Good groups, ok music. Fair price given how expensive The Goth Box and some other Cleopatra box sets have been in recent history. PS to Cleopatra - if you want to include Industrial in a box set like this, you may want to aim for more than six tracks of it. Anyone who picks this up for a solid industrial gothic mixture of music stands a fair chance of disappointment.


The best I've heard (Goth 101)   September 25, 1999
 7 out of 9 found this review helpful

I can't believe that anyone would bad mouth this compilation! One reviwer says that Cleopatra Records just pumps out compilation with no regard for quality. Clearly they didn't see the booklet included in the box set. It's packed with photos and info about each band and it's track. This is the greatest "goth starter" package available. Each disk covers one of the four corners of "Goth". IT'S GOTH 101!


Excellent Compilation   May 16, 2002
 7 out of 9 found this review helpful

My boyfriend actually bought this, since I had recently become tired of goth comps that were simply more of the same old Cleopatra bands. While this is a Cleo release, and you will find some of the same offenders here, there's also a lot of other bands, and it's good stuff too. In fact, there's only one track that I don't like, which is rare for me!
Unfortunately there's no Siouxsie, Sisters of Mercy, or Cure, although there are two tracks that contain short interviews with Siouxsie and Robert Smith. Sadly, it seems to be the norm these days to leave these pioneers out. 45 Grave however, do make an appearance with the track "Party Time", which is featured in the graveyard scene in the movie _Return of the living Dead_. How cool is that!
In any case, I really enjoyed this, and it was a good introduction to some of the bands I had never heard of before.
This would make a great introduction to the world of gothic music for any of you newbies out there.


fine compilation of Goth and industrial music   June 8, 2005
 6 out of 7 found this review helpful

I suppose it's difficult to please fans of Goth, who tend to look on the gloomy side of things by definition, but I think this collection is very good! There are four CDs in a nice case and the extensive liner notes are quite informative and entertaining.

Here you'll find cuts from Alien Sex Fiend, Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, Magenta, Die Krupps, Mission UK and many others, many of them on a compilation or for US distribution for the first time. Of course not all of your favorite groups will be here and you would undoubtedly have put on a different song than the one selected, but with the great range of music and the great written information, chances are you will learn something as well as discover a few new favorite groups.


Wow., This stuns me in its mediocracy   March 12, 2005
 5 out of 9 found this review helpful

This is truly one of the worst Goth and related genre compilations I have ever heard. With the PARTIAL Exception of disk # 2, the songs chosen of even the best bands were among their worst or most mundane songs. It almost seems as if someone was given a list of bands and their songs and said 'pick songs to go on this album' they put up a list of songs up on a board and picked them by randomly throwing darts at it. Great bands on disk 1, but again they picked some of the more mundane songs overall from Bauhaus, Legendary Pink Dots, Die Form, Christian Death (Disk 4) and some of the more classic favorites. Again- on disk 2 which showed the most promise for other than the utterly mundane they had poor song choices- for example they chose 'Drool' for Switchblade Symphony (which is a band I truly adore otherwise) which is one of their least impressive and mundane songs. Though they made it clear by the intro this was not just 'goth' music, but supposed to encompass Industrial and Darkwave as well, I was stunned at how little Gothic and Darkwave music there really was- and was perplexed as to why they bothered putting metal-related bands on like Two Witches and several others on the compilation. A few good songs scattered on disk 2 and 3, but why pay for 4 disks of music with some to a few good songs on each, when everything worth listening to could have just gone on 1 album? Hours of boredom listening for a few gems.

For a good compilation I would recommend the Goth Box and the Disease of Lady Madeline.