Costume Party Chaos

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A Halloween party needs songs that are spooky and danceable at once. This tape was made for friends in costumes with everyone dancing: playful spooky songs, nothing gory or truly dark, and one song per artist. It's playful rather than frightening, made for costumes, fake fangs and a room full of friends.

It opens with the classics. Michael Jackson's "Thriller" comes complete with Vincent Price's spooky spoken part, Ray Parker Jr.'s "Ghostbusters" is an instant singalong, and Bobby Pickett's "Monster Mash" is a silly dance craze sung in a Boris Karloff voice. "This Is Halloween" from The Nightmare Before Christmas, credited here to Danny Elfman, brings whimsical creepiness, then Screamin' Jay Hawkins' "I Put a Spell on You" adds theatrical howls and swagger, and Donovan's "Season of the Witch" slows things to a groovy, mysterious sway.

Around them are songs with a darker edge that still keep the floor full. Stevie Wonder's "Superstition" is all funky clavinet, Rihanna's "Disturbia" is modern pop with a horror-film beat, and Warren Zevon's "Werewolves of London" comes with its famous howl. Rob Zombie's "Dragula" is a campy horror-rock stomp, and Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Bad Moon Rising" closes the party with eerie lyrics over a cheerful, bouncing tune.

The songs run from the fifties to 2008, mixing old rhythm and blues, sixties folk-rock, seventies funk, eighties pop and late-nineties rock, so guests of every age get a song they know. Start it when the first costumes arrive and let it run as a YouTube playlist; it's short enough to play twice in an evening. If you're staying in with a film instead of throwing a party, make a quieter, moodier tape for that.