Spooky Music
The Reflector gives you the top three album choices for your Halloween soundtrack
Omar Omar
Staff Writer
It’s that time of year again. Pumpkins are out and diabetes levels are on the rise. But what good is Halloween without an eerie, chill-inducing medley of melodies to set the stage before the screams?
Answer: no good. For that reason, the Reflector has compiled a list of the top three albums that will put the spook into your Halloween:
Ooky Spooky
Voltaire
This album is more morbid than one may usually desire, but Voltaire’s unique lyrics and life-like music will provide much more than a mere scare for Halloween.
The tracks on Ooky Spooky belong in no better place than a Halloween party — assuming you aren’t too hammered to notice — and will complement the mystery of people in mask, cloak and disguise dancing away until the brim of the night.
This album has a Mexican/Latino influence, with songs such as “Day of the Dead” and “Blue-Eyed Matador” that all fit perfectly into a Halloween theme.
The Nightmare before Christmas soundtrack
Danny Elfman
In the soundtrack for the infamous film celebrating a hybrid of Christmas and Halloween, Danny Elfman has created a musical masterpiece that will haunt, charm and thrill all at once — and will remain a timeless staple for every Halloween… or Christmas.
There are many orchestral elements in this soundtrack that serve to immerse listeners into the wonders of the night while instilling a haunting fear of the things that go bump. Such is the case with the song “Jack’s Lament”, which sees melancholic verses mixed with frightening sections of soft, yet spooky notes.
Other songs, like “This is Halloween”, with its sharp, rhythmic bursts of intensity, really set the stage for both the movie from which it is featured, as well as any plans you have for your Halloween.
H.P Lovecraft Historical Society
It is indeed a rare occurrence to find a group capable of perfectly revising and making morbid the melodies and attributed lyrics of Beethoven’s famous “Ode to Joy”, but H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society has somehow made it work.
The Society creates CDs, movies and even games that are all aligned with Lovecraft’s terrifying mythos, but their music in particular is off-putting and downright haunting. It is akin to what one could expect to hear in a cathedral from hell. In other words, this music is fantastic.
Multi-instrumental orchestra is the musical medium here, but what stands out the most are the lyrics to the music, which often glorify the Lovecraftian Cthulu or some other eldritch horror, which is heard quite often in the track, “Death to the World”. Other signatures songs unique to the Society often disguise disturbance in pleasant-sounding music, such as “Have Yourself a Scary Little Solstice”.