America's Halloween Playlist

As Halloween has become a bigger cultural event, it now has its own holiday cannon. Some of the songs that are now Halloween songs might surprise you.

Is it just me, or has Halloween become a much bigger deal in recent decades? As an 80s kid, I don’t recall adults taking much interest in the occasion (save scaring Gen X kids with what turned out to be total lies about razors in our candy).

These days, your credit union’s loan officer might come to work dressed as Count Dracula.

This financial institution understood the assignment.

Naturally, people want a soundtrack for the occasion—and based on the top 200 songs on Spotify in the U.S. on October 31^st of last year—we’ve found at least 49 songs for our Halloween party playlists.

Really, there are 49 Halloween songs?

Really.

As you’ll see, though, we’re getting creative about which songs qualify as scary.

Unlike the Christmas music season, which will begin with Mariah Carey’s thawing on November 1^st, Americans only start playing their Halloween favorites during the week leading up to October 31^st.

Those songs fall broadly into three categories:

1. Halloween Specific Songs are the novelty songs created specifically with the day in mind. They’re the vast minority of songs we now play on Halloween

2. Movie Songs come from films that are Halloween related but other films that aren’t

3. Non-Halloween Songs are both big hits and obscure cult favorites that had nothing to do with October 31^st, but now make up the bulk of the Halloween cannon.

Halloween Specific Songs

There are only three songs truly dedicated to Halloween. The biggest, unsurprisingly, is “Monster Mash,” the novelty song from Bobby “Boris” Pickett and his Crypt-Kickers that was a #1 hit for Halloween 1962 and—strangely—also a #10 hit in August 1973.

The other two songs created specifically for Halloween are from the 1992 album Halloween Howls: Fun & Scary Music from Andrew Gold.

• Yes, that’s the Andrew Gold who most famously sang “Thank You For Being A Friend” that later Cindy Fee sang as the theme song for The Golden Girls

• Gold’s only other hit as a performer, 1977’s “Lonely Boy,” warns parents of the perils of ruining their only child’s life with a sibling. (If you’re a one and done parent, play it for anyone harassing you about when are you going to have your second.)

While he only had two Pop hits in his name, Gold was a prolific songwriter, producer, and instrumentalist shaping countless songs. In 1992, Gold observed there weren’t many songs specifically for Halloween. So, he recorded an album including a remake of the aforementioned “Monster Mash,” the theme from “The Addams Family,” and “Spooky, Scary Skeletons”, which has been an internet meme now for over a decade.

Here are the streams for the only three intentionally Halloween songs:

Movie Songs

Of course there’s Ray Parker Jr.’s “Ghostbusters.” There’s also the theme from Halloween and three songs from Disney’s The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Thanks to Beatlejuice, Harry Belefante’s 1950s hits “Banana Boat (Day-O)” and Jump in the Line are also on the list, even though no one would have found them scary in their day.

Lana Del Ray revived Donovan’s “Season Of The Witch” for the film “Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark.”

The film contributing the most songs to the Halloween cannon from a single movie is Epic The Musical, Jorge Rivera-Herran retelling of Homer’s Odyssey.

Here are the streams for the Top 10 Halloween songs from movies:

Regular Songs that Became Halloween Songs

The biggest category of songs now in the Halloween cannon are songs that originally weren’t Halloween related at all.

Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” while perfectly themed for the holiday, originally peaked in March 1984. Riding on Thriller’s coattails, Jackson’s “Smooth Criminal” also makes the list (Makes sense, Murder is scary.) So does “Billie Jean.” (I suppose surprise paternity accusations are super scary.

Other songs that at least fit the theme are Rockwell’s “Somebody’s Watching Me,” Blue Oyster Cult’s “Don’t Fear the Reaper,” The Cranberries’ Zombie,” and Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London.

Others, like AC/DC’s “Highway To Hell,” or Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition,” are more scary-adjacent.

Rihanna’s “Disturbia” and Britney Spears’ “Toxic” also surge in streaming on Halloween.

One of the newest and most-played Halloween songs is Tyler, The Creator feat. Schoolboy Q & Santigold’s “Thought I Was Dead,” which is a commentary on other rappers’ assessment of him, not about graves or ghosts.

