Halloween Music
Posted by Thomas on October 31, 2009 · Leave a Comment
Skeletor had a brief stint in the professional karaoke circuit.
Halloween…it’s that glorious time of year again when it becomes acceptable to obsess over all things horrific and grotesque. When your super Christian neighbors glare at your satanic candy munching and begrudgingly pray for your soul a little harder.
So in honor of this grand annual tradition, I’m giving you a list of some of my personal favorite spooky tunes to set the scene for ‘Ween. Much to the chagrin of your Emo little brother with the Jack Skellington backpack, there are no Nightmare Before Christmas songs to be found here (although I am quite partial to “This Is Halloween”). But hopefully the tracks listed below will be sufficient for his and your ravenous Halloween cravings.
1) “Nosferatu” by DJ Krush featuring Mr. Liff
Did he menetion he's former Yakuza?
Every musical genre seems to have its own healthy fascination with the dead…or the undead. Rock music has Black Metal and Death Metal, Folk music has murder ballads, and Hip Hop has Horrorcore. Truthfully, I’m none too well versed in the ways of Hip Hop’s death-centric sub genre. I know I’ve heard Grave Diggaz and Insane Clown Posse, but I can’t recall any songs off the top of my head.
“Nosferatu” by Japanese producer DJ Krush and rapper Mr. Liff, however, has been a longtime seasonal favorite of mine. Featured on Krush’s otherwise earthly and meditative record, Jaku, “Nosferatu” is a dark detour into an after-hours noir Tokyo. Krush’s soundscape here is flawless: an ominous nocturnal Vampire lounge. Cinematic, subtle, and atmospheric. Check this track out, as well as the rest of Jaku: an extraordinary album that far too few are aware of.
2) “Light Years” by 311
311 enjoys Halloween revelry.
311 proves that Reggae music can be spooky too with this Voodoo Dub track off of their 1997 disc, Transistor. Many of Nick Hexum’s songs on the album seem to focus on a “beautiful disaster” with whom a relationship went awry; a drugstore cowgirl who can’t stay sober. Nick’s final lines in the song are some of my favorite, “You waited on pins for but needles never ever love. What did you think of?” This song is an October favorite for both 311 and their fans, particularly in live shows and in New Orleans for Halloween.
3) “Pretty” by Korn
And they call him Sandy Claaaws.
Like most of us during our youth, lead singer of Korn, Jonathan Davis, worked in a morgue, and saw some pretty disturbing stuff. In one particular instance, Jonathan allegedly witnessed the corpse of an infant girl brought into the morgue who had undergone unspeakable abuse by her own father. Jonathan is quoted as saying, “it was the most heinous things I’ve ever seen in my life and I still have nightmares about it.”
Apparently, the nightmares were somewhat abated when he wrote the song for Korn’s 1998 album, Follow The Leader. The song is included on this list not because it’s “cool” or “fun” to listen to at all, but because of its sheer disturbing nature, and its immensely haunting lyrics.
4) Almost anything by Tom Waits post 1992.
This is how Tom Waits greets trick or treeaters.
Tom Waits used to sing about bad livers, broken hearts, and the relatively low quality of Los Angeles diner food when he was a young artist. After getting married though, almost everything about his music changed. With the release of his masterpiece Bone Machine in 1992, Waits’ music sauntered into Death Valley like a zombified corpse and struck up a tune with an orchestra of skeleton soldiers. Bone Machine reeks of mortality, fatalism, and the apocalypse.
Some of Waits’ ensuing album’s like 1999’s Mule Variations are far more upbeat, but nevertheless contains a healthy dose of Voodoo-infested songs and Appalachian witchcraft.
Waits’ 2002 album, Blood Money, once again returned to themes of corporeal torment in album perhaps even darker than Bone Machine. In describing the album, Waits said, “Blood Money is flesh and bone, eartbound…the songs are rooted in reality: jealousy, rage, the human meat wheel.”
Check out “Misery Is The River Of The World,” “God’s Away On Business,” “The Ocean Doesn’t Want Me,” “Earth Died Screaming,” “What’s He Building,” “Don’t Go Into That Barn,” and many, many others—and just remember: the Army Ants will leave nothing but your bones.
5) “Pink Maggitt” by Deftones
Dio de los Deftones.
Everything is wrong and depraved with this song. To paraphrase Deftones bassist Chi Cheng as he spoke of lyricist Chino Moreno “Chino’s lyrics are often about violence…and often about sex. And sometimes the lines between the two can be a blurred.”
The Deftones’ 2001 album, White Pony, climaxes with this disturbing and cryptic song, which can be thought of us a reprise of the song, “Back To School” or “Mini Maggitt.” It’s a dark and haunting close to an album that already features images of bathtub electrocution, prostitution, knife parties,
Through distorted and heavily affected vocals, Chino begins the song almost whispering “I’ll stick you…then I’ll take your oxygen” above Stephen Carpenter’s haunting and droning guitar, and Frank Delgado’s ethereal sampling. When the song hits full stride, he mimics “Mini Maggitt’s” refrain of “pushed back to square, now that you need her, but you don’t,” altering it to “pushed back to square, now that you knee’d her…in the throat.”
The song if reminiscent of the Deftones’ earlier song, “MX,” in which a conversation with a girl turns into a drunken Chino belting, “shove her over railing.” Intense love/hate relationships have long been a topic of Chino’s writing, but fear not, Chino is no Ike Turner. Lyrics are the outlet for reality, but also fantasies, no matter how dark and grisly they may be.
6) The Bioshock soundtrack: “Steinman”
"An intruder? He's ugly! Uuuugly!!"
“That one! Too fat!! This one! Too tall!! This one…Too symmetrical!!”
Ahh, Dr. Steinman. One crazy mothertrucker. His insatiable desire to perfect the human form has driven him batshit insane, and makes him one of the most delightfully frightening bosses in Bioshock. His musical theme perfectly captures his personality and the anticipation you feel as a player when you first see him. A Trans-Atlantean plastic surgeon in an orange butcher’s outfit who operates with meat cleavers and no anesthesia is scary enough. But his theme composed by Gary Schyman, makes this crazy quack truly horrifying.
7) “Jetstream” by Thom Yorke
There's no place like home, there's no place like home.
This minimalist Electronica romp through what can only be described as a bad dream is one of my favorite songs of Thom’s. Thom Yorke is trapped in a driverless coach racing through the night until he jettisons himself from the window and sails away. My favorite lyrics are “we need a rubber man, we need a stretchy man. I’m not sure I am welcome. You are a fool and this is over. Over the cliffs of Dover.” This is a great song to play out on the highway in the wee small hours when the lights are few and no one else is around.