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50 Great Indie Rock Halloween Songs – Radiohead, Pavement, Beck, Cults, The Kills, The Black Keys


Happy Halloscream

Over the years, IRC has put together over 20 different indie rock Halloween songs playlists, featuring hundreds of Halloween, or Halloweenish, songs.

Some songs were picked merely because the title is in some way, Halloweenish; you know, blood, ghosts, monsters, death, vampires, skeletons, darkness, and so on.

This is the ONLY Halloween Playlist Worth Streaming

NOTE: 50 has grown to almost 200! (udpated Sept 2021)

Some of The Kinks’ Early Halloweenish Songs

This mix also includes a trio of Halloweenish songs from The Kinks, dating back to their classic era (1966-1971) during which the band built a discography of amazing music that remains legendary to this day. In fact, as was the case with so many genres of music over the decades – including rock, punk, metal, new wave and pop – many of today’s indie bands are influenced by The Kinks, either directly or indirectly.

The three Halloweenish Kinks’ songs below demonstrate the band’s abilities to write about all kinds of topics, and record all types of different sounds and styles. The first track, “Wicked Annabella” is a creepy, sinister-sounding song with wicked vocals by Ray Davies and his younger brother and guitarist, Dave Davies. The song was first released way back in 1968 on The Kinks’ widely acclaimed masterpiece LP, The Village Green Preservation Society.

“Wicked Annabella“The Kinks

The follow-up track, “Big Black Smoke,” is essentially a song about a young woman who grew tired of the country life, but her parents thought she couldn’t do any wrong, until she “walked the streets of the big, black smoke.”
In addition to the title – not so much the lyrics – the song has a kind of spooky, steady stomp, thick bass line and catchy chorus.

“Big Black Smoke“The Kinks

The final song, “King Kong” is again menacing in the way “Wicked Annabella” is. There’s also something about the rawness of the recording itself. In fact, “Big Black Smoke” and “King Kong” were originally recorded on mono and only released on the klassic Kinks’ double-LP, The Kinks Kronikles.

“King Kong“The Kinks