Why isn’t there a market for Halloween music? By most metrics, it’s the second-most popular holiday in the United States, if not the world—given the amount of candy and costumes produced every year. Yet, you don’t see Sirius XM promoting an entire station to All Hallow’s Eve or people like Rob Zombie recording Now That’s What I Call Spooky Music. With every passing year, it’s always the same incessant loop of “Monster Mash,” Superstition” and “Thriller.” Considering the plethora of movies, books, and TV shows which find new and imaginative ways to tap into the spirit of the holiday, it seems quite confounding that Halloween’s music canon hasn’t been expanded since Alice Cooper’s “Feed My Frankenstein” back in 1991. Of course, it’s not that surprising when you consider how the holiday has been demonized by conservative circles for decades. Why bother making scary music if Facebook Puritans are just going to call you “devil worshippers”? Here’s the thing, that hasn’t stopped people attempting to write the next “Time Warp.”
Despite humanity’s propensity to believe we quit producing good music circa (insert whatever year you entered your 20s), there’s a menagerie of haunted tunes that have come out since the dawn of the century, many worth blasting over the speakers at Walmart. But, before we demand you to seek them out, we must first consider what connects the lexicon. Stylistically, the likes of “Boris the Spider,” “A Monster’s Holiday” and “Bela Legosi’s Dead” sound nothing alike, yet they all encompass three distinct qualities which make them resonate so strongly with Halloween: horror, humor and hooks. While the last 24 years haven’t been as rife with songs that meet this tonal trifecta, they have still produced a healthy platter of ear worms and melodic morsels that’ll make the bones rattle at the obligatory costume party. Without further ado, here are the 10 best Halloween songs of the 21st century.
10. Halestorm: “Mz. Hyde” (2012)
Heavy metal and horror have historically gone together like peanut butter and chocolate. It’s a genre steeped in occult imagery, and Halestorm’s “Mz. Hyde” mines the classic tale of Dr. Jekkyl and Mr. Hyde to maximum effect. While Lizzy Hale uses that framework as a metaphor for the warring sides of her personality (complete with a soft-loud vocal dynamic), the song leans into the monstrous imagery with lines like “Better be scared, better be afraid / Now that the beast is out of her cage,” pummeling guitar riff, guttural chorus and blatant theremin that weaves in and out of the sonic structure.
9. Lady Gaga: “Bloody Mary” (2011)
Tempting as it might be to slot “Monster” onto this list, thanks to its playful, undead lyrical imagery, I must unfortunately concede to Gen Z and acknowledge that they might be onto something with “Bloody Mary.” It remains to be seen if they entirely understand the appeal themselves, considering how they’ve sped the song up for its use on TikTok, but one listen to the original track from 2011 makes it clear why it’s textbook Halloween: Lady Gaga is at her most cold and authoritative here, while the backing track is capital G gothic—thanks to its chord choices and chilling use of a Gregorian chant. And though lyrically it doesn’t quite tap into the traditional iconography of spooky season, the quasi-sacrilegious portrayal of Mary Magdalene serves as a cheeky bit of dress up.
8. La Roux: “Tigerlily” (2009)
“Well tonight out on the streets, I’m gonna follow you” is the kind of declaration that will either get you maced or laughed out of a bar. In the hands of Elly Jackson, however, it’s a brash opening thought that sets the stage for this uneasy synth-pop ditty. Sonically, it doesn’t deviate too much from La Roux’s other tracks, but the group’s lyrical focus on lust and how it can manifest itself into outright stalking somehow makes the SNES keyboard bloops murkier. The first chorus, with lyrics like “And in the crush of the dark / I’ll be your light in the mist” also takes on a more sinister bent thanks to Jackson’s hushed vocal delivery, as if she’s lurking behind your shoulder. And then there’s a spoken word bit from Kit Jackson during the bridge. He doesn’t quite have the command of the late Vincent Price, but the “Thriller”-esque monologue certainly gives the tune an extra bit of tension without slipping into pastiche territory.
7. Megan Thee Stallion & Rico Nasty: “Scary” (2022)
A typical trend found in spooky music is to open a song with a stock scream and eerie moans, often to empty effect. But this is not the case with “Scary.” Like many of Megan Thee Stallion’s hits, the track has no qualms with being vulgar—marrying promiscuous wordplay with a genuine fondness for horror franchises like Candyman. But what truly makes “Scary” such a masterpiece is how Megan embraces the role of a frightful provocateur. “Every time I pop out, it get scary for you hoes” might very well be one of the greatest triple entendres ever put down to paper, and the bars Rico Nasty spits out in verse three more than match Megan’s energy.
