Various Artists – Now That’s What I Call Halloween (UMG / Sony) review

The perfect soundtrack to your next spooky get-together

Finding good Halloween music is harder than you might think. The Internet is overrun with tons of hokey, half-baked, knock-offs. And, Spotify is no help either. If you want a great playlist of Halloween-themed music – then you need Now That’s What I Call Halloween. Featuring 18 haunted classics, it’s sure to keep the goosebumps going and your party rocking.

What makes this such a great collection is the excellent mix of obvious choices, like “Monster Mash” by Bobby “Boris” Pickett and “Werewolves of London” by Warren Zevon, alongside lesser-known material like “Ghost Town” by the Specials, and “Dead Man’s Party” from Oingo Boingo.

A couple of big surprises are “Ghostbusters” – not by Ray Parker Jr, but RUN-D.M.C., and Jace Everett’s “Bad Things,” which became popular as the theme from HBO’s True Blood series.

There’s also a decent amount of soundtrack music – from the super-recognizable opening “Halloween Theme” from the original Halloween movie, to “This is Halloween” from the Nightmare Before Christmas, and the “Beetlejuice: MainTitle/End Title.” A nice inclusion is the very creepy “O Fortuna,” a classical piece which has been used in too many movies and TV shows to count.

The disc closes with a couple of danceable tracks – “A Nightmare on My Street” by DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince, and “Somebody’s Watching Me” by Rockwell with a cameo from Michael Jackson.

Whether you’re throwing a costume party or just wanting to have music playing for Trick or Treaters, Now That’s What I Call Halloween is the disc for you. —Tony Peters