“No can do on the Reinstall, Phil,” I
say. “No one actually owns any
music nowadays.”
This is how I come to learn that
Phil paid money for an album called
Monster Halloween Hits. He is very
keen to distance himself from his
purchase of Monster Halloween Hits,
insisting that it was ‘necessary’ for a
party his stepfather’s pub was hosting
back in 2010. I don’t remember
anything I bought in 2010 so it seems
unlikely that Phil would recall this
album so easily if he wasn’t still
listening to it regularly.
REGULAR HAUNTS
The track listing of Monster
Halloween Hits reads like an exercise
in Halloween keyword searches.
Sure, there are classic tunes like
Michael Jackson’s Thriller and
Monster Mash, but the rest are just
songs with vaguely spooky words in
the title. And where the hell is the
sublime Things That Go Bump In
The Night by allSTARS* (a band
which no one seems to remember
except me, and whose members
included a woman who played an
Australian housemate in the eighth
season of UK version of Big Brother
and the guy who plays Darren
Osborne in Hollyoaks)?
While I listen to Things That Go
Bump In The Night via a terribly
low-quality YouTube video, I decide
the biggest stumbling block with
Monster Halloween Hits is that
tonally it’s all over the place.
Picture the scene: You go to the
pub (the one which Phil may or may
not have made up) expecting cheesy
over-the-top cobwebstravaganzarealness, and as you walk through the
door the CD spits out Radiohead’s
Creep. You go to the bathroom to try
to get over your sudden waves of
angst and alienation, and by the time
you get back it’s barreled on towards
Iron Maiden (The Number of the
Beast, since you asked).
You try to order a snakebite and
black because memories of some
metal club night at college are
stirring, and while you shout your
order Ding Dong! The Witch is Dead
pops up. You don’t know how to deal
with this change in mood, so you
slide a quid onto the side of the pool
table. You know pool. You like pool.
Pool is pretty low-stress for you.
Then O Fortuna from Carmina
Burana starts up. Your pool game is
now the most dramatic event of your
life. You throw the pool cue onto the
floor, and run to the taxi rank. It’s all
too much. You never attend another
Halloween party as long as you live.
I mean, Ghost Town by The
Specials in on there. I assume it’s
because it namechecks ghosts. Ghost
Town is a song about unemployment
and the decay of once-thriving areas.
There’s a creeping horror there, sure,
but not in the kind of campySpoiler: I did not get
a gold medal.Audiosurf Overture
eases you in gently.SINS OF OMISSION
Unfair exclusions from MHH
THINGS THAT
GO BUMP IN
THE NIGHT
ALLSTARS*
I don’t see how you
can call this a
Halloween album if
you’re going to
leave out the best
Halloween pop song
of our time.BETTER THE
DEVIL YOU
KNOW
KYLIE MINOGUE
So many songs
included for their
mentions of ‘devil’
in the title and you
don’t bother with
this banger from
Kylie? FOR SHAME.BLACK MAGIC
LITTLE MIX
Little Mix didn’t
actually exist until a
year after Monster
Halloween Hits
came out, and Black
Magic wasn’t
released for
another four years,
but still.OLD GAMES, NEW PERSPECTIVES
REINSTALL
She Wolf is brilliant, but
it translates to a bad course.