The early 90s were a great time for Vampires. Think it is good now? Back then in the RPG scene we had White Wolf's Vampire the Masquerade, Chill 2nd edition, Ravenloft and plenty of other games. We even had one of my most favorite Rifts books ever, Vampire Kingdoms.
We also had singers like Suzanne Vega with her "Blood Makes Noise". Suzanne Vega also kinda looks like a vampire.
That the one song that always got me in the mood to do some writing or run a game was Faith No More's The Morning After from their epic album The Real Thing.
Sinéad O'Connor's second album I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got was without a doubt the most anticipated album of 1990. Well. At least by me. In 1988 I discovered Sinéad and The Lion and The Cobra. My best friend at the time and I blew off class to pick it up. I later bought her a copy of the EP of I Am Stretched on Your Grave. It became one of my favorite songs on the album.
Was the woman singing the vampire in this? Or was the grave she was lying on? (yeah I know it a song about a woman talking to her dead mother, but vampires worked better for me).
That best friend? Yeah I ended up marrying her five years later.
Another artist that isn't normally associated with vampire or the 90s is Thomas Dolby. Many remember Dolby from "She Blinded Me With Science", but he had a number of later released that were critically praised but not great sellers. One was 1989's Aliens Ate My Buick with the haunting "Budapest By Blimp" a song I always thought was about a vampire returning to his ancestral home to only be sad by how much it had changed.
Dolby does have street cred when it comes to Gothic Horror. He worked on the soundtrack for the movie Gothic which recounts the tale of Lord Byron, John Polidori, Percy and Mary Shelly. A weird little movie from the guy that gave us Lair of the White Worm, starring the Warlock, Wormtail., the guy who almost survived Keyser Söze, and the Handmaid.
In the early 90s nothing was bigger than Concrete Blonde. I remember seeing them opening up for Sting on the last leg of his Soul Cages tour. "Tomorrow Wendy" might not be a song about vampires, but it oozes pathos and thanatos. Frankly it captured those early days of Vampire the Masquerade perfectly.
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