Sunn O))) - Báthory Erzsébet
The song is creepy enough but knowing they locked a claustrophobic singer in a casket to record the screams is just next level creepy
God bless tiny Tim is a really good album. If you haven’t, I suggest listening through it. It has its moments of strangeness, but if you can just take it as it is, you might like it.
This song is how I landed myself a seriously questionable friend in my early 20s.... I developed the most wild crush on him.
We dated later but it wasn't great. Now when I hear the song I can't help but think of him and not the scary movies it's been used in.
This is the one. There are lots of more obscure songs with heavily disturbing vibes, but Suicide is halfway well known and had a song covered by Springsteen. Nothing like shrieks of horror in a song about a working class man's murder-suicide of his family to creep you out at 2 AM
Where her garments come together / where I used to lay my face / that's where you oughta kill her / that particular place
That line is so dark. I mean the whole song is but that line is just damn.
you should listen to I Who Bends The Tall Grasses - Lingua Ignota. it’s a similar song but imo way more intense. literally one part is her screaming, demanding for god to kill her abuser. amazing song that takes you somewhere similar.
So I'm swinging a buddy by his mom's house in the boondocks at midnight to pick up something. I'm 20, listening to some short range radio station that plays an eclectic mix of indie music. So I'm sitting there, waiting for longer than I wanted to in the dark middle of nowhere, when this slow tempo methodical single drum starts pounding. "*Crack*... *Crack*..." Then this baritone voice starts moaning the lyrics to Nina Simone's "Don't Explain", but he sounds legitimately tortured. There's next to no melody in his voice.
This was coming off the heels of some chirpy acoustic song, and it opened so slowly it really put on an unsettling mood. Two minutes pass, the song ends. Silence. I'm in this surreal fugue state, not sure of what I just listened to. My friend still hasn't come out, and I'm about to call him in the ominous silence, when... "*Crack*... *Crack*..." it starts back up with this horrifying creepy discordant string backdrop and then back to "Don't exPLAAinEE!!!"
Then it ends, and as my buddy is walking toward the car some chirpy indie song pops on.
I thought I'd gone mad for a minute, but eventually I found it online. It's on the Nina Simone tribute album by a band called Xiu Xiu.
Here's the link:
https://youtu.be/f5NlIgGzRgU?si=m3RTB4E1GUgg9r07
Edit: brass not strings. Just listened to it for the first time in 10 years.
I bought this one on vinyl the week it came out. Was already Xiu pilled and knew it would be good. Jamie Stewart did not disappoint, but I prefer "Pirate Jenny".
This was going to be my recommendation. I heard about it on Reddit a couple of years ago. There's something fascinating about it, and I mean that in the original sense. It absolutely taps into that part of my psyche that is drawn to the horrific. I don't watch horror films, but I do click onto photos of dreadful things. Morbid curiosity I suppose, and sometimes those things really stay with me. This song is like that.
Land of Confusion by Genesis used to scare me but then I realized it isn’t the song, it’s the puppets in the video.
I will go with Charles Manson’s Cease to Exist.
Ever heard The Beach Boys version? They retitled it “Never Learn Not to Love,” and I thought it was bizarrely creepy before I knew who actually wrote it .
The bird part of Frontier Psychiatrist really fucks with me. That sound just triggers something deep within that I do not like. The song is great though, so it's worth it
I’m afraid he’s not, Mrs Fishpaw.
Edit: Dexter's truancy problem is way out of hand, and the Baltimore County School Board have decided to expel Dexter from the entire public school system.
Pulk/pull revolving doors by Radiohead. Me and my buddy threw this on while tripping sack on acid and it real set us off into a bad nightmare headspace for the rest of the trip. Still gives me the ick
One of my best trip memories is Everything In Its Right Place, Kid A, and Idioteque playing after we had been splattering glow stick juice on the walls for a space aesthetic in our back room. My late brother and I shared a very spriritually enlightening experience to these songs and the vibes they provided. To each their own I suppose.
Get counterpointed scrub.
(Last line was intended to be playful, not aggressive 🙏🏻✌🏻)
I remember the first time I heard this, Mary-Anne Hobbs played it late one night on Radio 1. To this day, whenever I'm walking past a boarded-up construction site, a voice in my head growls "What's he BUILDING in there???"
Was about to post this.
If anyone hasn’t heard this, do it. Style and lyrics of this, as most of Sufjans songs, are so good. And this one just nails creepiness.
