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Here's a few more to add onto the list for Halpert...

Bauhaus - Crackle
Possibly the best Bauhaus single disc collection. While their 80's albums certainly are excellent, this captures many of the highlights through their most influential time together. They had a couple of great stand-alone singles and B sides. A fine way to get into the Bauhaus world.

To further the Bauhaus adventure...
The Tones on Tail Double CD Everything! compilation should also be checked out once into the classic Bauhaus. If on a budget, I think it could be found used with ease. This features Daniel Ash and David J. before Love and Rockets with some interesting songs that blow the entire L and R colletion away. Not really Goth, but some good further adventures before the urge to Pop caved in, and some tracks were US Goth Club favorites mainly by connection, but also through quality.


Red Lorry Yellow Lorry - Talk About the Weather/Paint Your Wagon
Two great albums on one CD. A seriously under rated band that had a very moody guitar driven sound, but more rooted in solid Post-Punk (or whatever you want to call it). Nothing fashionable, just good driving sounds.

There's also a singles collection of RLYL which proved that they used the format well...on the 12" singles they released, there were no useless remixes but good original stand-alone tracks. The original 80's compilation Smashed Hits is also a good alternative choice.

(RLYL's Nothing Wrong and Blow are not as great in my opinion. They tried to move on, and had some great songs along the way, but they are not as solid. Wait for a used buy after getting their best.)


The Damned - Strawberries
"The Dog" is worth a used purchace alone! A great showcase for Dave Vanian's Goth persona. There's other solid songs, but The Dog is the Gothic moment on this.

The Damned - The Black Album
"Wait For the Blackout" and "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" are also great Vanian highlights. This was the great transitional album that showed The Damned moving from their 70's Punk years in Psychedelic/Garage Band style (They really had to move elsewhere for a while after recording their definitive Punk album Machine Gun Etiquette). Also, the 17-Minute "Curtain Call" can be either seen as too long or a great epic - I'm certinaly in favor of it (It must have worked great live!).

(In my opinion, though, the Damned's Anything should be avoided or at least heard last. It's a very poor follow up to the cool Phantasmagoria.)

Alien Sex Fiend - Who's Been Sleeping in My Brain?, Acid Bath, Maximum Security, and It-The Album are great titles for albums, but as it's ASF, you know they will more than live up to them.

Gothic Rock 3 (Cleopatra, CD Compilation) - Best of The 80's
Here's a great double CD collection of Goth greatness. With notes by Mick Mercer, you will be brought into a world where you had to know where to go to get the latest underground Goth singles (It's listing of Indie Chart peaks shows it's singular-minded and proud!). Tracks by Bauhaus, RLYL, March Violets, X-Mal Deutschland (another under-rated band!), and Christian Death (Although it's the early Valor era this time...before the concepts took over at least) are along with songs by Into a Circle, 1919, Dance Society, Specimen, Play Dead, Sexbeat, and Danielle Dax (Although I would have had "Cat House" instead of "Yummer Yummer Man"...but it's still cool).

Another Cleopatra-released Goth collection (Vol. 2) has at least a first disc of 80's cool including Virgin Prunes, Southern Death Cult (Before they turned into Death Cult, and then just The Cult), Specimen, Feilds of the Nephilim, Christian Death (w/Rozz, the way they should be heard), ASF, and others.
The 90's sounds are alright, but I'm far more comfortable with The 80's.

The first Gothic Rock compilation released inThe States on Cleopatra is a 1992 compilation originally on Jungle in The UK which started keeping the 80's alive featuring some of the usual suspects (Bauhaus, UK Decay, X-Mal...) plus some then-new bands which fitted the concept pretty good.

Xymox - Medusa
They had two good albums, including this, and then...I don't want to think about it now, although I am still reminded that I did get the 90's albums on cassette used so the pain is not that great. Remember them this way!

X-Mal Deutschland - Tocsin
Great Mid-80's Goth!

Christian Death - As mentioned, Only Theatre of Pain is the essential document, but if you want to dive a little into the Valor years, it's best to stick to the singular-minded Jesus Points the Bone At You. After that...stick to anything led by Rozz, really. Catastrophe Ballet is one of the follow ups to Only Theatre... that has a good following. Rozz's post-CD projects are mainly experimental, but usually interesting.