Playlist of the Month: Songs By People Who Scare Me: The Second Coming

Halloween is in a few days, and it’s a good reminder of what will scare you and what won’t. More importantly, who are the people that will test your patience with their “pranks” with the excuse of “Halloween”? Then there are the people, namely musicians, that scare us year round, no matter October 31st or not.

In our second installment of Songs By People Who Scare Me, we pick another group of frightening artists who you won’t find on our Recently Played anytime soon. I mean, we’ve basically turned into a Hamilton blog, so these picks shouldn’t be too surprising.

<< Listen to the whole playlist on Spotify! >>

Molly’s Picks

Joanna Newsom – Sprout And The Bean

Joanna Newsom is adorable and talented, even if her voice isn’t for anyone. She’s one half of one of my favorite celebrity couples. She seems like she’d be a really cool girl in real life. That’s why I wish her music didn’t give me the willies. Maybe Joanna Newsom herself isn’t scary, but her music is what they’d play in my personal version of an exceptionally spooky haunted house. There would also be creepy dolls, a haunted dollhouse, and decrepit Miss Havisham and Baby Jane-type ladies. Shiver, shiver, shiver.

The Young Cons – The Problem

Cons as in Conservatives. They’re young, they’re white, they’re male, they’re rapping, good Lord, and they’re just the bros to get alll up in your personal health care choices and all out of government oversight of corporate activity. Word.

Insane Clown Posse – Night Of The Chainsaw

On one hand, I know that you cannot judge a person based on what music, television, or movies they enjoy.

On the other hand, I saw a young man in full ICP face makeup earlier this month, and my knee-jerk reaction was “yeah… there is definitely an above-average chance that he has tortured a cat in a basement.”

Yes, ICP was on the list last time, too, but last year it was Traci’s pick and this year it was mine. They terrify both of us.

Bobby Vee – Come Back When You Grow Up

Now, you might be thinking “Molls, this song is sketchy, but it’s just some random one-hit-wonder from the days when songs about old men wooing teens was de rigeur.” Right. Okay. But consider Bobby Vee’s other songs: Please Don’t Ask About Barbara, which sounds like a 1960s horror movie about a dead body who lives under his bed, and The Night Has A Thousand Eyes, which is a terrifying concept and a disturbing visual. One, two, three strikes, I’m out.

Justin Bieber – What Do You Mean?

This isn’t a lame We Hate Justin Bieber joke. There’s something about the kid that I find genuinely unsavory. He’s just the combination of smug, entitled, and twerpy that makes me feel like he’s capable of anything. He’s no Tiny Tim – my personal scariest musician ever – but it’s more that I feel like he’s the kind of adult who would pick on a nerdy child until it cried.

Traci’s Picks

Die Antwoord – I Fink You Freeky

This rap-rave group from South Africa has had a bunch of controversies follow them throughout the years. Namely, they’ve been called out for being homophobic and racist; using blackface in music videos and repeatedly using the N-word (they’re white). How one concert reviewer criticized one of Die Antwood’s concerts:

It doesn’t really make a difference how Die Antwoord explain themselves, or whether their fans read their imagery as satirical. Cuz it’s not just the KKK outfits but their overall source material, the way they blend skinhead white supremacy (disciplined, tough, angular) and trailer park white supremacy (incestuous, washed-out, sweatpants) with art school chic and punk rock apathy to produce a pastel shade of fascism that they just can’t cleanse themselves of, progressive provocateurs that they are. We can’t stop (cue the Miley, no innocent herself) because that’s the nature of trauma, of painful, disgusting, horrible, and incomprehensibly awful things like apartheid and institutionalized racism and guilt and blame and privilege. It produces word vomit; it escapes categorization; it demands to be brought to light. It drags us down with it. {x}

Also, “Fink” and “Freeky” are not words. Bye.

Drowning Pool – Bodies

Literally the lyrics to this song are “Let the bodies hit the floor” over and over and over again. TBH I can’t even watch these videos, but the still shot of a rando in a medical chair is enough for me to by scared.

Black Sabbath – Heaven and Hell

Thanks to The Osbournes’ reality show, Ozzy was made more “human” if you will, as he’s long had this persona of a hardcore metal rocker who bit the head off an unconscious bat during a concert once. But still, his alter ego, his “Sasha Fierce” is frightening and continues to be despite him yelling “SHAROONNN” will never leave my head.

KISS – Rock & Roll All Nite

This song in particular doesn’t seem like it would come from a group of grown ass men decked out in black and white face paint and huge platform shoes. But it does, and come on let’s be real – if you ran into Gene Simmons in costume in a dark alley and he sticks out his tongue, you’d be scared too.