Sunday, November 3, 2013

Using Anime Soundtrack Albums to Fill Out Your Halloween Playlists

Happy Halloween!



This past weekend my sister was throwing a Halloween party for the extended family and, two days before, she came to me and asked if I'd make a Halloween mix playlist for the party. I knew she was expecting something containing ~10-15 tracks of mainly the "classics" like Monster Mash and a few instrumental pieces like the theme music of Twilight Zone and Psycho; however, I immediately thought of the eerie music from Shinsekai Yori and knew I needed to include that as well.




This set off a search through my other anime soundtrack albums - which, admittedly, is on the thin side - and I harvested almost 2 hours of music to use. I thought someone might find this list of anime songs useful in constructing their own playlist so I'm writing this post to share.



Since this CD was going to be listened to by mainly non-anime and/or non-Japanese speakers, I had to limit myself to instrumental anime pieces. The only time I broke that was to include the closing song from Aku no Hana because it was creepy enough to include by itself. At the party, I got a few positive comments after it played - even the non-anime watchers found it creepy.



As for instrumental tracks this is what I used:



Hataraku Maou-sama!



02 - Ente Isla

07 - Maoujou

19 - Fuon



Shingeki no Kyojin



06 - Army Go

08 - DOA (has vocals but they're English and too perfect to pass up)

14 - XL-TT



Jojo no Kimyou na Bouken - Phantom Blood



05 - Shisen Kara no Kikan



Nekomonogatari (Kuro)



17 - Black Hanekawa

22 - The Demon Blade Kokorowatari



Psycho-Pass



09 - Kansatsugan

10 - Kyouhaku Kannen



Shinsekai Yori



01 - Kage no Denshouka Dai Ichibu

02 - Darkside of Heart

04 - Dark Village

05 - Akki

12 - Loneliness

13 - Strange Feeling

18 - Creeping Crisis



Puella Magi Madoka Magica OST



03 - Gradus prohibitus

09 - Puella in somnio

10 - Umbra nigra



Bakemonogatari Complete Music Works Songs & Soundtracks



08 - Oumagatoki

20 - Kekkai

21 - Gehou

25 - Ika, Kaisou



Bakemonogatari Gekihan Ongakushuu Sono



04 - machi dan chimata setsu

05 - kannen

10 - shugendou

11 - kami iki



Paranoia Agent



11 - Baiyou



Paprika



03 - Ou Mono

12 - Parade (instrumental)



Ghost Hunt



07 - Fuon

08 - Kaidan Banashi

26 - Doukutsu



Jigoku Shoujo



01 - Shousou

10 - Ake ni Somaru

18 - Michiteiku Yami



This was the extent of the anime music I used but I wasn't done finding tracks for this Halloween playlist. I also used tracks from the Nightmare Before Christmas OST - Marilyn Manson's version of This is Halloween is awesome - as well as most of Halloween Hootenanny, which was put together by Rob Zombie, and Tool's Lateralus album, for flavor. I also threw in a handful of various tracks from Creedence Clearwater Revival's Bad Moon Rising to Blue Foundation's Eyes On Fire to Evanescenece's Bring Me To Life, to name a few. At this point I finally included the "classics" like Thriller and Monster Mash and saw that I was closing in on 6 hours of music. Perfect. I mixed everything up good and I was done.



I received very good feedback from the resultant Halloween playlist but, for next year, I'm already wondering what I've overlooked. I'd really appreciate it if persons better versed in anime soundtracks, who see obvious omissions, would leave a comment as to which one(s) I should check out.
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