'The brilliant part is that goth kids still take it totally seriously,' said Silver. 'She was the ultimate goth girl, and I was poking fun at her because she was in love with herself.' In classic Type O fashion, the song is making fun of the very goths that would soon flock to the band's shows. 'It's about the girl I fucking slashed my wrists over,' Steele explained. 1' are rooted in tragedy but expressed sarcastically. Like many Type O songs, the lyrics to 'Black No. 'I was waiting in line for three hours to dump 40 cubic yards of human waste at the Hamilton Avenue Marine Transfer Station, and I wrote the song in my head,' he told me back in 2008 when I was writing the liner notes for the 'Top Shelf Edition' of Bloody Kisses.

Never mind that Peter Steele wrote it while driving a garbage truck for the NYC Parks Department. Never mind that it's named after a mascara. 1' hit MTV in 1993, but this was the jam that got a million goth girls - and dudes - on the bandwagon. Sure, Type O had two previous albums under their tight green T-shirts by the time the video for 'Black No. 1' made fun of the same self-serious goth audience who would embrace it. For all the intense genital close-ups and lesbian fantasies that marked their first three album covers, the back of Bloody Kisses summed up their attitude nicely: 'Don't mistake lack of talent for genius.' That's fine as one-liners go, but Type O also pulled off the unthinkable: Their breakthrough hit, 'Black No. Even when Steele was writing highly personal and ultra-depressing songs about death, loss and broken relationships, he managed to keep his tongue planted firmly in his cheek.īeing a goth band that didn't take themselves seriously was part of what made Type O so appealing. What linked the two bands - besides their Brooklyn roots and Steele's daunting six-foot-eight presence - was a sense of humor, a trait that was distinctly lacking amongst the goth and doom bands of the era (or any era). Emerging from the New York City hardcore scene of the late Eighties, their first two albums had more in common with frontman Peter Steele's hilariously un-PC hardcore troupe Carnivore than they did with the goth-doom behemoth they would become with the release of Bloody Kisses in 1993. In their two decades as a band, Type O Negative were completely unique. Get Type O Negative colored vinyl, photo prints, merch and more at Revolver's shop.

Type o negative album covers