6. Austin Lounge Lizards: “Hillbillies in a Haunted House” (2000)
Horror movies/stories have long been an impetus for bands looking to make a quick buck, whether it be DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince’s “A Nightmare on My Street” or the Ramones’ “Pet Sematary.” The results are often laughable for all the wrong reasons, but the Austin Lounge Lizards’ turn-of-the-century ditty is a deliberate comedic tour-de-force whose intentions are evident from the start of the song. Before a group of 87 hillbillies even gets to the house, their number is decimated by a freak car accident, and the results only get bloodier with each verse until just one hillbilly is left standing. A delicious strain of dark comedy tailored to the season.
5. Sierra Ferrell: “The Sea” (2021)
Very rarely does country music dip its toes into the realm of Halloween. When it does, it comes at it from the lens of comedy, sending up the classic tropes of monsters and ghouls with a corn fed grin (look no further than Buck Owens’s “Monster’s Holiday.”) Sierra Ferrell is not your average country performer, which is evident from the start of her breakout album, Long Time Coming. A seamless blend of gypsy jazz and traditional country music, “The Sea” is the musical personification of a haunted house. It has all the ingredients: a minor key, singing saw, foreboding water imagery and multiple unhinged violin solos that will chill your bones. It’s all tied together by the singer’s vocal performance which strikes a delicate balance between the witchy vibes of Stevie Nicks and the commanding holler of Loretta Lynn.
4. Paramore: “You First” (2023)
Across her 20-year career, Hayley Williams has never been afraid to dabble into horror territory. She famously contributed “Decode” to the original Twilight soundtrack back in 2008, crafted a mini-horror movie for the music video to 2020’s “Simmer” and went all-in on vampiric imagery for the Paramore song “Creepin’.” All are worthy contenders to the Halloween canon, but none of those songs commit to the bit as much as “You First”—a song where Williams brings up all the classic tropes (revenge, karma, stray animals, devil sitting on her shoulder, etc.) before she proclaims to be “living in a horror film where I’m both the killer and the final girl” in the second verse. And it backs up those boastful assertions with the most anxiety-inducing guitar intro you’ll ever hear (it’s like their strangling an air raid siren), thick propulsive bass grooves and an all-time vocal performance from one of the 21st century’s finest singers. There’s a reason they made a T-shirt out of this song.
3. Kesha: “Cannibal” (2010)
Bolstered by its use in Huluween Dragstravaganza, “Cannibal” was something of an overlooked gem in Kesha’s discography when it was first released as a promotional single back in November 2010. Since then, it’s become a fan-favorite, and for good reason. Like much of her output from the Obama era, it’s absolutely tasteless and a delicious precursor to the hyperpop subgenre, but it retains staying power thanks to its commitment to a cannibal metaphor. Kesha’s playful delivery of lines like “I eat boys up, breakfast and lunch / Then when I’m thirsty, I drink their blood” lends the song a perfect camp quality and makes the risque Jeffrey Dahmer reference easier to swallow.
2. The Weeknd: “The Hills” (2015)
Is there such a thing as being “too dark” for Halloween? This is the question raised by songs like “The Hills,” part of the one-two punch (along with “Can’t Feel My Face”) that made The Weeknd a superstar in 2015. It’s a lurid tale of a sex addict and adulterer who has slowly lost all sense of pleasure, and while the subject matter doesn’t tap into the traditional iconography of All Hallow’s Eve, it’s no less haunting thanks to the refrain of “when I’m fucked up, that’s the real me” in the chorus. Coupled with the track’s dark sonic sheen, mixing tinkling 80s synths with bombastic bass drops, and you have the musical equivalent of a classic horror film.
1. Yeah Yeah Yeahs: “Heads Will Roll” (2009)
Whether it be the original version, the A-Trak remix or the Glee mash-up with “Thriller,” there’s nothing quite like “Heads Will Roll.” From the ominous mellotron drone, to Karen O’s invocation of the Red Queen, to the disco-inflected beat to the icy U2 inspired guitar licks, there’s simply too much going on underneath the hood to put into words. It’s the sound of giddy children getting to act like monsters, wasted millennials acting like party animals and aging Gen-Xers relieving the glory days of Michael Jackson on MTV. “Heads Will Roll” is the sound of Halloween wrapped up in a neat four-minute bundle. Hooks, humor and horror all present and in abundance.
