EVERY GENRE PROJECT - October 31 - Halloween Music
Genre of the Day - Halloween Music
Album of the Day - Halloween IV by Billy Cobb (2019)
Happy Halloween! Today, I reserved the right to cherry-pick a genre of my own after the revelation a few articles ago that RYM houses its very own category for Halloween music. I feel particularly tapped into Halloween this year, maybe because with the day’s it’s fallen there’s been essentially two rounds of Halloweekends in a row, and I feel a calendar-year musical exploration would not be complete without an ode to a holiday unlike any other.
Halloween is one of the most beautiful rituals to me; it’s perhaps the greatest American unifier, its amalgamation of Christian (All Saints’ Day) and Celtic origins notwithstanding, celebrated across creeds (with some hold-outs among the ultrareligious and Jehovah’s Witnesses, but candy can’t win ‘em all) and by all ages with no connection to country nor faith. Halloween can be a pocket of joy across all periods of life, from trick-or-treating as a child to marveling at people’s creativity from the other side and drinking Witch’s Brew at an office party, or of course the all-out hedonism of a college Halloweekend.
Music is obviously integral to the festival culture in Europe that preceded Halloween. A Broadway play called Jack o’Lantern ran for 265 performances in 1917, showing how music has long been a way for people to indulge in some frightening magic. As we know it today, the genre emerged as the holiday became increasingly ritualized and commercialized through the 20th century, and reflects the range of expression the symbol-oriented holiday allows its celebrants. A select group of singles like “Monster Mash” and “Thriller,” the latter of which wasn’t even intended as a Halloween song, define the public knowledge of Halloween music today, but zany novelty records abounded in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Halloween music really has no defining musical characteristics, but certain instrumentation choices tend to lend some eerieness: the spectral theremin evokes the oohs and ahhs of friendly ghosts, and many musicians draw from the mystical chord choices of surf rock in making music for a spooky shindig.
Billy Cobb is a veritable auteur of Midwest emo and Weezery power pop, with a particular affinity for All Hallow’s Eve. His fourth Halloween EP notches the highest position among a not-so competitive chart, to be honest—full Halloween albums pale in comparison to songs. The implicit spookiness in America’s vastness looms large on the southern gothic touches of “The Graveyard.” On the suites of “Halloween 1994” and “Trick or Treating,” he mines nostalgia and bittersweetness in that primitivist-drama Midwest emo way; low and slow guitar follows a pastiche of television vignettes, his unvarnished voice reflecting the tender innocence and magic of the day before he builds a genuinely menacing wall of guitar. He also doesn’t hesitate to scare the hell out of you, as any good Halloween-themed body of work should, in the drawn-out static and creeping bass of “The Closet.” The hard hitting garage rock floor-filler of “The Party” appeals to the abandon of the holiday, with twinges of the surf rock alluding to the vivid backdrop to much of ‘60s Halloween music. Over five songs, it’s a sonic feast as arrayed as a good trick-or-treating haul.
If you liked today’s genre, read: Gothic Country, Rare Phonk, Beat bruxaria