 2007.

Events
There are large annual goth-themed festivals in Germany, including Wave-Gotik-Treffen in Leipzig and M'era Luna in Hildesheim, both annually attracting tens of thousands of people. Castle Party is the biggest goth festival in Poland.

Interior design
In the 1980s, goths decorated their walls and ceilings with black fabrics and accessories like rosaries, crosses and plastic roses. Black furniture and cemetery-related objects such as candlesticks, death lanterns and skulls were also part of their interior design. In the 1990s, the interior design approach of the 1980s was replaced by a less macabre style.

Gender and sexuality
Since the late 1970s, the UK goth scene refused "traditional standards of sexual propriety" and accepted and celebrated "unusual, bizarre or deviant sexual practices". In the 2000s, many members "claim overlapping memberships in the queer, polyamorous, bondage-discipline/sadomasochism, and pagan communities".

Though sexual empowerment is not unique to women in the goth scene, it remains an important part of many goth women's experience: The scene's "celebration of active sexuality" enables goth women to "resist mainstream notions of passive femininity". They have an "active sexuality" approach which creates "gender egalitarianism" within the scene, as it "allows them to engage in sexual play with multiple partners while sidestepping most of the stigma and dangers that women who engage in such behavior" outside the scene frequently incur, while continuing to "see themselves as strong".

Men dress up in an androgynous way: "Men 'gender blend,' wearing makeup and skirts". In contrast, the "women are dressed in sexy feminine outfits" that are "highly sexualized" and which often combine "corsets with short skirts and fishnet stockings". Androgyny is common among the scene: "androgyny in Goth subcultural style often disguises or even functions to reinforce conventional gender roles". It was only "valorised" for male goths, who adopt a "feminine" appearance, including "make-up, skirts and feminine accessories" to "enhance masculinity" and facilitate traditional heterosexual courting roles.

Identity
While goth is a music-based scene, the goth subculture is also characterized by particular aesthetics, outlooks, and a "way of seeing and of being seen". In more recent years, goths have been able to meet people with similar interests, learn from each other and take part in the scene through social media, manifesting in the same practices which take place in goth clubs. This is not a new phenomenon since before the rise of social media online forums had the same function for goths. Observers have raised the issue of to what degree individuals are truly members of the goth subculture. On one end of the spectrum is the "Uber goth", a person who is described as seeking a pallor so much that they apply "as much white foundation and white powder as possible". On the other end of the spectrum exists what another writer terms "poseurs" – "goth wannabes, usually young kids going through a goth phase who do not hold to goth sensibilities but want to be part of the goth crowd". It has been said that a "mall goth" is a teen who dresses in a goth style and spends time in malls with a Hot Topic store, but who does not know much about goth subculture or its music, thus making them a poseur. In one case, even a well-known performer has been labelled with the pejorative term – a "number of goths, especially those who belonged to this subculture before the late-1980s, reject Marilyn Manson as a poseur who undermines the true meaning of goth".

Media and academic commentary
The BBC described academic research that indicated that goths are "refined and sensitive, keen on poetry and books, not big on drugs or anti-social behaviour". Teens often stay in the subculture "into their adult life", and they are likely to become well-educated and enter professions such as medicine or law. The subculture carries on appealing to teenagers who are looking for meaning and for identity. The scene teaches teens that there are difficult aspects to life that you "have to make an attempt to understand" or explain.

The Guardian reported that a "glue binding the [goth] scene together was drug use"; however, in the scene, drug use was varied. Goth is one of the few subculture movements that is not associated with a single drug, in the way that the Hippie subculture is associated with cannabis and the Mod subculture is associated with amphetamines. A 2006 study of young goths found that those with higher levels of goth identification had higher drug use.

Perception on nonviolence
A study conducted by the University of Glasgow, involving 1,258 youth interviewed at ages 11, 13, 15 and 19, found goth subculture to be strongly nonviolent and tolerant, thus providing "valuable social and emotional support" to teens vulnerable to self harm and mental illness.

School shootings
In the weeks following the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, media reports about the teen gunmen, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, portrayed them as part of a gothic cult. An increased suspicion of goth subculture subsequently manifested in the media. This led to a moral panic over teen involvement in goth subculture and a number of other activities, such as violent video games. Harris and Klebold had initially been thought to be members of "The Trenchcoat Mafia", an informal club within Columbine High School. Later, such characterizations were considered incorrect.