Some songs that listeners now associate with Halloween are a stretch: Billie Eilish’s “bad guy?” Sam Smith & Kim Petras’ “Unholy?” Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)?”

Are we now just considering anything in Aeolian, Dorian, or Phrygian mode scary?

Even Daryl Hall & John Oates’ “Maneater” is on the Halloween playlist. (I always assumed it was about Miss Pac-Man.)

There are a few obscure classics that Halloween has revived: The Cramps’ version of “Goo Goo Muck” fits the night perfectly. The Specials’ “Ghost Town” was a commentary on the U.K.’s sagging economy, not actual ghosts. But it musically captures the vibe:

Finally, the Halloween cannon includes Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ 1956 recording of “I Put A Spell On You.” Originally conceived as a Blues ballad, it became a foundational early Rock ‘n’ Roll cult favorite. Nina Simone’s 1965 version turned it into a jazz standard.

Here are the streams for the Top 10 accidental Halloween songs:

Here’s all 49 songs that surged into the Spotify 200 in the U.S. for October 31st, 2024, in order of total daily plays:

1. Michael Jackson - Thriller

2. Ray Parker Jr. - Ghostbusters

3. Bobby “Boris” Pickett, The Crypt-Kickers - Monster Mash

4. Andrew Gold - Spooky, Scary Skeletons

5. Rockwell - Somebody’s Watching Me

6. The Citizens of Halloween - This Is Halloween

7. Tyler, The Creator feat. ScHoolboy Q, Santigold - Thought I Was Dead

8. John Carpenter - Halloween Theme

9. Andrew Gold - The Addams Family

10. Rihanna - Disturbia

11. Talking Heads - Psycho Killer

12. Blue Öyster Cult - (Don’t Fear) The Reaper

13. Screamin’ Jay Hawkins - I Put a Spell On

14. You Britney Spears - Toxic

15. Ghost - Mary On A Cross

16. Harry Belafonte - Banana Boat (Day-O)

17. Billie Eilish - bad guy

18. The Cramps - Goo Goo Muck

19. Jorge Rivera-Herrans, TROY, Diana Rivera-Herrans - Dangerous

20. Ed Ivory, Ken Page - Oogie Boogie’s Song

21. Lana Del Rey - Season Of The Witch

22. Jorge Rivera-Herrans, Steven Rodriguez, Cast of EPIC: The Musical - Six Hundred Strike

23. The Specials - Ghost Town

24. AC/DC - Highway to Hell

25. Jorge Rivera-Herrans, Steven Rodriguez, Steven Dookie, Armando Julián, Wanda Herrans, Cast of EPIC: The Musical - Get in the Water

26. Daryl Hall & John Oates - Maneater

27. Ava Max - Sweet but Psycho

28. Jorge Rivera-Herrans, Barbara Wangui, Cast of EPIC: The Musical - Not Sorry for Loving You

29. Trap Remix Guys, Trap Remix Guy - Harry Potter (Trap Remix)

30. Evanescence - Bring Me To Life

31. Sam Smith, Kim Petras - Unholy

32. Jorge Rivera-Herrans - Charybdis

33. Nelly Furtado - Maneater

34. Jack Lenz - Goosebumps Original Theme Song

35. The Cranberries - Zombie

36. Michael Jackson - Smooth Criminal

37. Warren Zevon - Werewolves of London

38. Danny Elfman - What’s This?

39. Twenty One Pilots - Heathens

40. October Country - My Girlfriend Is a Witch

41. Stevie Wonder - Superstition

42. Harry Belafonte - Jump in the Line

43. Michael Jackson - Billie Jean

44. Andrew Lloyd Webber, Gerard Butler, Emmy Rossum - The Phantom Of the Opera

45. PattyCake - I Put a Spell on You (In the Style of Hocus Pocus)

46. Danny Elfman - Main Title Theme (from “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice”)

47. Little Nell, Patricia Quinn, Richard O’Brien - Time Warp

48. Kate Bush - Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)

49. Lucie Cravero, HoKø - Ghost Sanctuary

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Date sources for this post:

• Spotify Charts (day of 10/31/2025 for the USA): https://charts.spotify.com/charts/overview/us

• The Billboard Hot 100: https://www.billboard.com/charts/hot-100

• Wikipedia’s Billboard Hot 100 Top 10 singles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Billboard_Hot_100_top-ten_singles