Along with Factory, Mute, and Creation, Some Bizarre was the vanguard of outsider music in the 1980s. The label’s debut release reads like a who’s who of electronic music, featuring early tracks from Soft Cell, Depeche Mode, Blancmange, and THE THE, while over the next decade its roster would include Marc Almond, Cabaret Voltaire, Swans, Coil, and Psychic TV. Label boss Stevo Pearce’s unconventional dealings with the industry are legendary. Wesley Doyle tells us how a teenager from Dagenham took on the music industry in its pomp and beat it at its own game.
Lifelong Goth, music journalist and acclaimed crime-writer Cathi Unsworth takes us on a personal and social history of Gothic music during the Eighties. Spawned by punk, bands like Siouxsie and the Banshees, Joy Division and The Cure were architects of a new music that distilled the darkness of the times. Shaped by the politics of an era – from the Cold War, the Miners’ Strike, privatisation, The Troubles and AIDS – its gender fluid, outlaw imagery and innovative, atmospheric music spoke to a generation of alienated youth. By the time Thatcher left office in 1990, Goth had imprinted its will on the cultural landscape as deeply as the Iron Lady herself.