Creating an exhaustive list of the top 20 best-selling goth albums might be challenging because the goth genre can be quite niche compared to mainstream genres like pop or rock. However, I can provide you with a list of influential and popular albums within the goth genre that have made significant impacts:
Dark, dreamlike, and magical, Disintegration represents one of the Cure’s finest hours. Although retaining the darkest elements of the earlier albums, it led the way towards the band’s later, more commercial work on Wish. The intoxicating music draws the listener inexorably downwards. Still, somehow one remains buoyant – rarely since this album has Robert Smith surpassed the beauty and yearning of ‘Pictures Of You’, or the poignant pop of ‘Love Song’. However, the nightmarish ‘Lullaby’ increases the pressure, and by the final tracks, all hope quite literally disintegrates. A unique and emotionally raw album, Disintegration evokes the sensation of inevitable, but desirable, death by drowning.
2. Pornography by The Cure
Pornography represents the conclusion of the group’s early dark, gloomy musical phase which began with Seventeen Seconds in 1980. – Following its release, bass guitarist Simon Gallup left the band and the Cure switched to a much brighter and more radio-friendly new wave sound. While poorly received by critics at the time of release, Pornography was their most popular album to date, reaching number 8 in the UK charts. Pornography has since gone on to gain acclaim from critics and is now considered an important milestone in the development of the gothic rock genre.
3. “Unknown Pleasures” by Joy Division
4. “Seventeen Seconds” by The Cure
5. “Floodland” by Sisters of Mercy
6. “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” by Bauhaus (not an album but a seminal single)
7. “Juju” by Siouxsie and the Banshees
8. “Faith” by The Cure
9. “The Sisters of Mercy” by The Sisters of Mercy
10. “In the Flat Field” by Bauhaus
11. “First and Last and Always” by Sisters of Mercy
12. “The Queen Is Dead” by The Smiths
13. “The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste” by Ministry
14. “Forever Young” by Alphaville
15. “Tinderbox” by Siouxsie and the Banshees
16. “Heaven Up Here” by Echo & the Bunnymen
17. “Garlands” by Cocteau Twins
18. “Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me” by The Cure
19. “A Slight Case of Overbombing” by The Sisters of Mercy
20. “Through the Looking Glass” by Siouxsie and the Banshees
While this list is not exhaustive, it covers many seminal albums and influential artists within the goth genre.