Last Christmas, we gave you our heart… in the form of a playlist of "weird/funny/crappy/cool Christmas “gems." But is Christmas the only time of year during which musicians release questionable "holiday" music? Oh, hell no.
Halloween is right behind Christmas in terms of holidays that produce a wealth of secular songs and, as such, there are a lot of sketchy spooky tunes out there. There are also a lot of fun ones. Some favorites include the lesser-known nuggets from Bobby "Boris" Pickett, who had a huge hit with "Monster Mash," then seemed to spend the rest of his career rewriting it in a failed attempt to recapture that lightning in a bottle (see: the Christmas-themed "Monster's Holiday" and the next-level bad "Monster Rap"). Elsewhere, there's the genuinely funny (though perhaps less so without the visuals, so be sure to watch the clip below) "I Love You So Much (It's Scary)," from the Bob's Burgers boy-band heartthrobs of Boyz 4 Now, and the frighteningly funky "Countracula (This One's For You)" from Funk superhero Bootsy Collins.
Listen to those and other offbeat Halloween tunes in our handy-dandy Spotify playlist below.
Speaking of Spotify and Halloween music, apparently Ohioans really like hearing songs like "Thriller" and the aforementioned "Monster Mash" this time of year, particularly the ones who live up north in Cleveland's Lakewood neighborhood. A recent piece (OK, an ad for Spotify, basically) from The New York Times says that Lakewood listens to more Halloween music than anywhere else in the U.S.