Media reported that the gunman in the 2006 Dawson College shooting in Montreal, Quebec, Kimveer Singh Gill, was interested in goth subculture. Gill's self-professed love of Goth culture was the topic of media interest, and it was widely reported that the word "Goth", in Gill's writings, was a reference to the alternative industrial and goth subculture rather than a reference to gothic rock music. Gill, who committed suicide after the attack, wrote in his online journal: "I'm so sick of hearing about jocks and preps making life hard for the goths and others who look different, or are different". Gill described himself in his profile on Vampirefreaks.com as "Trench[...] the Angel of Death" and he stated that "Metal and Goth kick ass". An image gallery on Gill's Vampirefreaks.com blog had photos of him pointing a gun at the camera or wearing a long black trench coat.

Mick Mercer stated that Gill was "not a Goth. Never a Goth. The bands he listed as his chosen form of ear-bashing were relentlessly metal and standard grunge, rock and goth metal, with some industrial presence". Mercer stated that "Kimveer Gill listened to metal", "He had nothing whatsoever to do with Goth" and further commented "I realise that like many Neos [neophyte], Kimveer Gill may even have believed he somehow was a Goth, because they're [Neophytes] only really noted for spectacularly missing the point".

Prejudice and violence directed at goths
In part because of public misunderstanding surrounding gothic aesthetics, people in the goth subculture sometimes suffer prejudice, discrimination, and intolerance. As is the case with members of various other subcultures and alternative lifestyles, outsiders sometimes marginalize goths, either by intention or by accident. Actress Christina Hendricks talked of being bullied as a goth at school and how difficult it was for her to deal with societal pressure: "Kids can be pretty judgmental about people who are different. But instead of breaking down and conforming, I stood firm. That is also probably why I was unhappy. My mother was mortified and kept telling me how horrible and ugly I looked. Strangers would walk by with a look of shock on their face, so I never felt pretty. I just always felt awkward".

On 11 August 2007, while walking through Stubbylee Park in Bacup, Lancashire, a young couple, Sophie Lancaster and Robert Maltby, were attacked by a group of teenagers. Lancaster subsequently died from the severe head injuries she suffered in the attack. It later emerged that the attackers had attacked the couple because they were goths. On 29 April 2008, two of the attackers, Ryan Herbert and Brendan Harris, were convicted for the murder of Lancaster and given life sentences. Three others were given lesser sentences for the assault on her boyfriend Robert Maltby. In delivering the sentence, Judge Anthony Russell stated, "This was a hate crime against these completely harmless people targeted because their appearance was different to yours". He went on to defend the goth community, calling goths "perfectly peaceful, law-abiding people who pose no threat to anybody". Judge Russell added that he "recognised it as a hate crime without Parliament having to tell him to do so and had included that view in his sentencing". Despite this ruling, a bill to add discrimination based on subculture affiliation to the definition of hate crime in British law was not presented to parliament.

In 2013, police in Manchester announced they would be treating attacks on members of alternative subcultures, such as goths, the same as they do for attacks based on race, religion, and sexual orientation.

A more recent phenomenon is the emergence of goth YouTubers who very often address the prejudice and violence against goths. These personalities create videos as a response to problems that they personally face, which include challenges such as bullying, and dealing with negative descriptions of themselves. Viewers often engage closely with these YouTubers, asking them for advice on how to deal with related personal struggles and getting responses in the form of personal messages or videos. These interactions take the form of an informal mentoring which contributes to the building of solidarity within the goth scene.

Self-harm study
A study published on the British Medical Journal concluded that "identification as belonging to the Goth subculture [at some point in their lives] was the best predictor of self harm and attempted suicide [among young teens]", and that it was most possibly due to self-selection, with people committing self harm joining the goth subculture in order to get support from individuals with similar experiences.

According to The Guardian, some goth teens are more likely to harm themselves or attempt suicide. A medical journal study of 1,300 Scottish schoolchildren until their teen years found that the 53% of the 25 goth teens sampled had attempted to harm themselves and 47% had attempted suicide. The study found that the "correlation was stronger than any other predictor".

The authors held that most self-harm by teens was done before joining the subculture, and that joining the subculture would actually protect them and help them deal with distress in their lives, while cautioning that the study was based on a small sample size and needed replication to confirm the results. The study was criticized for using only a small sample of goth teens and not taking into account other influences and differences between types of goths.

title: Goth subculture