# Music that scares the crap out of you **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 24, 2017, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-that-scares-the-crap-out-of-you/780680 "2017-02-24T23:43:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Biotop](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biotop/32/321_2.png) [@Biotop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biotop)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2017, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-that-scares-the-crap-out-of-you/780680/61 "2017-03-09T17:18:33Z")
> [@Francis\_Vaughan](#): > > A large fraction of recordings by Diamanda Galas? The definitive [Law of the Plague](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEKuX8arORc). > [Here with John Zorn.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHB0LZd5YI0) [Or here with John Paul Jones](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0AIjnQ8t30)(he of Led Zep) > Not for the faint hearted. > > Talking of John Zorn, his work with Painkiller. Execution Ground Ambient is a favourite of mine. > > Lustmord (Brian Williams.) Rising 666 is brilliantly creepy, but in a highly addictive and rather soothing way. > > (Both John Zorn and Brian Williams turn out to be really nice guys. I’ve not met Diamanda. But she holds the distinction of performing the concert where the most people I have ever seen walked out. I think it was badly pitched. People were not expecting what they got.) I love the music of Diamonds Galas. What a great voice. * * * Here’s a very scary piece from \*\*Current 93 \*\*: [Jesus Wept](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3IzGb3KxC4E) ---
**Author:** ![blindboyard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blindboyard/32/2833_2.png) [@blindboyard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blindboyard)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2017, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-that-scares-the-crap-out-of-you/780680/62 "2017-03-09T19:13:59Z")
[![]( " - YouTube") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbnObSsYCc4) Don’t ask me why, it just fills me with an awareness of the futility of existence and the transient nature of all things. ---
**Author:** ![movingfinger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@movingfinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/movingfinger)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2017, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-that-scares-the-crap-out-of-you/780680/63 "2017-03-10T06:45:41Z")
If I remember correctly, Berlioz’ Symphony Fantastiqe has a section called March to the Scaffold. It ends in a strong chord, followed quietly by a bum ba bum. played by a cello. I heard that the crashing chord was to denote a beheading by the guillotine and the soft bumping coda represented a head falling to the ground and bouncing. ---
**Author:** ![gladtobeblazed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/85f322/32.png) [@gladtobeblazed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gladtobeblazed)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2017, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-that-scares-the-crap-out-of-you/780680/64 "2017-03-11T02:44:55Z")
This one’s been scaring me since I was a little kid: [Ave Satani](https://youtu.be/6H3UiwU1N5I) from The Omen soundtrack by Jerry Goldsmith. ---
**Author:** ![Doug\_K](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5ac83/32.png) [@Doug\_K](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doug_K)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2017, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-that-scares-the-crap-out-of-you/780680/65 "2017-03-11T03:55:14Z")
> [@Eddie The Horrible](#): > > I posted this in another thread as a source of guidance for one of our resident anti-sexual communists, but really it belongs here. > Hopefully your name isn’t Ron, or this might become one of your favourites.😛 > > For some reason it always starts in the middle of the song, so - as soon as you click on the link, immediately drag the cursor back to where it actually begins, at 19:49. > > Crust - > [_How About You_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ot7zAvmBRwA&t=1361s) > > crank’er! It goes right where it’s supposed to go. 1361 seconds is 22:41. If you want it to go to 19:49 you’ll have to change t=1361s to t=1189s ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2017, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-that-scares-the-crap-out-of-you/780680/66 "2017-03-11T04:22:06Z")
[QUOTE [An Empty Bliss Beyond this World] ([The Caretaker's An Empty Bliss Beyond This World - YouTube](https://youtu.be/LL998ajnjN4))by **The Caretaker** is an masterpiece of electronic music, entirely made of samples of old records. Somebody described it as “the waiting room for the afterlife”. [/QUOTE] Well, now, thank you for this lovely video. It reminds me of some youtube I saw of the planet Saturn (a real photo) and some electronic noise. I don’t know who what where when or why, within the last 5 years. That Saturn thing and the ‘Empty Bliss’ is not a ‘waiting room for the afterlife’ - I think it is HELL. Barren, unnerving, never-changing, eternal, without hope. Almost makes you wish for devils with pitchforks. ---
**Author:** ![Biotop](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biotop/32/321_2.png) [@Biotop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biotop)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2017, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-that-scares-the-crap-out-of-you/780680/67 "2017-03-11T06:11:46Z")
Andrew Liles: [Anhedonia](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ENrdeSVh3XA) ---
**Author:** ![stosh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e95f7d/32.png) [@stosh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stosh)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2017, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-that-scares-the-crap-out-of-you/780680/68 "2017-03-13T21:52:17Z")
D.O.A. by Bloodrock. ---
**Author:** ![ImAWalkingCorpse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/65b543/32.png) [@ImAWalkingCorpse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ImAWalkingCorpse)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2017, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-that-scares-the-crap-out-of-you/780680/69 "2017-03-14T03:41:31Z")
When I was a kid, the ending theme song for The Incredible Hulk scared me, as an adult the theme in Christine when the fat kid first sees Christine before the car kills him is un-nerving to me. ---
