Halloween, the Rockol playlist
Here is a playlist of songs carefully designed for Rockol readers on the occasion of Halloween. We tried to avoid those titles – see Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” – which are recommended and promoted by the internet every year, focusing on choices that are in some cases even unusual. Happy listening!
1. Duran Duran – “Black Moonlight” (2023)
‘Danse Macabre’ is the Duran Duran album, published in 2023, and republished in 2024 in an expanded edition with unreleased songs, openly inspired by Halloween: an album that in itself would be perfect to play in its entirety on the occasion of the aforementioned party. The pop-wave dance of “Black Moonlight”, with the spiritualistic and dark themes that make up the video clip, is certainly one of its most danceable and funniest peaks.
2. Japan – “Halloween” (1980)
The dark and atmospheric “Halloween” is part of ‘Quiet Life’, the third (splendid) work of the British band led by David Sylvian, caught here in full synth-wave ardour. The Halloween evoked by Sylvian’s voice mixes with an idea of romantic dismay, perhaps given by the breakdown of a relationship, with a further metaphorical note on the division of the Berlin Wall between its two parts, east and west.
3. Mike Oldfield – “Tubular Bells pt. 1” (1973)
In 1973, the British multi-instrumentalist Mike Oldfield released ‘Tubular Bells’, an album divided into two homonymous tracks and destined to enter music history. Its success, however, is closely linked to the inclusion of “Tubular Bells pt. 1” in the scabrous horror film ‘The Exorcist’ by William Friedkin, a film which was screened in the same year on world cinema screens, resulting in recurring fainting spells and stratospheric takings. It is no coincidence that the initial melodic sequence of “Tubular Bells” can only instantly bring us back to the disturbing and fascinating images of Friedkin’s work, in itself a must to be screened at every Halloween.
4. OST – Stranger Things – “Title Sequence” (Kyle Dixon & Michael Stein) (2016)
The fantastic Netflix series, created by the Duffer Brothers, began receiving enthusiastic responses of appreciation from the public as well as critics from its first season. Beyond this, ‘Stranger Things’, with its 1980s cultural references and its synth-soaked theme song, ends up adhering spontaneously to all that particular nocturnal and spooky imagery evoked by Halloween.
5. Misfits – “Halloween” (1981)
“Candied apples and razor blades/The little dead will soon be in their graves”, so sings Glen Danzig, in this fast and raunchy song by the historic horror-punk band the Misfits (“misfits”, in Italian), whose famous “corpse paint” makeup style and the so-called “devilock” hair style sported by bassist Jerry Only are remembered. Cacophonous to the right degree, the Misfits’ hymn to Halloween does not carry within itself traces of suspense, but rather of that certain sonic filth with which one always likes to get a little dirty.
6. Type O Negative – “All Hallows Eve” (1999)
“In the flames and without shame/Consumed by screaming and screaming/The pumpkins smile in their desperation/On All Hallows’ Eve.” Even among these words there are grooves of the essence of Peter Steele, late leader of Type O Negative who in this characteristic track taken from ‘World Coming Down’, one of the best albums of the never forgotten gothic/doom formation formed in Brooklyn, shares the vocals together with guitarist Kenny Hickey.
7. Fastway – “Trick Or Treat” (1986)
Another look at another side of the Eighties with the main song of one of those little films, ‘Trick Or Treat’, in its original title, which every good connoisseur of a certain genre cinema willingly watches during Halloween night (perhaps in VHS format, to better stay in the spirit of the time). The song reported here, whose title refers to the Italianized expression “trick or treat”, is a hard/metal song by Fastway – a project of former Motörhead guitarist “Fast” Eddie Clarke and former UFO bassist Pete Way -, which in the film is attributed to the character of Sammi Curr, a deceased cursed rock star who resurrects through the turntable of his favorite (creating panic and death for the living).
8. The Specials – “Ghost Town” (1981)
Despite its title, which would indirectly seem to refer to “Halloween” imagery, technically this song by the British Specials talks about recession, unemployment and social unrest and was published at the height of a series of riots that took hold in a difficult period for the United Kingdom. “Ghost Town” was and remains an epochal song, ideal to listen to during a busy evening on October 31st. The version recorded by Duran Duran for their album ‘Danse Macabre’, already mentioned here at the beginning, is also very convincing.
9. Siouxsie And The Banshees – “Halloween” (1981)
“The night is still/And the frost bites my face/I wear my silence like a mask/And like a ghost I murmur/”Trick or treat”https://www.rockol.it/”Trick or treat”/The bitter and the sweet”. If there is a perfect post-punk anthem that calls into question the discussion relating to the night of October 31st, that is the song reported here. Taken from the 1981 masterpiece ‘Juju’, “Halloween” by the legendary Siouxsie And The Banshees almost sounds, in some ways, like a slightly sped up version of “Transmission”, the timeless song by Joy Division.
10. The Cure – “Lullaby” (1989)
Although this rhythmic and astonishing dark lullaby whispered by Robert Smith – present in the equally astonishing Cure album ‘Disintegration’ – does not directly relate to the Halloween theme, the climate released by “Lullaby”, in whose dreamlike video clip Smith ends up swallowed (“eaten for dinner”, as he says in the text) by a giant spider, makes “Lullaby” a sound passage that fits perfectly into a playlist of this genre.
11. “This Is Halloween” – Marilyn Manson (2006)
Not everyone knows that Danny Elfman’s classic, the theme of the stop motion animated musical fantasy ‘Nightmare Before Christmas’ (directed by Henry Selick in his directorial debut, but produced and created by the fervent mind of Tim Burton), was transformed, years ago, into a delightfully dark cover released by the bard of industrial goth, the loved/hated Marilyn Manson. With a result that, it must be said, still delights us.
12. “Suspiria” – Goblin (1977)
We could have tried to surprise you with predictable effects, placing in this playlist the well-known instrumental track composed by John Carpenter for his ‘Halloween – Night of the Witches’, starring the (fictitious) serial killer Michael Meyers. Instead, we choose to insert in its place the disturbing main theme of one of Dario Argento’s masterpieces, ‘Suspiria’, performed by the historic Roman prog rock band Goblin, the same one that also created the rest of the soundtrack of that untouchable supernatural horror (which remains the director’s most popular film, at least on an international level – in Italy this primacy still belongs to ‘Profondo Rosso’). This nightmarish composition (in a positive sense), offers a perversely hypnotic sound – note the use of a Greek instrument such as the bouzouki – so much so that without it Argento’s feature film, whose esoteric plot revolves around the theme of witches, would certainly have had a different impact.
13. “Halloween Parade” – Lou Reed (1989)
“Halloween Parade” is one of the highlights of ‘New York’, Lou Reed’s frank rock’n’roll album from 1989 (the cover is iconic, with the singer superimposed in multiple positions), and is in itself a song as evocative as it is chilling. The title directly quotes the annual Halloween parade in the Village of New York, today described as “the most creative participatory event in the nation, in the most important city in the world”, except that in “Halloween Parade” the former Velvet Underground calls to judgment the specter of AIDS, sending a thought dedicated to some of his acquaintances who lost their lives, during the Eighties, due to the disease.
14. “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” – Blue Öyster Cult (1976)
Why would this classic have any relevance to the Halloween theme? The reasons essentially lie in two aspects: the first is that it is an evergreen rock playlist, generally speaking; the second is its delightfully “spooky” nature. “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” (literally: “don’t fear the grim reaper”), in fact, tells of the inevitability of death and the fear related to it, and was written by Donald “Buck” Dharma, guitarist and songwriter of the band, thinking about the hypothetical consequences of passing away at a young age.
