Music from the End of the World

Gothic music is not a single style of music. It draws from the dark corners of a small family of styles, each of which is loosely related by a sense of tragedy, doom, mystery, or other-worldlyness. A description of these styles can be found here.

What does this stuff sound like?¹

Ambient Delerium Metamorphosis	Classical Vivaldi Pax Hominibus	Dark Wave² Diary of Dreams Drop Dead
Death Rock Christian Death Heresy	Folk Loreena McKennitt Mummer's Dance	EBM⁴ Covenant Go Film
Ethereal Lycia Pray	Industrial Skinny Puppy Assimilate	New Wave The Cure Charlotte Sometimes
Punk X-Mal Deutschland Incubus Succubus	Rock Sisters of Mercy Black Planet	Synth Pop SwitchBlade Symphony Wallflower

Other resources:
band descriptions
sound clips from amazon.com

hard-to-find dark CDs from

isotank
Middle Pillar
Dark Land Music

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Footnotes
¹This is not an attempt to classify bands, but to provide examples of different styles.
² The term "Dark Wave" has been used three ways: (1) Dark ethereal bands like those on Sam Rosenthal's "Dark Wave" label (2) Dark synthpop (3) A type of late 1980s German industrial music.
⁴ Electronic Body Music, which is, essentially, danceable industrial.