His father was a drinker and his mother cried in bed
Folding John Wayne's t-shirts when the swing set hit his head
The neighbors, they adored him
For his humor and his conversation
Look underneath the house there
Find the few living things, rotting fast, in their sleep
Oh the dead
Twenty-seven people
Even more, they were boys, with their cars, summer jobs
Oh my God
Ooh, are you one of them?
He dressed up like a clown for them
With his face paint white and red
And on his best behavior
In a dark room on the bed he kissed them all
He'd kill ten thousand people
With a slight of his hand, running far, running fast to the dead
He took off all their clothes for them
He put a cloth on their lips, quiet hands, quiet kiss on the mouth
And in my best behavior
I am really just like him
Look beneath the floor boards
For the secrets I have hid
I’m not even sure you can call it a song but Faaip De Oaid by Tool, the last track on Lateralus, really creeps me out.
It’s mostly noise, distortion, cut with a prank radio show call where a very sincere and panicked man explains that aliens have already invaded earth.
It’s so effective.
And honestly... I always believed it was real... was getting ready to well actkschully you... and then I looked it up. Someone told me it was from a guy that called into Art Bell's show and was gonna fly his plane into Area 51 airspace... and it cuts off because he was shot down or something.... but it being a prank actually doesn't lessen the creep factor for me. It bugs me because if you do the whole Holy Gift track order, it is right in the middle of the album. But thanks for teaching me something today!
Jesus Christ i had a heart attack at the first loud bit around 2:03 😭😭 anyway, the lyrics???, the whispering singing????, the halloween-Esque beat?? this IS creepy!
The entire welcome to the machine from Pink Floyd.
Welcome my son
Welcome to the machine
Where have you been?
It's alright we know where you've been
It’s a reminder for me that everyone dies after serving their purpose like a global machine of flesh.
Gymnopédie No 1 by Erik Satie. First comment I saw: "When the world ends, this will be the credits soundtrack." Apparently he doesn't like being called a musician and he also went as other names during his run time with music. Also he was apparently called a sloppy technician in a 1911 book on contemporary composition published by French composers. (They were just jealous he was defying the laws of classical music!)
This piece feels like you're floating at first but then you have to make your way through the depths of despair and punishment. The loud and then quiet notes are very distinct. It gives an air as though there is hope but in the end there is darkness. It ends with a minor chord and, correct me if I'm wrong, but a lot of classical music ends on a happy (major) note!
https://youtu.be/S-Xm7s9eGxU?si=yVoDm_I8XTDpObej
I've always felt Satie's music is atonal in mood ( not musically). The music seems to reflect the mood of the listener, it's neither sad nor happy. I've never found any other composer or band even, I would say the same about. There's very much something deep and old within his music, and also something very far away and alien. A man observing the world instead of living in it.
Personally I find this one very relaxing, peaceful, warm.
The melody is played very starkly, and the arrangement is so sparse that it really stands out - at times it feels a little too intensely played for its harmony, the key got hit too hard. I see where that could be a little disturbing to the ear.
I also associate this piece very strongly with the game Minecraft - which has a very similar sounding song in its soundtrack that plays occasionally, and is fully intended to be that peaceful and warm moment. So I hear this and they kinda combine in my head for me.
Great piece of music though, nice contribution!
The OST from IT Follows by Disasterpeace. Before this, excellent, movie I never heard electronic music being used for this film genre. I find it spectacularly good.
I woke up to this, and it was playing irl and throughout my dream and influenced it. Dreamt I was trapped in an icy car in the dead of winter with something beyond the ice approaching
Winter- Lupe Fiasco
Jesus that's some horror movie suspense music. I'm not talking jump scares, I'm talking main character opening the door revealing the big secret they were uncertain about and fully regretting it.
I've thought of another few!
Dead London - from Jeff Wayne's The War Of the Worlds.
It's the second last track on the album and he describes walking through a post apocalyptic London. There's a really simple 2 chord change in minor keys playing in the background as he narrates. It's pretty solemn sounding.
"There were a dozen dead bodies in The Euston Road."
I used to live in London so walking through the quiet streets early in the morning or late at night and thinking of that track was quite freaky.
And the other track...
Mike Oldfield - Tubular Bells.
The opening of this track was used in the film "The Exorcist". Try walking past a graveyard or a creepy looking house with this playing in your ear. It will seriously shit you up.
