This song is the kind of big hair ’80s rock that I can get behind, with lyrics fit for a haunted mansion party and a beat fit for a dance floor. So whether you’ll be spending this Halloween watching movies, carving pumpkins or dreaming of the dance floor, here are 13 Halloween songs to listen to this week to get yourself in the spirit. With this list, I tried to stick to the most palatable, with artists or songs that are recognizable, but there’s plenty more if you want to branch out into other things (the children’s songs, the heavy metal, the songs that they sang during Halloween episodes of “Glee,” etc.). There isn’t as much of a market in the music industry for Halloween as there is for Christmas, but the songs are there - hidden gems with minor synth riffs and the occasional scream, just for fun. From what I’ve found, there are three general categories of widely-used Halloween songs: classic rock songs with minor chords and Halloween-adjacent lyrics, gothic rock songs that use monsters as props and metaphors, and, most rarely, songs that were actually intended as Halloween songs. Halloween music is a very specific brand of sound. For me, that means eating candy, watching movies and listening to my Halloween music. That means that there are two valid options: I could sit on my bed, wallowing in the costume I was planning on wearing, or I could try to make the most of it. I was looking forward to this year’s Halloween - on a Saturday, no less - but for the past few months I’ve seen the writing on the wall: A real Halloween isn’t in the cards this year. The coronavirus pandemic has ensured that people shouldn’t (even though we know that some of them will) go out trick-or-treating or go to parties. Halloween isn’t going to be the same this year.
![monster amplifier song monster amplifier song](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/lYgjcdqOehU/maxresdefault.jpg)
I’ve always liked listening to music that helps set the season - Christmas songs in December, beach jams in July - and there’s something so lovely about listening to Halloween songs as the leaves change and the wind rolls in. Over time, however, I’ve collected a number of songs in a Halloween-themed playlist - songs with just enough creepy edge that they give me the feelings of October and Halloween. Every Halloween party in an elementary school had the same handful of songs on repeat: “Monster Mash,” “Thriller,” “Ghostbusters,” “Purple People Eater,” “Werewolves of London,” “Superstition,” maybe “Psycho Killer,” “Bad Moon Rising,” “(Don’t Fear) the Reaper” or any of the other vaguely related ’70s rock songs. For much of my life, Halloween playlists have been disappointing.