![Halloween's biggest hits: Michael Jackson's 'Thriller', Eminem and Rihanna's Monster, and more](https://www.usmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Michael-Jacksons-%E2%80%98Thriller-Eminem-and-Rihannas-Monster-and-More-1.jpg?w=1000&quality=86&strip=all)
Michael Jackson
YouTubeIt’s Halloween! Darkness is falling over the land and the hour of midnight is near. Creatures crawl in search of creepy bops and bloody firecrackers to make all the idiots jump.
Every October, a group of spooky tunes climb out of their tombs and return to the streaming charts and party playlists. Halloween has a soundtrack with certain songs that appear at every Dead Man’s Party, Skeleton Dance, and Vampire Ball. Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ is one such song, and although it only reached number 4 on the Billboard Hot 100, it has remained No. 1 in the zombified hearts of all Halloween fans since the album of the same name was released in 1982.
There are some real Halloween hits on the “Killboard Rot 100,” such as Billboard places it. Roy Orbison’s ‘Running Scared’ reached No. 1 in 1961. More than 50 years later Eminem And Rihanna has accomplished the same feat with “The Monster,” a song that has become a staple of Halloween streaming playlists since 2013. PostMalone And Ty Dolla $igns “Psycho” also topped the Hot 100, reaching No. 1 in 2018.
In the 2020s, songs once thought dead have been resuscitated thanks to viral trends on TikTok. Lady Gaga‘Bloody Mary’, from her 2011 album Born that waywas released as a single in 2022 after fans spliced together a sped-up version of the song into a dance sequence from Netflix’s Wednesday series. Unfortunately, this removed The Cramps’ cover of “Goo Goo Muck”, leaving the band without a Stranger things-style bump that moved along Kate Bush (“Running Up That Hill”) and Metallica (“Master of Puppets”) to the top of the charts.
Halloween can raise the dead – and give a boost to many old songs in October. Ministry’s ‘(Every Day Is) Halloween’, Type O Negative’s ‘Black No. 1 (Little Miss Scare-All)’, Yeah Yeah Yeahs ‘Heads Will Roll’ Rob ZombieMisfits’ ‘Dragula’ and ‘Halloween’ are among the songs seeing spikes in their stream numbers this time of year, according to Billboard.
While most Halloween songs are decades old, there are groups like LVCRFT that aim to create modern spooky music. Their “Skeleton Sam” was used for Freeform’s “31 Nights of Halloween” campaign, which has generated 8.5 million on-demand audio streams since its release in 2019, according to Billboard. So, while you enjoy this terrifying holiday, here’s a look at some of the biggest songs of the spooky season.
Michael Jackson, ‘Thriller’
Michael Jackson’s landmark album Thriller arrived in 1982, but it took two years for the title track to be released as a single. By then the Johannes LandisThe MTV-directed music video for “Thriller” was an MTV mainstay, and it blossomed from the (bloody) rose. This could explain why “Thriller”, the seventh single from the album, could not reach number 4 on the charts Billboard Hot 100.
However, in the 40 years since its release, Halloween seems incomplete without it.
Eminem performance. Rihanna, “The Monster”
Eminem and Rihanna’s fourth collaboration (following ‘Love The Way You Lie’, ‘Love The Way You Lie (Part II)’ and ‘Numb’) arrived in 2013. The song comes from The Marshall Mathers LP2came inside Billboard Hot 100 at number 3 before reaching the top of the chart in its sixth week on the Hot 100.
The part that makes the song a Halloween staple is probably Rihanna’s hook: “I’m friends with the monster that’s under my bed / Dealing with the voices in my head / You tryna save me, stop holding you breathe / And you think I’m crazy, yeah, you think I’m crazy.
Rockwell, ‘Somebody’s Watching Me’
In his writing, Billboard said “Somebody’s Watching Me” is a favorite of “Nepo Babies.” That was a dark nod to Rockwell, aka Kennedy Gordy, the son of Motown’s founder and CEO Berry Gordy. Featuring guest vocals from Jackson, Rockwell’s song reached No. 2 on the chart Billboard Hot 100 and made it a Halloween hit forever. However, as Todd In The Shadows’ review of the song reveals, not many people watched Rockwell afterward.
Post Malone feat. Ty Dolla $ign, “Psycho”
As Post Malone’s third single Beer pipes and Bentleys“Psycho,” featuring Ty Dolla $ign, was released in February 2018. But the mood of the song was more suited to October. The song reached the top of the Hot 100 in the summer of 2018, but it continues to find life when Halloween rolls around.
Warren Zevon, “Werewolves of London”
Although Warren Zevon is still highly regarded as a songwriter and performer, he has never had a number 1 hit in his all-too-short life. The closest came in 1978, when ‘Werewolves of London’. The song reached number 21 on the Hot 100 and remains Zevon’s biggest commercial hit.
Three years later, John Landis would direct An American werewolf in London, with the song somehow not being included in the soundtrack. Luckily, outlaw Southern rocker Shooter Jennings kept Zevon’s memory and legacy alive with the 2023 album Shooter Jennings and the werewolves of Los Angeles Do Zevon.
Rihanna, “Disturbia”
Another of Rihanna’s Halloween entries, “Disturbia,” topped the Hot 100 in August 2018, about six weeks after it first hit the Billboard singles chart. As a bonus track for Good Girl Gone Bad: Reloaded — the reissue of her third studio album – “Disturbia,” delivers on the emotions in the title, with paranoia and fear running to a wicked dance beat.
Like “The Monster,” Rihanna’s chorus makes the song a perfect fit for Halloween playlists: “Turn on your brake lights / You’re in the city of wonder / Ain’t gon’ play nice / Watch out, you might go just go down / Better think twice / Your train of thought will change / So if you have to hesitate, be wise.
Little Mix, “Black Magic” / Fifth Harmony, “I’m in Love with a Monster”
The girl group revival of the 2010s delivered two great additions to your Halloween listening pleasure. Fifth Harmony released “I’m In Love With a Monster” as part of the soundtrack for the 2015 release Hotel Transylvania 2. Although the song didn’t chart, it has since found an afterlife as a Halloween bop.
Another song that did chart was ‘Black Magic’ by Little Mix. As the lead single from their 2015 album, Get weirdit reached number 67 in the US Billboard Hot 100 while going to the top of the UK Singles Chart.
Lady Gaga, ‘Bloody Mary’
It didn’t take a deal with a devil or a witch’s spell to make Lady Gaga’s ‘Bloody Mary’ a hit. It just needed TikTok. In 2022, fans on the platform took a scene from Netflix’s Wednesday and dubbed into a sped-up version of the song from Gaga’s 2011 album, Born that way. The original song immediately saw a dramatic increase in streams, leading to the label releasing it as an official single eleven years after the LP was first released. It eventually reached number 41 on the Billboard Hot 100 after twelve weeks.
Bobby ‘Boris’ Pickett, ‘Monster Mash’
It can be corny. It could be ‘spoopy’. It can be campy. But ‘Monster Mash’ by Bobby ‘Boris’ Pickett and the Cryp-Kickers is the theme of Halloween. Released in 1962, with Bobby Pickett impersonating Boris Karloff, the song reached No. 1 on the Hot 100 in October of that year.
Since then, it has been a favorite of creeps, ghouls, vampires, werewolves, and Oktoberland residents of all kinds. In 2021, it was a Halloween miracle as the “Monster Mash” re-entered the Hot 100 at No. 37, nearly 60 years after its release. Some would call that a “graveyard crush.”