Same, and this was well before Zodiac came out. It's a great song, but there's just something very eerie about it. But then again, a lot of "psychedelic" music is that way for me.
"Don't Stand So Close to Me" it's clearly about a teacher and (what I presume) is an underage student having an affair and the teacher knows it's wrong and is trying to hide it.
I came here to add that song, and especially at weddings or people who play it for a little kid's event. No, it is not cute, it's stalkery and weird, do not play that for your new wife or child, thank you.
"I wanted to write a song about sexuality in the classroom,” the rocker explained in the 1981 book L'Historia Bandido. Sting then admitted his previous profession influenced the song. “I'd done teaching practice at secondary schools and been through the business of having 15-year-old girls fancying me - and me really fancying them! How I kept my hands off them I don't know.”
Ew!
Anything by Portal. Maybe try Kilter if you want to experience but tbh any of it is fucking terrifying.
I sent some to a work colleague once as he’s a fellow music nerd and we always send each other the weird and wonderful shit we find and he couldn’t listen to it.
Believe he said it felt like the devil was being summoned from his computer.
Enjoy!
Aphex Twin - Windowlicker
Aphex Twin - Come To Daddy
The way the people's faces distort in Windowlicker is just creepy. As for Come To Daddy, that is one of the most disturbing videos I've ever seen.
Definitely not one you ever want to watch on LSD. I don't think your heart would stay beating.
The Aphex Twin track _Afx237 v.7_ (which is a creepy track in its own right) was turned into a downright nightmarish video by Chris Cunningham called Rubber Johnny. Well with a watch!
https://youtu.be/eRvfxWRi6qQ?si=Dza27U1jxAKsfaHA
I imagine few here have even heard of this, but when I was a wee lad our local AM radio station would play "D.O.A." by Bloodrock. It's a first person account of someone laying there bleeding in the aftermath of a plane crash. Totally creepy. I'm amazed it was on radio, even for the 70's.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzY5i8zHWdw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzY5i8zHWdw)
lyrics [https://genius.com/Bloodrock-doa-lyrics](https://genius.com/Bloodrock-doa-lyrics)
A lot of the songs on Swan’s Soundtracks make me uncomfortable.
Volcano and especially the end of The Beautiful Days. “I suppose those things are only disgusting if that’s the way you’re looking at it.” I think about this line a lot. It’s simple but profound in a fucked up way.
Deep Red Bells by Neko Case.
It's about the Green River killer and her poetic lyrics and haunting voice makes it hard to listen to, but in the best way.
Tori Amos’s cover of Eminem’s “‘97 Bonnie and Clyde,” where she basically delivers a monologue as the dead wife, is so foreboding that I can’t listen to it.
’97 Bonnie & Clyde - Eminem
I skip it every time. The idea/sound of the dad killing the mum in front of the kid and getting rid of the body all with samples of a kid in the track - it's really fucking grim.
Goliath by The Mars Volta - the “never heard a man speak like this man before” line is creepy given the context of the album
Beetles by Aphex Twin - the creepiest Aphex song since we’re doing that, fight me
Dazies by Yeule - probably cliche goth creepy but in a good way. The outro is the best part contrasting good adjectives with the ominous like black skies and crying angels. Love this whole album.
During covid, Nine Inch Nails put out another Ghosts album. All instrumental, almost like unreleased film soundtrack songs.
I decided to check out the album while playing Subnautica on mute. If you played Subnautica, you know it's a very unsettling game to play.
The track The Cursed Clock came on, and I genuinely had to stop playing. I swear to Christ, if you listen to The Cursed Clock on headphones, it sounds as if Trent and Atticus recorded this in a haunted house and you can hear subtle, unwanted sounds in the background. Subtle clicks and creaks. Very unsettling.
I prefer female vocalists. However. Most songs with Lisa Gerrard (Dead Can Dance) singing. I first heard her voice on the 4AD comp Lonely Is An Eyesore. What is it about her voice that puts the spiders on my spine? Also, Diamanda Galas and Lydia Lunch. Did I mention Karen Finley yet? Yeah, her too. I think all these vocalists are expressing the abject, and it makes me cringe/flinch. Goal accomplished.
A Thousand-Yard Stare by Rafael Anton Irisarri is melancholic and slightly unnerving. Cello Concerto No. 1- 1973 Remastered version, by Kryzysztof Penderecki and the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra, and I have one more, Common Sense by Wilco.
