Season of the Witch: The Book of Goth
02 May 2024Imprint: Nine Eight Books
Synopsis
A Times Book of the Year
A Mojo Book of the Year
A Louder Than War Book of the Year
A Waterstones Book of the Year
A Resident Book of the Year
'A beautifully written, meticulously researched account. 4/5.' - CLASSIC POP
1979. Months of industrial action throughout the winter have left the dead unburied and mountains of rubbish piling up in the streets.
Punk has reached its bleak climax with the fatal heroin overdose of Sid Vicious while awaiting trial for the murder of his girlfriend.
Unlikely alliances of outsiders prepare to seize power, set the political agenda and write the soundtrack for the years to come. Their figureheads are two very different kinds of dominatrices...
As Margaret Thatcher enters 10 Downing Street, a handful of bands born of punk - Siouxsie and the Banshees, Joy Division and the Cure - find a way to distil the dissonance and darkness of the shifting decade into a new form of music. Pushing at the taboos the Sex Pistols had unlocked and dancing with the fetishistic, all will become global stars of goth.
By the time Thatcher is cast out of office in 1990, the arrival of goth will have imprinted on the cultural landscape as much as the Iron Lady herself.
Forty years on, author Cathi Unsworth provides the first comprehensive overview of the music, context and lasting legacy of goth. This is the story of how goth was shaped by the politics of the era - from the miners' strikes and privatisation to the Troubles and AIDS - as well as how its rock 'n' roll outlaw imagery and music cross-pollinated throughout Britain and internationally, speaking to a generation of alienated youths.
A fascinating social history, Season of the Witch tells the tale of an enduring counter-culture, one that steadfastly refuses to give up the ghost.
A Mojo Book of the Year
A Louder Than War Book of the Year
A Waterstones Book of the Year
A Resident Book of the Year
'A beautifully written, meticulously researched account. 4/5.' - CLASSIC POP
1979. Months of industrial action throughout the winter have left the dead unburied and mountains of rubbish piling up in the streets.
Punk has reached its bleak climax with the fatal heroin overdose of Sid Vicious while awaiting trial for the murder of his girlfriend.
Unlikely alliances of outsiders prepare to seize power, set the political agenda and write the soundtrack for the years to come. Their figureheads are two very different kinds of dominatrices...
As Margaret Thatcher enters 10 Downing Street, a handful of bands born of punk - Siouxsie and the Banshees, Joy Division and the Cure - find a way to distil the dissonance and darkness of the shifting decade into a new form of music. Pushing at the taboos the Sex Pistols had unlocked and dancing with the fetishistic, all will become global stars of goth.
By the time Thatcher is cast out of office in 1990, the arrival of goth will have imprinted on the cultural landscape as much as the Iron Lady herself.
Forty years on, author Cathi Unsworth provides the first comprehensive overview of the music, context and lasting legacy of goth. This is the story of how goth was shaped by the politics of the era - from the miners' strikes and privatisation to the Troubles and AIDS - as well as how its rock 'n' roll outlaw imagery and music cross-pollinated throughout Britain and internationally, speaking to a generation of alienated youths.
A fascinating social history, Season of the Witch tells the tale of an enduring counter-culture, one that steadfastly refuses to give up the ghost.
Details
02 May 2024464 pages
9781788706278Imprint: Nine Eight Books
Reviews
'A FREAKING MASTERPIECE!'Lydia Lunch
'Cathi Unsworth not only succeeds in conjuring her personal history and dark tastes into a book of immense and lucid insight, but in doing so has crafted a rich reflection on the signs and sigils of the times, taking in - as well as using - associated cultural ritual and alchemy, featuring a cast of the lost, the damned, the beautiful and the bizarre; the possessed and dispossessed. All with the best possible sense of glacial cool.'Richard Cabut (ne: Richard North)
''Season Of The Witch' is to Goth what Jon Savage's 'England's Dreaming' was to Punk... a magnificent, wild dissection of the music, the madness, and social dysfunction of the era that spawned it. Hail Unsworth.'Billy Chainsaw (former Siouxsie and The Banshees’ personal assistant)
'Drawing on both her novelistic skills as well as her years as a music journalist, Unsworth's account of Goth and its origins is rich and absorbing, establishing its political and historical context (with Margaret Thatcher as the most infamous dominatrix of all). She shows that the dark matter of Goth amounts to more than mere Addams family cosplay but has deep cultural roots in literature and cinema, as well as magnificent precursors such as The Doors, Nico, Suicide, David Bowie, who helped breed giants such as Siouxsie & The Banshees, The Cure, Joy Division and Magazine.'David Stubbs