How to Create the Perfect Halloween Playlist

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Some people get excited about red cups at Starbucks. Others can't wait to queue up holiday music (UGH!) or go Black Friday shopping at midnight on Thanksgiving.

This post was originally published in September 2015. It was updated and republished in September 2021.

Not me.

I live for pumpkin guts, costumes, obscene amounts of candy, and the perfect Halloween playlist.

By now you might know the story: I spent a number of years longing for a cool Halloween party to attend when I lived in Oklahoma from 2004-09. Though I’d gather with a couple of friends for various activities (old school scary movie night, taking kiddos trick-or-treating), it never felt right and never felt like Halloween to me.

So when I moved back to Texas in 2009, I decided to start my own party – Halloweenie Roast (named by my mother, credit where credit is due) was born! I invite my friends over to roast hot dogs over our fire pit, drink my lethal Witch’s Brews, and hang out. It’s easily my favorite night of the year. I’d like to think it’s my friend’s favorite night of the year too.

After picking a Witches’ Brew, my next most time-consuming task is creating the perfect playlist for the theme. Let me be the first to say I have not mastered this fine art – and I’m not sure I ever will. There’s a certain finesse that comes with crafting the perfect playlist: a careful balance of tempo, lyrics, and familiarity.

I like to think I know a thing or two about creating a killer playlist – and have the archives to prove it. When it comes to Halloween party playlists here are a few key characteristics I look for in the perfect song – and you can too!

Keep reading for the five things I look for when creating the perfect Halloween playlist.

 

Learn the five keys to creating the perfect Halloween playlist this year that will wow your friends and party guests!

 

Tempo

Over the years, I’ve found myself becoming incredibly bored with the slow songs on my ultimate Halloween playlist. Creepy though the slow songs might be, more often than not I found myself hitting “next” – if I don’t want to listen to it, I doubt my party guests do either.

Over the last few years, I’ve taken a new approach to my playlist and kept only songs that were mid-tempo or faster. It plays into that restaurant logic where they play faster music during peak hours to get people in and out quickly – the music subconsciously speeds up the pace of your eating. I’m not trying to hurry my friends through the night, but I figure they want to come, hang out and have fun, not sit around my backyard listening to depressing-as-hell music just because it sounds kinda creepy.

Upbeat music is the best way to set that tone for the night. I suppose it’s all in what type of vibe you’re trying to achieve at your party, but given that mine basically equates to a backyard barbecue in the fall, upbeat tunes fit best.

 

Melody

A pop/rock lover to my core, I’ve got to have some melody in my Halloween playlist. Loud and angry seems to be most people’s qualifiers for good Halloween music. It’s all fine and well to throw on your favorite hardcore/grindcore/whatevercore band you love and let them do the work, but this music is simply not my wheelhouse and I don’t enjoy it so it gets shown to the door.

Try as I might to make the house and backyard look haunted, I don’t rely on my music to jar the senses the way a true haunted house would. Working hand in hand with tempo, a little bit of melody helps create the tone of my evening which leads me to…

 

Bass

Melody doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice the creepy/scary quality of music in your playlist. A lot of the songs, like Sugarloaf’s “Green-Eyed Lady” or Jace Everett’s “Bad Things”, on my list are there simply because of their killer bass lines. There’s something about a good, thumping bass that feels primal, gets inside your head and makes you feel a little haunted, on edge. While I don’t exclusively look for songs with good bass, I’ve noticed this is a pretty common characteristic in my top picks – something worth considering for your list.

 

Lyrics

Okay, this is a big one: no sticking songs on the list just because they have “vampire” or “ghost” in the song title or lyrics. No exceptions.

I’ve always been a lyric girl, so I make it a point to actually listen to the songs I put on my Halloween playlist and make sure they help achieve the overall Halloween vibe I’m trying to create. Your friends might not be sitting there, ears pressed to the speaker to catch every line, but the occasional creepy lyric here and there they do catch will go a long way in making the evening memorable.

 

Keep the Classics

Look, I’ll rail against mainstream music and its lack of quality as fast as the next music snob…but there’s a reason certain songs like “Thriller” get stuck on playlist after playlist at Halloween. We have a collective nostalgia for certain songs being associated with certain things, and Halloween music is no exception.

So do your friends a favor. Give up your snobbery for one night, and put the classics on your playlist. You can still put your obscure Norwegian band only you love on there too, and you know what? If you warm a friend’s heart with a nostalgic song, you’re a lot more likely to catch their ear with something they don’t know.

 

 

What are your keys to a perfectly ghoulish Halloween playlist?

This list is not steadfast and true of every last song on my playlist, but each song meets at least 2-3 of these requirements. These are the things I look for in the perfect song to add to my master playlist, but I’d love to hear from you – what do you think makes a perfect ghoulish tune for your Halloween playlist?

Share it in the comments or, better yet, drop a link to your own Halloween playlist!

 

Happy haunting,

 

 

This post originally appeared on my music blog, thegoodgroupie.com.

Miranda | Spooky Little Halloween

Miranda is the Houston-based writer, blogger, and Halloween lover behind Spooky Little Halloween, the blog celebrating October 31st all year long. Her favorite Halloween things include pumpkin guts, chocolate bars in her trick-or-treat pail, real haunted houses (including the one she lives in!), and historic cemeteries.

5 Comments

  1. Reply

    Arachne

    September 9, 2021

    I’m interested in whether you have found the perfect way to store your playlists, especially for long term. I know you like Spotify and it has some pluses, but that would essentially mean that I either listen to commercials for songs that I own OR pay a monthly fee (for songs I already bought). For the longest time I used whatever device I owned, but then if I get a new phone or player, the playlists will not always transfer. Rather then reinvest the time in rebuilding them all, I might rebuild a favorite one or two, and lose the rest. Building the lists in MS Media Player doesn’t transfer well to a portable device, for some reason, and burning CDs means a lot of changing discs while guests are over. I’m just curious what you like to use other than Spotify, if anything.

    • Reply

      Miranda | Spooky Little Halloween

      September 9, 2021

      Great question. Honestly, I’m pretty exclusive to Spotify. I’ve been a paid member of their platform since around 2010/2011 because I find it incredibly useful.

  2. Reply

    Arachne

    September 9, 2021

    Thanks!

  3. Reply

    Autumn Zenith

    September 11, 2021

    Great advice! Thank you for sharing. I really admire (and share in) your passion for music + playlists, creating a good many of my own pertaining to the spooky season throughout my life. As a youngster, they were in mix tape form, these days, they’re on my Apple Music account (which I adore for the most part, but really wish they allowed playlist sharing and for multiple people to be able to contribute to the same list from different accounts/devices).

    Personally, I madly adore the classics and find I listen to them all the more as October 31st draws near, but by the same token do try to shake things up and am always keen to find new tunes (which I’ve had the pleasure of doing numerous times from your own awesome lists) that reverberate with my music loving soul.

    Autumn Zenith 🧡 Witchcrafted Life

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