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Fright Music: Playlist

Fright Music: Playlist

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To stay in the mood for this year’s ghoulish foolishness, a terrifically terrifying soundtrack is a must. If you’re sick to un-death of “Thriller” and “Monster Mash” being played over and over again every Halloween, just look upon the list below. And, when your eyes pop back in your head after the shock, find them, buy them, download them, and scare the crap out of your eardrums with them.

MWAAHAHAHAHAHAAA!…sorry couldn’t resist…

Rob Zombie’s “Superbeast” easily tops this list as the quintessential Halloween song. The director, conveniently enough, of the Halloween remake franchise has enough spook-tacular tracks in his back catalogue to fill out the list all on his own, but if you have to pick one, it’s this banging industrial piece of horror-metal genius, all garish imagery and ghost train colours, with a danceable beat and a killer chorus.

Halloween is the natural playground for goths, goth-lovers, goth wannabes and just about anyone who likes to dress in fright makeup. If you are one of those people, then no Halloween playlist should be without Type O Negative’s paean to/piss-take of goth girls, Black No. 1, a chunky slice of atmospherics with a chant-along chorus perfect for boozy costume parties. Make sure to get the album version to get the full effect of this one. 

Another act tailor made for this time of year is Marylin Manson. The former Brian Warner is another one possessed of a decidedly Halloween-y set of songs, but his pulsing cover of Depeche Mode’s Personal Jesus is ideal to get you in the party mood without making you look non-threatening in your Headless Horseman gear. If you can’t stomach Manson, then the original version will do nicely enough.

For those who like to actually scare themselves on Halloween, the first step of creating an atmosphere of dread should be to pick up Slipknot’s Vol 3: The Subliminal Verses. Chief creeper-outer on the album is Vermillion, a haunting ghost song that’s as melodious as it is discordant. The song comes in two parts so make sure to listen to them back to back for the full effect.

Oh dear Satan, where are my manners? A Halloween-esque music article without Black Sabbath? Perish the thought. Ozzy, Iommi and co.’s self-titled song is so brooding and epic in the literal sense that to people of a certain age, it practically INVENTED Halloween. If you want to know what’s so great about this time of year, listen to this.

Of course, if you’re looking for something that everyone in the room is going to a) probably know and b) probably love, then AC/DC’s “Hell’s Bells” should be your first port of call for something dark, groovy and popular. The fact that it’s awesome and boasts the classic lyric “if you’re into evil/you’re a friend of mine” is a bonus.

A good alternative – though it’d be easier and more fun to just play both – is to dig into some of the garish, ghoulish works of The Ramones, and for proper spookiness, Pet Sematary is a must-listen. It’s also the only song on this list to have been commissioned by horror maestro Stephen King, which is about as lofty a Halloween seal of approval as you can get.

Of course Halloween music, much like a grave, requires a lot of digging to get what you really want out of it, and there’s a whole bevvy of All Hallows tunes to be found just waiting to spring at you out of the dark. Honourable mentions go to Blitzkid, The Prodigy, Alice Cooper, Wednesday 13, The Meteors, Metallica, the various movie soundtrack works of Angelo Badalamenti, and nutso exploitation movie score regulars Goblin.

So there you have it, the horrifying, terrifying, SCARE-ifying playlist to keep the Halloween audio experience most creatures of the night would die for alive for the weekend!

 Except me. In order to 100% scare myself completely out of my gourd this year, I’ll be listening to a continuous loop of that Carly Rae Jepsen song that Shall Not Be Named.

[Words, Liam Kavanagh]

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