**Author:** ![Biotop](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biotop/32/321_2.png) [@Biotop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biotop)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2017, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-that-scares-the-crap-out-of-you/780680/70 "2017-03-14T06:08:43Z")
How about this piece from the Russian surrealist project [Bardoseneticcube](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Q64l3R1BPK0)? ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2017, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-that-scares-the-crap-out-of-you/780680/71 "2017-03-14T12:37:05Z")
Any of the music associated with **Twin Peaks**. ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2017, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-that-scares-the-crap-out-of-you/780680/72 "2017-03-14T15:54:31Z")
The [Night Gallery](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBY2d2qa4Mk) theme music. It used to come on in the late afternoon and every day after school I’d be home alone and watch it, and every day it would freak me the hell out. I wasn’t too bright :o I still don’t want to hear it. The Chambers Brothers [Time](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zfgoJzOCgg) is a funky, freaky groove that for the last couple of minutes just has this messed up halting beat that is just so . . . off. It makes me feel like I’m on a bad acid trip. [Iron Man](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s7_WbiR79E) can shut the hell up. ---
**Author:** ![NineToTheSky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5a626/32.png) [@NineToTheSky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NineToTheSky)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2017, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-that-scares-the-crap-out-of-you/780680/73 "2017-03-14T17:58:55Z")
Two that I love \*because \*they are scary are: Nico’s Marble Index album (once described as ‘not an album you listen to but a hole you fall into’) and The Church’s The Disillusionist: _They say that he’s famous from the waist down But the top half of his body is a corpse His gold won’t buy him sleep His poverty runs so deep In winter he cracks, in summer he warps_ ---
**Author:** ![dennishiding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e36b37/32.png) [@dennishiding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dennishiding)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2017, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-that-scares-the-crap-out-of-you/780680/74 "2017-03-25T18:18:06Z")
More screeching strings. Although it turns around towards the end of “Wheel of Pain” [![](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/O1ZSJdJj5bs/hqdefault.jpg "Basil Poledouris (Conan the Barbarian - 04) - Wheel of Pain") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1ZSJdJj5bs) ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2017, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-that-scares-the-crap-out-of-you/780680/75 "2017-03-25T18:28:55Z")
How about [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cw1wk_fKnw) [one](https://www.flashlyrics.com/lyrics/the-steeles/we-want-america-back-59)? ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2017, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-that-scares-the-crap-out-of-you/780680/76 "2017-03-25T19:20:49Z")
For me, it’s [“Basement”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufB4tWsOtAs) by the Pain Teens. Mostly because it’s based on the true story of [Sylvia Likens](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Sylvia_Likens), a 16-year old girl who was tortured over a period of weeks, and finally murdered by the woman watching her and her sister. Gertrude Baniszewski even had her children assist in the torture of Likens. It scares me because it really happened. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2017, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-that-scares-the-crap-out-of-you/780680/77 "2017-03-25T19:41:44Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **nearwildheaven** : > > I made it through about 30 seconds of “Threnody…” How can he even get people to play this thing in the first place? I was finding it unbearable at about the same point… but couldn’t bring myself to stop it. Because that would mean that, instead of having listened to it, I’d have listened to an unfinished portion of it, which would be worse. I think I have a new example for discussions of “what is art”. See, my definition is, basically, that art is a creative work that conveys emotion, and great art is therefore a work which very strongly conveys emotion. Which that certainly does. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2017, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-that-scares-the-crap-out-of-you/780680/78 "2017-03-25T19:55:52Z")
For some reason Tchaikovsky’s “Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy” has always struck me as macabre; maybe something I saw as a very young child with this music scared me, I don’t know. The closest I can describe it is “the music that’s playing while a mad doctor slowly and methodically performs brain surgery on a victim.” ---
**Author:** ![Avery\_Weisman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d78d45/32.png) [@Avery\_Weisman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Avery_Weisman)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-that-scares-the-crap-out-of-you/780680/79 "2017-03-28T23:27:08Z")
Gangsta rap. What else? ---
**Author:** ![Penfeather](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penfeather/32/384_2.png) [@Penfeather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Penfeather)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2018, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-that-scares-the-crap-out-of-you/780680/80 "2018-08-04T00:04:00Z")
Amon Tobin’s whole _Supermodified_ album is terrific but shouldn’t be played when you’re alone late at night, and [“Marine Machines”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ch10W6VRqNw) is simultaneously beautiful and utterly frightening: it’s the soundtrack of unholy _things_ on the seabed massing to crawl out of the Stygian depths and murder the living as we sleep. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-that-scares-the-crap-out-of-you/780680.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-that-scares-the-crap-out-of-you/780680.md?page=5)