Christmas carols are cool and all, but Halloween tunes are a real treat—our Associate Editor has made a spooky playlist just for you. Actually, it’s for her, but she wants to share it with you. Have a listen (if you dare).

Pure 2000s Nostalgia. 

Wow! Look at me—I’m so cultured. How EVER did I come across this random French tune? 

Well, one day, I was making nectar in my front yard. My feet were sore from mashing grapes all day, so I went back inside, called the nanny, and had a nap. When I woke up, I realized the nanny hadn’t been doing her job. I tried to talk to her, but you could say she was a bit of a hag. Since I was clearly going to have to do everything myself, I fired her. I had to take care of my baby, who she had left alone downstairs. I began my descent down my spiral staircase. That’s when it happened. 

All of the sudden, I was a toad. 

The nanny fled the scene, and by then my baby was starving. Before I knew it, CPS was taking my baby away. Due to my being a toad, there was nothing I could do to stop it. I could only say one thing:

“Ribbit, ribbit….”

…

Yeah, no. This will all make sense in a second. And if you know me, what I’m about to tell you might cause an involuntary facepalm.

It’s from The Sims.

Specifically, it’s from the best expansion pack of all time—The Sims: Makin’ Magic.

The whole soundtrack is, for lack of better words, magical. But the reason I’ve singled out this song is because the title phrase fits the nanny so well. Pas vu, pas vris—not seen, not caught. 

After the nanny toadified my Sim, I turned away from the screen and looked at my dad. He had absolutely no knowledge of the game, but this was an emergency. The look on my five-year-old face as I asked him for help must have been so sad, because—while this is obviously a core memory for me—even he remembers it. He reminds me of it whenever I mention Sims, and although it brings both of us a good laugh, he still feels bad that he couldn’t save my baby.

It’s okay, Dad. I forgive you.

For when spooky month makes you sad.

It’s my senior year of high school, and I’m still not over him. October is hard for me, but it feels fake to lament the death of a heterosexual relationship using girl in red’s “we fell in love in october.” Maybe it’s weirder that I find comfort in Cherry Glazerr, who I only know of because he was obsessed with just one of their songs nearly two years ago. I didn’t even start listening to Cherry Glazerr’s other songs until after he broke up with me. But for some reason, I feel like this music is here for me. I decide that Cherry Glazerr is mine now, and it gives me some sense of reclamation—some sense of self when I am too depressed to celebrate my favourite season with all the kooky songs I normally would.

It will take me another 18 months to stop loving him, but I’ll get there. 

And when I do, I’ll realize that this isn’t even Cherry Glazerr’s best spooky song.

♫

Now, I smile as “Pizza Monster” fades out. 

Chill lofi beats for the indie ghouls.

Halloween can be cute, too. I will say, however, that I am glad I’ve graduated from using the phrase “spoopy” as a means of articulating this. 

Yikes.

Rated E for everyone.

I know this is totally a kids song, but I didn’t discover it until I was 14. Although my friends were jarred by the transition from My Chemical Romance’s “Dead!” to this little ditty, I saw absolutely no problem with it. 

I still don’t. 

However, I had another kiddie song in my collection. I recognized that “Too Spooky For Me,” on the other hand, is clearly intended for an even younger audience. 

In order to maintain friendships, I played the latter less. When I did, though, I thought it was hilarious. I saw it as my own Halloween Rick roll. 

It’s not necessarily a staple now, but once I have a few spooky ciders in me, I can’t promise I won’t pull this trick.

For gen-z’s Disney adults. 

In my defense, at least this one’s a tween song. Kind of. 

“Calling All the Monsters” came out when I was in fifth grade. By this point, I had mostly moved on from Webkinz—but only because I decided that Animal Jam was cooler. (I even had a premium account for a few months). National Geographic decorated their virtual world each October, and whenever I got sick of the spooky Animal Jam soundtrack, China Anne McClain came in clutch. 

Come on. It’s a bop.

Self-explanatory.

It is July 31, 2014. I have spent enough time on Tumblr now, and this year I am prepared. The Skeleton War begins tomorrow. I must blast this fanfare as soon as I wake up.

On August 1, my custom alarm tone makes it official: It’s Almost Halloween.

I jump out of bed and gather my supplies: tissues, elastics, and a sharpie. I march to the living room, phone still blasting this fanfare. I begin assembling my army of tissue paper ghosts. 

I am 13. I don’t know what Panic! At The Disco’s frontman Brendon Urie has done yet, and I won’t for another several years and two concerts later. All I know is that he’s in an emo band the girl I’m crushing on likes. I haven’t even realized that I’m crushing on her yet, but later that year she will become my first love. 

Eventually, my parents notice that I’ve had this song on repeat for the past 30 minutes. They think I am so quirky. 

♫

Panic! has made so many of my favourite spooky songs: “Nearly Witches,” “Let’s Kill Tonight,” and even a cover of “This Is Halloween.” Now that I’ve come to accept that Brendon Urie might actually be an awful person, I try to turn to Fall Out Boy’s cover of “Ghostbusters” to fill the hole in my heart. 

It doesn’t work, but at least there’s always My Chemical Romance—Gerard Way’s “Baby You’re a Haunted House” has been out for a few years now, and it feels like home. 

The one with the ~deadly~ drops.

This song goes so hard that even my roommate (whose music taste is much different than mine) approves. It goes so hard that I listen to it all year round. 

I have so many memories with this song. It’s crazy to think that I might not have added this song to my collection if my friend hadn’t invited me to a Troye Sivan concert in 2018.

Kim Petras was the opener. She had released TURN OFF THE LIGHT, VOL. 1 that October, and there she was, still performing all her spookiest songs over a week after Halloween at Queen Elizabeth Theatre. 

Later that night, I listened to them again and again as my friend drove us through Vancouver’s terrifying night traffic. I would’ve listened to that album the whole way home if my friend hadn’t revoked my aux privileges after 45 minutes as the scary music was stressing her out. 

Almost a year later, I was on my way to a spooky rave. 

My friends were already there, so I was free to blast whatever music I wanted as I drove towards the Nanaimo airport. Of course, “<demons>” was perfect. I had it on repeat the entire time I was on the highway.

When I hit the dirt road, I switched to the full (new and improved) TURN OFF THE LIGHT album. This allowed something very funny to happen. 

After 30 minutes of failing to find this bush rave by myself, I realized I was lost—just as “Wrong Turn” came on.

Absolutely unmatched on every level.

At 15, I am equal parts angry and angsty. I sit at the kitchen table and plug my huge headphones into my iPhone 5S. It is sometime between July and November. 

I tap on whatever third-party streaming app I was using at the time and frantically type “spooky scary dubstep remix” in the search bar. It takes me a second to find this specific version—the remix on Spotify isn’t exactly the same (despite having the same name). 

I turn my volume all the way up for the first time ever and press play. 

I think I am so hardcore.

♫

If I could only pick one spooky song to listen to, this would be it.