Halloween

Loathe it or love it, Halloween is a major event on the party calendar. It’s as good an excuse as any for kids and grown ups alike to dress weird and head out into the night in search of fun. Each year the Halloween events appear like zombie hoards, emerging from nowhere and demanding our attendance. 

There are film screenings, house parties, masked balls and everything in between. The one eery thing they all have in common… aside from all the dressing up, that is? All of them, without fail, have the same old tired Halloween playlist on rotation. The ghoulish usual suspects, the tracks that rear their ugly head each year, are the likes of Bobby Pickett’s “The Monster Mash”, The Specials “Ghost Town” and, almost definitely, the “Ghostbusters” theme tune. All undeniably great tunes but, like a witch’s incantation, they seem like an unshakable curse that follows us around every Halloween. 

So pull open the doors of the haunted mansion, and enter if you dare, into this freakish playlist of alternative Halloween sounds. There’s cultish surf and exotica, including tracks like “The Blob” by The Five Blobs, and the fantastically spooky “The Twilight Zone” by The Ventures. Clutch your torch tightly, heading deeper into the playlist and you’ll come across a classic “Northern Soul” track from R. Dean Taylor and the bluesy sounds of Koko Taylor. Around the corner, and through the creaking door, there’s rock classics from The Doors, Santana and Creedence Clearwater Revival. The final, freakish face off comes in the form of new-wave creepers from Echo & the Bunnymen, Talking Heads and Siouxsie and the Banshees. 

Now you have this playlist, take it with you and drive it like a stake into the evil heart of that next boring Halloween party.