Ehhhh. The piano theme from Halloween is iconic. It didn’t need a dance remix with power chords and electric drums and synthesizers, and this isn’t even the kind of music that this generation dances to anyway, so I don’t know what the target audience is for this.
As long as we’re keeping with the horror movie theme though, what would Halloween be without vampires?
I’ve always like the Blue Oyster Cult, and Nosferatu is one of my favorites. I think one of their most endearing qualities for me are the somewhat clunky lyrics.
More Halloween inspired music with Goblin - The Theme from Suspiria.
Creepy and minimalist, with a nice little proggy bit thrown in the middle. Perhaps a bit repetitive, but I guess that’s typical for soundtrack music.
I was starting to worry I was the only person who had any Halloween-appropriate songs that weren’t from movie soundtracks.
The intro has a very Alan Parsons-ish feel to it, and from there the guitar riff leads it in a direction that sounds like music from an '80s Nintendo game. For that matter, the tempo change about two-thirds of the way in sounds like a stinger that would introduce a level boss. It’s a little repetitive, but not droningly-so. It would definitely work in a Castlevania-type game.
We’ve got murderers, vampires, dogmen, and goblins - why not a witch?
One of my favorite types of music…from the 1960’s, and I’ve never heard it. Kind of sounds like Shocking Blue
A perennial favorite at Frank Zappa’s Halloween concert, The Torture Never Stops. This one comes from Halloween 1981.
I don’t know very much of Zappa’s music, but it doesn’t surprise me at all that he’d have a Halloween song about a torture chamber. It sounds pretty much exactly like I expected it to sound - cool, mellow progressive jazz contrasted with crude, disgusting, foul lyrics about an unpleasant topic. The guitar solo is killer. I’d kind of like to hear Richard Cheese do a cover of this, just to turn the lyrical dissonance up to eleven.
Well, that gives us murderers, dogmen, goblins, vampires, witches, and torturers… how about SATAN?!
Type O Negative - Black Sabbath (From the Satanic Perspective).
Always liked Type O Negative. In an aesthetic (goth), where all too many artists are either lethally self-serious artistes or kitschy cartoons, they struck an amazing balance between brooding and humor. I’m pretty sure that was a direct result of Pete Steele’s vision: his first band, Carnivore, was a hardcore band known for very transgressive humor, and in Type O you could tell he didn’t take himself too seriously.
This was not one of their songs that I was very familiar with, but wow, what a dirge, and I mean that as a compliment. Heavy, heavy, heavy, droning and atmospheric. Steele reaches all the way to the bottom of his vocal range for maximum nosferatu. It’s rare that I can listen to an eight minute song without getting bored. Thanks for sharing.
Well, that’s not a Halloween song! (Though I suppose we couldn’t have kept that theme going forever.)
This is one of the few Johnson recordings that holds up for me. As I’ve mentioned before, it’s hard to appreciate the originals, both because of the primitive recording technology of the time and because his songs have been covered and reinterpreted and incorporated into the fundamental elements of modern rock/pop to the point that even if you’ve never heard the original before, you’ve heard it before.
This one, though, is simple enough that it holds up over time. I like the way he refers to “the land of California” as some mythical paradise, which it almost must have been to poor Southern blacks 80 years ago. I’m partial to Fleetwood Mac’s cover of this song, but it’s apples and oranges compared to the original.
Sorry, I missed that we were on a Halloween kick. Will now get us back on track! :smack:
As for the Sia song, I’m torn. I really enjoyed her voice and delivery, but the arrangement of the song left me flat. Taking an already mellow song and making it slower and sparser didn’t work for me - it made me think of hearing a muzak version of “Yesterday” in the mall and thinking, “What, was the original version too rockin’?” 
It did put me on a 40-minute kick of listening to the Sia mix on YouTube, though, so good job!
The video is a blast and this is one of those songs guaranteed to make your right foot push down a little bit more on the highway, much like Ace of Spades. Good Choice!
Still in the theme(ish):
Not a big fan of EDM, though Daft Punk are OK in my book. The intro to this song sounds like a malfunctioning floppy disc drive having a nightmare, and I could easily imagine this being set to a music video where one or both of the guys from the group are running from a monster in a maze of cyberpunk hallways. The second half is a bit repetitive, but it keeps coming back to the hook, which is the best part of the song. This song would probably be better if it were performed by a live band rather than having been composed in a computer, though.
I love Lordi! They’re GWAR with actual good musicians. I would love to catch them live. I was not terribly familiar with this particular song, though I must have heard it because I’ve heard the album a few times. It rocks. Thanks!
I’m only really familiar with the Damned as a punk band - I haven’t really heard much of their later New Wave/goth stuff. This reminds me a lot of Nick Cave with a bit of Depeche Mode mixed in. The lyrics are surprisingly optimistic for how grim the delivery and the instrumentals are.
Heaven And Hell (I.e., Black Sabbath ft. Ronnie James Dio) - Bible Black.
I really didn’t hear this album when it came out. Sabbath with Dio was such a different beast than Ozzy-era Sabbath. This song has a monster main riff, but that’s no surprise; Iommi can write one in his sleep, and even their crappiest albums (Tyr, anyone?) had some great riffs. There’s a lot of lead guitar on this one, which is cool, because I’ve always liked Iommi’s lead playing. The only gripe, and it’s down to personal taste, is that modern metal production values (the crisp hi-fi quality of the drums and guitar in particular) don’t really do Sabbath justice for me. Give me sludge or give me death.
That’s coming at you straight and solid, that one. Chugga chugga chugga, they know how to maintain the momentum and sprinkle some good bending riffs in there. Easily meets Ministry of Rock standards.
I buggered up the link.
There was this weird era in the mid-'70s where outlaw country and trucker culture intertwined and for a brief period the pop charts loved this kind of music. This one is different in that it has a tragic ending, but otherwise it fits pretty much all of the clichés of that era. It’s no “Convoy”, but it’s alright.
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis w/ Eric Nally, MC Melle Mel, Kool Moe Dee, & Grandmaster Caz - Downtown.
Dammit, every time I want to completely disregard Macklemore, he does something awesome. Not only collaborating with a couple of early rap legends, but actually dressing Ryan up as 1981-era Melle Mel, was genius. The song itself is all over the place…progressive, for lack of a better word. There isn’t much music this adventurous being done under the umbrella of “hip-hop,” today or ever.
Got to admit, it doesn’t sound very vedantic for a song about maya. But maybe the writers of the Upanishads, if they had Jackson guitars and Marshall stacks would have this as their religious music. “Oh lord Agni, thou burn hot like supercharged vacuum tubes…”
Now, chariots -
Toyah - Thunder in the Mountains
Is it legal for that much '80s to exist in a four-minute video? The heavy keyboard/synth is dated, but it’s well-orchestrated and fun and it goes great with the vocals. I almost wish there were an entire movie based around the imagery from the video. That was fun.