Find out why Coldplay have vandalised Eugene Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People on the cover of their new album, and why painters and singers alike just can't resist a good old popular uprising.

If you've caught the lyrics of MGMT's Time to Pretend, you might have noticed the Brooklyn duo pledging to live a life of excess - with all the drugs and the booze and the fancy cars and the private islands and whatnot. They know it'll kill them, but they don't care. This drive to self-destruction is as old as rock and roll itself, and actually much older than that.

Discover the joys of loneliness and self-denial with a little help from Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo and Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky

J. W. Von Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther got thousands of young Germans emoting like crazy in 1774. Hysterical 18th century TV news stories about The Teen Cult that Puts Your Children at Risk followed quickly in its wake.

Your guide to nearly 2000 glorious years of Goths - from the fall of the Roman Empire to The Birthday Party and beyond.

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