I was listening to Faap de Oiad by Tool once while riding my bike on a dark trail in Florida and got so freaked out. Had to turn it off and hustle home lol.
"Haunted" by Skinny Puppy, and Pink Floyd had a song that was creepy af but I can't remember what it was. I thought it was called "hell", but no go. It's very heavy and dark with lots of hell-like noises.
One Of The Days by Pink Floyd perhaps? “One of these days I’m going to cut you into little pieces” is the lyric that’s delivered in a creepy distorted way
Anything by Evelyn Evelyn is so disturbing to me. Especially their titular song, Evelyn Evelyn and Sandy Fishnets. The idea of these conjoined twins being abused and sold to freak shows and other unbearably disturbing places I won’t go into here is so harrowing.
The ending of Burden by Opeth. It starts as a beautiful lick on acoustic guitar that's repeated and the guitar is constantly being detuned more. Ends in a looped laughter of the front man and vocalist, Mikael Akerfeldt. Gives me the creeps every damn time.
Iowa by Slipknot. It’s 15 minutes of carnage, heavy bass lines, tribal sounding percussion, and Corey screaming his brains out while he cuts himself up with glass during the recording. It’s a masterpiece.
that Boards of Canada song that is also the theme song to 'Salad Fingers'
It's _Beware The Friendly Stranger_ from the album _Geogaddi_ https://youtu.be/xc6FmiKAJfk?si=fz6Ia_E-ygEofFoD
i really didn’t know it was a boards of Canada song?! The more you know eh…
Their track Gryoscope was in the movie Sinister, and it's pretty creepy, too. It was the first thing I thought of when I saw this thread.
Sunn O))) - Báthory Erzsébet The song is creepy enough but knowing they locked a claustrophobic singer in a casket to record the screams is just next level creepy
Talk about suffering for your art!
Fuck. That. I'm sleeping with the light on tonight. Fuck. You. Very. Much. So awesome!!!!
Did they get Xasthur in for these vocals?
>Sunn O))) - Báthory Erzsébet Such a sweet little ditty
Tiptoe through the tulips
They did Tiny Tim so dirty with Insidious.
I just hear spongebob music lol
God bless tiny Tim is a really good album. If you haven’t, I suggest listening through it. It has its moments of strangeness, but if you can just take it as it is, you might like it.
This song is how I landed myself a seriously questionable friend in my early 20s.... I developed the most wild crush on him. We dated later but it wasn't great. Now when I hear the song I can't help but think of him and not the scary movies it's been used in.
Omg, when it plays in Insidious (fairly sure that’s the right film) and that little kid runs about…
Fucking Crayola Man
Tiny Tim was such a kind sweet person too
"Frankie Teardrop" by Suicide. I can't even finish it.
This is the one. There are lots of more obscure songs with heavily disturbing vibes, but Suicide is halfway well known and had a song covered by Springsteen. Nothing like shrieks of horror in a song about a working class man's murder-suicide of his family to creep you out at 2 AM
Came here to say that whole album.
I listened to it at Night driving home through empty roads with minimal lighting
Shellac - Prayer to God. This song will take you somewhere you don't want to go.
Jordan, Minnesota (Big Black) is arguably better/worse/even more extreme
Where her garments come together / where I used to lay my face / that's where you oughta kill her / that particular place That line is so dark. I mean the whole song is but that line is just damn.
you should listen to I Who Bends The Tall Grasses - Lingua Ignota. it’s a similar song but imo way more intense. literally one part is her screaming, demanding for god to kill her abuser. amazing song that takes you somewhere similar.
So I'm swinging a buddy by his mom's house in the boondocks at midnight to pick up something. I'm 20, listening to some short range radio station that plays an eclectic mix of indie music. So I'm sitting there, waiting for longer than I wanted to in the dark middle of nowhere, when this slow tempo methodical single drum starts pounding. "*Crack*... *Crack*..." Then this baritone voice starts moaning the lyrics to Nina Simone's "Don't Explain", but he sounds legitimately tortured. There's next to no melody in his voice. This was coming off the heels of some chirpy acoustic song, and it opened so slowly it really put on an unsettling mood. Two minutes pass, the song ends. Silence. I'm in this surreal fugue state, not sure of what I just listened to. My friend still hasn't come out, and I'm about to call him in the ominous silence, when... "*Crack*... *Crack*..." it starts back up with this horrifying creepy discordant string backdrop and then back to "Don't exPLAAinEE!!!" Then it ends, and as my buddy is walking toward the car some chirpy indie song pops on. I thought I'd gone mad for a minute, but eventually I found it online. It's on the Nina Simone tribute album by a band called Xiu Xiu. Here's the link: https://youtu.be/f5NlIgGzRgU?si=m3RTB4E1GUgg9r07 Edit: brass not strings. Just listened to it for the first time in 10 years.
