Split Tooth’s Breanna McCann isn’t a fan of horror movies. So we asked her to compile all her favorite spooky records for an October Horror Monster Mash playlist
As the leaves turn their dark, fiery hues and the air gets crisper, the breezes of fall bring both a feeling of new life and the chill of the impending death that comes with winter. It is no wonder in this alternately beautiful and grim season that the imagination wanders to the macabre, the supernatural — but is it merely imagination?
Music is full of ghosts — inhabited by long-dead artists or through the memories of past selves that we have left behind with the music. Perhaps it’s the desperate wails of Robert Johnson in his Faustian bargain with the Devil that echo deep in the soul or the dark resignation of Ian McCulloch’s warnings about the dangers waiting in the moonlight. With hypnotizing psych rock, doomed singer-songwriters, and pulsing rock and punk, this is a playlist full of ghosts — a Halloween party of sorts with tortured souls, spooky jams, and, perhaps most horrifying, Mike Love’s Boris Pickett impersonation.
Listen to the playlist below or on Spotify:
- “Cross Road Blues” — Robert Johnson
- “The Killing Moon” — Echo & The Bunnymen
- “Wicked Annabella” — The Kinks
- “I Put a Spell On You” — Screamin’ Jay Hawkins
- “Haunted House of Rock” — Satan’s Pilgrims
- “My Girlfriend Is a Witch” — October Country
- “Strange Brew” — Cream
- “Season of the Witch (Live)” — Mike Bloomfield & Al Kooper
- “Ghost Memories” — Gene McKown
- “Nocturnal Me” — Echo & The Bunnymen
- “Being Followed Home” — Pulp
- “I’d Swear There Was Somebody Here” — David Crosby
- “Tiger Mountain Peasant Song” — Fleet Foxes
- “Danger and Dread” — Brown Bird
- “Long Black Veil” — The Band
- “Hell Hound On My Trail” — Robert Johnson
- “It’s Halloween” — The Shaggs
- “Graveyard — Dead Moon
- “Lies of the Living Dead” — The Minus 5
- “Halloween” — Eyelids
- “The Witch” — The Sonics
- “Halloween Song” — Stumpy Joe
- “Halloween” — Dead Kennedys
- “Monster Mash (Live)” — The Beach Boys
- “Spooky” — Dusty Springfield
- “Wolfman Jack” — Todd Rundgren
- “Wuthering Heights” — Kate Bush
- “Clap for the Wolfman” — The Guess Who
- “R.I.P.” — Richard Swift
- “Curse of the Witches” — Strawberry Alarm Clock
- “War In Peace” — Skip Spence
- “Song to the Siren” — Tim Buckley
- “Me and the Devil Blues” — Robert Johnson
Editor’s Note: If you like what you hear, we encourage you to seek out the music through means that are more beneficial to the artists themselves. It is always the right choice to support musicians. All links go to available Bandcamp pages of featured artists.
Find the complete October Horror 2022 series here:
