Halloween: the night of fear, horror and stupid Americans...

There’s an awful lot of stupid things Americans do: saying “could care less” when they mean “couldn’t care less”, electing a narcissistic moron as president – twice, allowing people to stockpile an arsenal of weaponry in their garage…

But instead of writing an entire blog about all this and adding in why they refuse to use prepositions or the ly suffix, I’m instead focusing on just one thing. A thing that gets on my witches’ tits every year.

As a DJ, I’ve done countless Halloween discos over the years, and if someone comes up and asks me to play some Halloween music, I don’t then play ‘Chinese Restaurant’ by Baltimora. Why? Because it’s got nothing to do with Halloween.

If I’m having my own Halloween party at home, I don’t decorate the house with beach balls, fake snow and posters of famous cricketers. Why? Because it’s nothing to do with Halloween. 

And I’m pretty certain that our friends across the pond also take this approach with regards to Halloween music and home

decor. So why then, when it comes to dressing up for Halloween, does that logic go out of the window? Surely if your tunes and ‘residence’ are suitably linked to the theme, your costume would be too? Nope! Anything goes! That’s why, on the night of the living dead – of horror, fear, nightmares, evil spooks and spirits – Americans dress up as baseball players, Super Mario or a fridge. 

Why? It makes no sense whatsoever! What’s the point of celebrating Halloween (I could end that sentence there) and getting into the spirit of things by dressing up as something totally irrelevant? I mean, do Americans do that for other fancy-dress parties – sorry, ‘costume parties’?  Do they get invited to a ‘1970s disco’ themed party and turn up as a stegosau

rus?

And of course, that means everyone in the UK must now follow suit – specifically the younger generation who, of course, think America is the blueprint for everything in life – as does America itself. They don’t think, “hang on – this is bollocks”. Or, to use their lingo, “this literally makes zero sense”. Nope, they just go along with it. They’d rather be wrong and conform, than question something and be thought of as a weirdo. 

Anyway, unlike the American approach to dressing up, this Halloween piece will stick to things relevant to Halloween. I mentioned DJing earlier and so, of course, I have an interest in Halloween-themed music, and few Halloweens back, I decided to do my own Halloween mix (link available upon request) having noticed that most albums on this theme were, on the whole, shit. One in particular – ‘100 Hits: Halloween’ – caught my eye. The problem with these ‘100 Hits’ collections is that they've instantly set themselves a difficult challenge of finding 100 records on a said theme. One hundred 80s (no apostrophe) hits is easy – though some still get that wrong by sticking ‘Groove Is in the Heart’ or something on it. But a specific theme like Halloween is a tough one. When I first started DJing at Halloween parties, I soon came to realise that there aren’t actually that many spooky songs out there – certainly not enough to fill a whole night.

Back to the CD in question though and, for starters, it's not even 100 hits. It's in fact 80 'tracks' which weren't necessarily hit records, plus 20 karaoke backing tracks. What with me being a bit of a music junkie I ‘go the extra mile’ when DJing and try to find music that isn’t on most people’s radars. I don’t know why, because nobody gives a shit if it’s not something they’ve heard a thousand times in their life already. 

But anyway, with my pop knowledge in my mind, I think there are a number of tracks that could've been included and made the album, not only better value, but also more spooky sounding. These being:

Aqua – Halloween (possibly the most suitable track for a Halloween album ever, what with the title being ‘Halloween').

Magic Affair – Omen III (this huge haunting Euro hit in 1994 made No17 here – not a bad showing seeing as it got no exposure).

allSTARS – Things That Go Bump In The Night (written and produced by Peter Cunnah of D:Ream no-less, this Max Martin-ish production is a great piece of fun, spooky-sounding pop). 

The Specials – Ghost Town (AKA the UK national anthem, this one doesn’t require much pop knowledge but really should have been included).

MC Hammer – Addams Family Groove (cringey pop-rap film tie-in, but certainly should have been included way before anyone suggested Super Furry Animals’ Demons). 

Magic Affair – In The Middle Of The Night (another spooky-sounding sliver of Eurodance).

Pet Shop Boys – Vampires (from the Nightlife LP, a haunting – if a little pedestrian – piece).

Freemasons – Uninvited (I genuinely think this sounds spooky, so up yours).

666 – The Devil (galloping hard house remix by Club Caviar – punctuated by the voice of Lucifer himself).

Ch!pz – Haunted House (fun Dutch Europop – what young kids should be listening to).

Something that wasn’t around when this album was produced, so couldn’t be on it – but, if it gets a re-release, I’d also like to suggest the silly-yet-sophisticated Pound Shop Boys and their rousing synth-driven treatment of Killer Klowns by The Dickies.

And if we're including film themes, then why not TV themes? And how about Rent-a-ghost? A lyrically masterful song that name-checks more paranormal things than you can shake a stick at. Or that thing that Claypole used to hold with a mini version of his head on the end (I’m now wondering if I’ve imagined this! Or he did have something like that?). Anyway, this is also an opportunity to mention the Pound Shop Boys again as they produced a splendid synthpop cover of said theme on their LP, titled ‘Nostalgia’.

The aformentione tracks also have a lot more of a Halloween 'sound' to them too, as opposed to merely being something that has a scary word in the title – but isn't the least bit scary musically. Quite a few of the inclusions here are pushing it a bit. I mean, Steps' cover of ‘Better the Devil You Know’ is not a Halloween record. Nor is ‘Abracadabra’ by Steve Miller Band. You just get the feeling that this has been compiled by someone who has just asked ChatGPT to name any song from the last 50 years that has the word 'devil' in the title, rather than someone with a bit of musical knowledge. In fact, there are sixteen tracks that match this specific criterion.

Oddly, the delightful banjo-plucking dance anthem ‘Swamp Thing’, by The Grid appears to be on here. Again, we’re presumably meant to be unnerved by the mere title here rather than the music itself then. A much more suitable dance track to have used would have been the hauntingly sinister 'Nightmare' by Brainbug. Or ‘Benedictus’ as it’s virtually the same record.

Thankfully, ‘Thriller’ was obviously too expensive for them as it only appears here as a karaoke backing track on the fifth disc of the set. I say “thankfully” because it’s overplayed, he’s a paedophile and it really should be called ‘Horror’, not ‘Thriller’. I suspect these other omissions I've highlighted though, are more down to a lack of musical knowledge, than budget – with the possible exception of the national anthem.

All in all, it’s a lot more of a trick than a treat. But not more of a trickle than treat. Trickle treat, honestly. Yes, there are genuinely people out there who think the phrase is indeed ‘trickle treat’. Just search those two words on X if you don’t believe me. Why would it be that? What would a trickle treat be? Do they expect people whose doors they knock on to take them into the back garden and treat them to the sight of a miniature water feature?

Presumably these people really did spend their whole childhood saying that! I didn’t know anyone that said that, although in all honesty back then I didn’t really know anyone that gave two hoots about Halloween. Even the media and retail industry could care less about Halloween. Sorry, couldn’t. The only Halloween things you could get were masks. Cheap, plastic masks, that had a piece of elastic stapled to each side. These masks were so cheaply made they’d either crack and split, or the elastic would detach itself. On the whole, they were only available from fancy dress/party shops which were few and far between. There may also have been the odd newsagent or Woolies, but that was it. Shops just didn’t sell highly-flammable witches costumes or Halloween-themed Jaffa slices – they didn’t even sell pumpkins! Indeed, my Mrs has told me sorry tales from her childhood of her mother insisting she could carve a wonderfully scary lantern from a lowly swede. 

Tales from my childhood involve my teenage years and trick or treating at the houses of people we didn’t like. Now it’s just young children going round with parents, knocking on doors of people who have agreed to partake by decorating their house – which is very sweet and as it should be. What wasn’t sweet was my best mate and I filling a jug with milk, eggs, water, curry powder, flour and anything else we could get our hands on, in order to empty it onto anyone who dared ring our bell, as we hung out of my brother’s bedroom window. 

One year, I recall about eight of us knocking on our teacher’s door – a teacher with the delightfully Halloween-themed name, Robin Graves. His response to our request, I’ve never forgotten:

“Go away, I don’t believe in these silly American customs.”

So maybe the old bastard – and he was a bastard – taught me something after all?

But anyway, there’s nothing wrong with celebrating Halloween, don’t get me wrong. It’s just that it should be done properly and not all bollocksed up by stupid Americans and people with no musical imagination whatsoever.

So have fun!

Get the music on (especially Pound Shop Boys)! 

Have a beer! 

Have a hot dog!

Just don’t dress as one…