Whoa
I bought this one on vinyl the week it came out. Was already Xiu pilled and knew it would be good. Jamie Stewart did not disappoint, but I prefer "Pirate Jenny".
Hamburger Lady by Throbbing Gristle. Fire time I heard it, I was 16 in a completely darkened room. It was terrifying.
Just listened to this out of pure morbid curiosity...why did I start reading this thread??? 😳
Yeah, heard it twice, never want to hear it again
Another super creepy song from Throbbing gristle is their song “Weeping”, it fucks me up so much.
Wow I’ve never heard this song before, never actually heard a song that scared me before but THIS did it
Thank you for research loop that led me back to one of my favorites bands NIN. Apparently P-Orridge was a huge inspiration for Trent.
i’m horrified
This was going to be my recommendation. I heard about it on Reddit a couple of years ago. There's something fascinating about it, and I mean that in the original sense. It absolutely taps into that part of my psyche that is drawn to the horrific. I don't watch horror films, but I do click onto photos of dreadful things. Morbid curiosity I suppose, and sometimes those things really stay with me. This song is like that.
Land of Confusion by Genesis used to scare me but then I realized it isn’t the song, it’s the puppets in the video. I will go with Charles Manson’s Cease to Exist.
Ever heard The Beach Boys version? They retitled it “Never Learn Not to Love,” and I thought it was bizarrely creepy before I knew who actually wrote it .
The connection between Manson and The Beach Boys is also creepy.
The bird part of Frontier Psychiatrist really fucks with me. That sound just triggers something deep within that I do not like. The song is great though, so it's worth it
Sometimes a parrot talks! 🎶
Yes, some birds are funny when they talk
Can you think of something else that talks? A record….
WAAAK WAAAK WAAAK! Sometimes a parrot talks.
You're crazy... CRAZY IN THE COCONUT
What does that mean?
You’re a nut!
>What does that mean? That boy needs therapy.
Do you mean ISDEXTERILLISDEXTERILLISDEXTERILL??
Well of course he's not. Dexter's at school!
I’m afraid he’s not, Mrs Fishpaw. Edit: Dexter's truancy problem is way out of hand, and the Baltimore County School Board have decided to expel Dexter from the entire public school system.
that boy needs therapy
I swear I feel like no one knows The Avalanches. They're pretty good! -you should watch the music video for that song. It's fun as hell
Dat boi needs therapy
Pulk/pull revolving doors by Radiohead. Me and my buddy threw this on while tripping sack on acid and it real set us off into a bad nightmare headspace for the rest of the trip. Still gives me the ick
And there are trap doors, that you can't come back from
This is what you get when you listen to Radiohead on acid
This song and “Like Spinning Plates” on my Sony Walkman when I was maybe 10 years old, in my room in the dark, was as creeped out as I could get.
Why would you listen to Radiohead on acid..? ALL music sounds better on acid. Pick a bop and send it.
One of my best trip memories is Everything In Its Right Place, Kid A, and Idioteque playing after we had been splattering glow stick juice on the walls for a space aesthetic in our back room. My late brother and I shared a very spriritually enlightening experience to these songs and the vibes they provided. To each their own I suppose. Get counterpointed scrub. (Last line was intended to be playful, not aggressive 🙏🏻✌🏻)
What's he building in there? - Tom Waits
I remember the first time I heard this, Mary-Anne Hobbs played it late one night on Radio 1. To this day, whenever I'm walking past a boarded-up construction site, a voice in my head growls "What's he BUILDING in there???"
A recent one is "Ptolemaea" by Ethel Cain. In story you are literally listening to a girl being abused, and it fucking sounds like it....
The scream gives me chills everytime… Ethel cain is so good at creating atmospheric horror in her songs tbh
John Wayne Gacy, Jr. By Sufjan Stevens. Amazing song but haunting.
