5 Essential Halloween Albums

Mazy Fly – SPELLLING

SPELLLING creates an eerie fantasy world second album, Mazy Fly. SPELLLING, born Chrystia Cabral, is a wizard of the droning, creepy looping synthesizer. Her voice is rich and haunting, especially in the ways she uses it on this album. She reminds me of Bjork a little, in the way that she’s not afraid to get a little weird with it to properly evoke the shape she wants her music to take. On Real Fun, she warbles through an alien idea of what ‘real fun’ actually is, all over a watery and distorted guitar riff. On Afterlife, Cabral channels the blues over saxophones and ghostly synths as she narrates the story of someone from beyond the veil making an attempt at hanging on to the living world. The pace of her voice on these songs oscillates between a whispered crawl, strong and hearty belting, and slowly creeping admissions. On my favorite track, Haunted Water, Cabral sings almost painstakingly slow, drawing out her words over a high synth track punctuated by drums. This album is a perfect spooky, flitting record for the season.

Hellbilly Deluxe – Rob Zombie

This album sounds like a horror movie soundtrack more than anything, especially with its proclivity to sample voice lines or even feature Rob Zombie talking, giving it a theatrical feel. Released in 1998, this album came out at a time where nu-metal soundtracks for horror movies were almost the norm. The most notable example of this fad is Jonathan Davis being chosen as the soundtrack producer for 2002’s Queen of the Damned, a movie soundtrack that also features hits by Deftones and Static-X, among other famous bands and artists. While this debut project from Rob Zombie is more industrial elements than nu-metal, the similarities are audible. Plus, he would go on to write, direct, and soundtrack quite a few movies himself, including the cult classic House of 1000 Corpses. But the album itself, Hellbilly, is just a pure spooky scary metal album. It has lyricism that reminds me of Insane Clown Posse’s dark provocation, especially on songs like Living Dead Girl which opens with an audio clip from the Italian horror movie Lady Frankenstein in which a voice says: “Who is this irresistible creature who has an insatiable love for the dead?” The album’s most infamous song is inarguable Dragula, a shredding, rough and tumble song named after Granpa Munster’s car from the TV show The Munsters.

Fur and Gold – Bat for Lashes

Fur and Gold is English singer-songwriter Natasha Khan’s debut album. About her stage name, Bat for Lashes, she has said this: “[It] doesn't really mean anything [...] It conjured up Halloween-y images, and it sounded metal and feminine.” I’m sure it’s not a mistake that ‘Halloween-y, metal, and feminine,’ are also incredible descriptors for Fur and Gold. This debut album is a triumph. It is dream-like and sweeping, largely in part to Khan’s beautiful, high and quivering voice. She recounts fairytale-like epics over tambourines, pianos, and horn sections. This is another album that I love to listen to in fall; it’s a surprisingly comforting listen despite its various musical oddities and quirks. However, what bridges the gap between Fall and Halloween, for me, is the song What’s A Girl To Do? What’s A Girl To Do? Is no doubt the most popular song on the album. It is also the first song I ever heard from this album: it’s the original track that I fell in love with. The song's lyrics have always put in mind a vampiric lover for me. The opening lyrics of the song are ‘We walked arm in arm / But I didn't feel his touch / The desire I'd first tried to hide / That tingling inside was gone.” The song itself is about feeling stuck in a relationship with a person that you have fallen out of love with, but with descriptors like ‘bat-lightning heart,’ there are some very clear Halloween likening.

Bloodsport – Sneaker Pimps

Every time fall rolls around, my most listened to genre switches from R&B to trip-hop, every. Single. Time. One of my essential, favorite trip-hop albums of all time is Bloodsport, the third album from English electronic band Sneaker Pimps. This album favors some almost ambient, hollow synths and droning instrumentals, all tied together is lead singer Chris Corner’s strong voice practically crooning over the instrumentals. The song most fitting for Halloween is Small Town Witch, a song about small-town resentment that samples Iggy Pop’s 1977 track Nightclubbing. Another song that fits the Halloween vibe is the album's title track, Bloodsport. The whole album has themes of conflicted feels in love, and this song is no different. Out of all of the songs on the album, Bloodsport carries those thematic ideas most literally, featuring the lyrics: ‘Sex and love is not a game / A game is something you can win / Maybe something kind of fun / Cause love is just a bloodsport, son’

BORN THIS WAY – Lady Gaga

And finally, there is Lady Gaga’s mega-famous third (second-ish?) album, BORN THIS WAY. What makes this album a great Halloween album to me is the way it haunts. The album opens with Marry The Night, one of Lady Gaga’s odes to New York that features looping, vampiric piano chords and Gaga’s signature electro-rock sound. On Judas, the fourth song on the album, Gaga finds herself caught between purity and sin by the pull of her self-described ‘demonic’ lover, the metaphorical ‘Judas.’ However, the centerpiece of Born This Way’s Halloween proclivities is coincidentally one of my absolute favorite Gaga songs of all time: Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary opens with creeping, sinewy strings, and features a looping drum beat, a defining staple of Gaga’s sound, especially in the beginning of her career. Her vocals are more lowkey and subtle on this song (save for the screamed, single-word post chorus of Love!) leaving more room for the echoing, electronic chorus behind her to shine.