Breaking beats: Spookiest songs on the block
Music can be scary! Early popular songs like “Monster Mash” and “I Put a Spell on You” played with both a spooky sound and spooky lyrics. More recently, artists have made frightful tracks much more sexy and genres like “ghoststep,” “horrorcore,” and “witch house” have added new flavors to mix.
This week’s playlist is all about witches, ghosts, spiders and other scary stuff.
Rihanna — Disturbia
Your mind is in Disturbia
It’s like the darkness is the light
RiRi goes for the horror punk look in the “Disturbia” video — so grave wave.
Lady Gaga — Monster
He ate my heart. He ate my heart. Instead he’s a monster in my bed
In this Gaga cut, a wolf man and Lady Gaga get freaky on the dance floor. The addictive beat of this track gets it a guarantee play at any Halloween party.
Michael Jackson — Thriller
’Cause I can thrill you more than any ghost
This is the classic Halloween track and Michael Jackson album! “Thriller” would have been so meme-worthy if it were made today.
Kanye West — Monster ft. Jay-Z, Nicki Minaj
OK, first things first I’ll eat your brains
Then I’m a start rocking gold teeth and fangs
Nicki Minaj kills it in this track from Kanye’s Dark Beautiful Twisted Fantasy album. When Kanye released this track all the internet talked about was Nicki’s verse. Some people still consider it her best and spookiest lyrics ever.
Beyonce — Haunted
I know if I’m haunting you
You must be haunting me
Beyonce plays the scary card in this eerie song with lyrics like “slap me” and “kiss, bite, foreplay.” Beyonce probably has a thing for ghosts.
Youryoungbody — Hypomania
Come out and play with me
Don’t you want to play?
Seattle band YYB get all types of spooky in “Hypomania.” Frontwoman Emily Cripe said she imagined the song to be about a little girl whispering into a tree with a monster inside of it, and then she runs around the forest with the monster. That’s so ghastly! BOO!
Talking Heads — Psycho Killer
Psycho Killer
Qu’est-ce que c’est
The fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-far part is what gets me — so goregrind.
Gnarls Barkley — The Boogie Monster
I’d kill it but it’s already dead
Straight off of Gnarls Barkley’s excellent debut album, “Boogie Man” tells a story of a man haunted by a ghoulish creature.
Sky Ferreira — Night Time, My Time
No angels will help us out
’Cause they’ve all gone
The title track from Sky Ferreira’s debut gives so many chills, it’s NO CHILL! The build up of the song has a horrorcore vibe.