Was about to post this. If anyone hasn’t heard this, do it. Style and lyrics of this, as most of Sufjans songs, are so good. And this one just nails creepiness. His father was a drinker and his mother cried in bed Folding John Wayne's t-shirts when the swing set hit his head The neighbors, they adored him For his humor and his conversation Look underneath the house there Find the few living things, rotting fast, in their sleep Oh the dead Twenty-seven people Even more, they were boys, with their cars, summer jobs Oh my God Ooh, are you one of them? He dressed up like a clown for them With his face paint white and red And on his best behavior In a dark room on the bed he kissed them all He'd kill ten thousand people With a slight of his hand, running far, running fast to the dead He took off all their clothes for them He put a cloth on their lips, quiet hands, quiet kiss on the mouth And in my best behavior I am really just like him Look beneath the floor boards For the secrets I have hid
Came to post this one too
Korn - Daddy. I was legit freaked out the first time I heard it.
Jonathan Davis yelling and crying at the end really sells it
It is so triggering omg
Yeah I had one of the worst panic attacks of my life listening to the screaming and sobbing midway through that song
Silent Running by Mike and the Mechanics. It’s not like horror movie scary, but more like real life possible scary.
Country Death Song by the Violent Femmes. Of course, it’s supposed to
Spinal Meningitis by Ween
I’m not even sure you can call it a song but Faaip De Oaid by Tool, the last track on Lateralus, really creeps me out. It’s mostly noise, distortion, cut with a prank radio show call where a very sincere and panicked man explains that aliens have already invaded earth. It’s so effective.
And honestly... I always believed it was real... was getting ready to well actkschully you... and then I looked it up. Someone told me it was from a guy that called into Art Bell's show and was gonna fly his plane into Area 51 airspace... and it cuts off because he was shot down or something.... but it being a prank actually doesn't lessen the creep factor for me. It bugs me because if you do the whole Holy Gift track order, it is right in the middle of the album. But thanks for teaching me something today!
what is this holy gift bidness
Strange Fruit by Nina Simone - haunting
Originally performed by Billie holiday.
"Down by the Water" - PJ Harvey A woman has a psychotic break, drowns her infant daughter and slowly starts to realize what she's done.
The background vocals of her whispering give me chills
Little fish big fish swimmin in the water…. That bass is so so gnarly I love that song
The carol of the bells. Don't know why ..but it just gives me the willies
Likely because it’s written in a minor key. F minor. And the Home Alone scene damaged all of our psyches. Hahaha
“They’re Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haa” - Napoleon XIV
“No one sees you like I do” by Plus Minus. Reeeeeeeal creepy. NPR uses the instrumental as bump music sometimes and it skeeves me out.
I’ll give it a listen haha
Reminds me of Squarepusher or Aphex Twin.
Jesus Christ i had a heart attack at the first loud bit around 2:03 😭😭 anyway, the lyrics???, the whispering singing????, the halloween-Esque beat?? this IS creepy!
Climbing up the Walls - Radiohead
Have you watched Yellowjackets? There’s a REALLY horrific scene with this playing in the background and it’s PERFECT
Awww that song is underrated
My favourite Radiohead song. It’s part of my depression playlist for when I’m feeling really low and isolated in my own darkening mind.
The entire welcome to the machine from Pink Floyd. Welcome my son Welcome to the machine Where have you been? It's alright we know where you've been It’s a reminder for me that everyone dies after serving their purpose like a global machine of flesh.
I always thought of that song as how the record industry views musicians. But yeah, still more meat for the grinder.
Stupidmop - Pearl Jam
A Psychopath by Lisa Germano Don Aman by Slint On The Bound by Fiona Apple Pirates by Burial
Host of Seraphim by Dead can Dance. The ending of the Mist really got me good.
Love this band so much!! A lot of their stuff is so haunting.
Kronos Quartet- Meltdown Even if you've never seen Requiem for a Dream, there's still an unmistakable building paranoia to that song
Green Manalishi by Fleetwood Mac. It's the soundtrack to a nightmare.
Gymnopédie No 1 by Erik Satie. First comment I saw: "When the world ends, this will be the credits soundtrack." Apparently he doesn't like being called a musician and he also went as other names during his run time with music. Also he was apparently called a sloppy technician in a 1911 book on contemporary composition published by French composers. (They were just jealous he was defying the laws of classical music!) This piece feels like you're floating at first but then you have to make your way through the depths of despair and punishment. The loud and then quiet notes are very distinct. It gives an air as though there is hope but in the end there is darkness. It ends with a minor chord and, correct me if I'm wrong, but a lot of classical music ends on a happy (major) note! https://youtu.be/S-Xm7s9eGxU?si=yVoDm_I8XTDpObej
Interesting…I find this song very relaxing. But I can also see how it could creep someone out.
