We’re always on the lookout for an opportunity to share things we love here at Goldenplec, so who knows, maybe you’ll find a new favourite here in our Alternative Halloween Plec Picks

1. The Aquabats – Fashion Zombies!

Look, we admit it, this song is actually about Goths and not literal fashionable zombies. It doesn’t keep it from being one of the silliest and most fun songs we’re going to post, though. And Goths are still Halloween-y, right?

2.  Dead Kennedys – I Kill Children

Using twisted, creepy distortions of surf-rock to point out the social and political horrors of Reagan-era America was kind of the Dead Kennedy’s entire schtick, but occasionally they dipped their toes in more literal horror. “God told me to skin you alive”, indeed.

3. The Misfits – Scream

And speaking of horror and punk, The Misfits are so fundamental they could probably have stolen someone’s spot on the classics list with all the pop songs. But don’t tell Glenn Danzig that. They even have a song called Halloween, but the alternative list is no place for the obvious choice, and this song is great too.

4. Best Friends Forever – Ghost Song

To clear the air of all the Dead Kennedys’ and the Misfits’ testosterone (mostly the Misfits’, let’s be fair), here’s an adorable song about the advantages of having a ghost for a boyfriend. Turns out there are many of them!

5. Ghostface Killah and Adrian Younge – Beware of the Stare

Earlier this year the Wu-Tang Clan’s Ghostface Killah teamed up with the man behind the soundtrack for cult Blaxploitation tribute Black Dynamite to release a concept album that could have been written just for this list. Ghostface tells the story of his alter-ego Tony Starks, a mob enforcer betrayed and murdered by his employers. His ashes are pressed into twelve vinyl records, and when the records are played, he is awakened as the Ghostface Killer, and wreaks his bloody vengeance.

6. Japandroids – Evil’s Sway

There’s not much to say about this. Like all of Japandroids’s songs, it’s a straightforward anthemic rock song. This one just happens to be about falling under the sway of evil for a night (Oh yeah! All right!).

7. Nina Simone – Pirate Jenny

Are pirates really a Halloween thing? No matter, Nina Simone’s live 1964 version of a much-covered song from Kurt Weil’s turn-of-the –century Threepenny Opera drips with so much menace it’s impossible to leave off the list. When she sings as Jenny, a mistreated and unappreciated hotel maid who’s kept going by her secret identity as the leader of a group of pirates about to descend on the town and murder everyone, it sounds like Simone means business. No wonder – performed at the height of the Civil Rights movement, the implications Simone is applying to the song are obvious. If that sounds a bit too serious to fit in with Halloween, just pretend the song is about racist Halloween costumes. And then get your friends to stop wearing those.

8. The Mae Shi – Run To Your Grave

A cheerful-sounding song about welcoming death, it’s hard not to admire the way the band can take lyrics like “Scream! Cry! Pray! Confess! God will do the rest!” and go for it with a straight face as hard as they do.

9. Purity Ring – Shuck

The lyrics to the Purity Ring’s Shuck sound like a description of a creature from some forgotten corner of European folklore, the dark kind of corner that got papered over when we decided that fairy tales were just for children and that children should be protected from frightening things. Despite the innocent-sounding delivery, whatever’s doing the ‘shucking’ doesn’t sound like something you’d want to meet. It might not mean you any specific harm, but that’s what’s so frightening about these older ideas about elves and things – there’s a wildness and arbitrariness to them and everything can seem fine until they suddenly lash out and destroy you for reasons you could never really understand.

10. IBOPA – Vampire Squid

If you haven’t heard it before, those of you familiar with Jamie Stewart’s work as the central member of Xiu Xiu will probably be surprised by his earlier band. You’re not really missing out if you’re not familiar with Xiu Xiu, though. The song is bizarre enough in its own right.

11. Bonus: Bhuddasandwich – Leviticus 26:29

We’re throwing this on as a bonus track because, although it’s a bit creepy, it is instrumental and it feels a little like cheating to include a song solely on the basis of its title. On the other hand, go look up Leviticus chapter 26, verse 29 and tell us that doesn’t earn this song an honourable mention.