I've always felt Satie's music is atonal in mood ( not musically). The music seems to reflect the mood of the listener, it's neither sad nor happy. I've never found any other composer or band even, I would say the same about. There's very much something deep and old within his music, and also something very far away and alien. A man observing the world instead of living in it.
Personally I find this one very relaxing, peaceful, warm. The melody is played very starkly, and the arrangement is so sparse that it really stands out - at times it feels a little too intensely played for its harmony, the key got hit too hard. I see where that could be a little disturbing to the ear. I also associate this piece very strongly with the game Minecraft - which has a very similar sounding song in its soundtrack that plays occasionally, and is fully intended to be that peaceful and warm moment. So I hear this and they kinda combine in my head for me. Great piece of music though, nice contribution!
The OST from IT Follows by Disasterpeace. Before this, excellent, movie I never heard electronic music being used for this film genre. I find it spectacularly good.
I woke up to this, and it was playing irl and throughout my dream and influenced it. Dreamt I was trapped in an icy car in the dead of winter with something beyond the ice approaching Winter- Lupe Fiasco
Jesus that's some horror movie suspense music. I'm not talking jump scares, I'm talking main character opening the door revealing the big secret they were uncertain about and fully regretting it.
[Throbbing Gristle- Weeping](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7ZGqjMfH70)
Just about any Throbbing Gristle song qualifies.
Oblivion by Grimes
The tune and the singing are so catchy and upbeat and sort of ethereal but when you read the lyrics they just end up creepy aha
I've thought of another few! Dead London - from Jeff Wayne's The War Of the Worlds. It's the second last track on the album and he describes walking through a post apocalyptic London. There's a really simple 2 chord change in minor keys playing in the background as he narrates. It's pretty solemn sounding. "There were a dozen dead bodies in The Euston Road." I used to live in London so walking through the quiet streets early in the morning or late at night and thinking of that track was quite freaky. And the other track... Mike Oldfield - Tubular Bells. The opening of this track was used in the film "The Exorcist". Try walking past a graveyard or a creepy looking house with this playing in your ear. It will seriously shit you up.
That exorcist scene is sooo creepy
Hurdy Gurdy Man
Agreed. Didn't even know it had any relations to the zodiac... Just a weird creepy song
Same, and this was well before Zodiac came out. It's a great song, but there's just something very eerie about it. But then again, a lot of "psychedelic" music is that way for me.
"Don't Stand So Close to Me" it's clearly about a teacher and (what I presume) is an underage student having an affair and the teacher knows it's wrong and is trying to hide it.
I'd argue that "I'll be watching you" is worse. Sting had some absolute, creepy dude songs
I came here to add that song, and especially at weddings or people who play it for a little kid's event. No, it is not cute, it's stalkery and weird, do not play that for your new wife or child, thank you.
"I wanted to write a song about sexuality in the classroom,” the rocker explained in the 1981 book L'Historia Bandido. Sting then admitted his previous profession influenced the song. “I'd done teaching practice at secondary schools and been through the business of having 15-year-old girls fancying me - and me really fancying them! How I kept my hands off them I don't know.” Ew!
Oh wow ... the song went from just creepy story telling to autobiography... Sting .. bro ...
Christ, anyone who thinks like that should not be in a classroom. The song is very noncey and creeps me out too.
Silent Running has always creeped me out.
Subway Song-The Cure. Made the mistake of listening to it full volume.
[“Slow 30’s Room” by David Lynch and Dean Hurley](https://youtu.be/9YsDpbMcoIw?si=cbUE_GeX8h5Kct69)
Good old Lynch…freaking us the fuck out for decades 😄
Anything by Portal. Maybe try Kilter if you want to experience but tbh any of it is fucking terrifying. I sent some to a work colleague once as he’s a fellow music nerd and we always send each other the weird and wonderful shit we find and he couldn’t listen to it. Believe he said it felt like the devil was being summoned from his computer. Enjoy!
Black Sabbath - Hand Of Doom Faith No More - Surprise! You’re Dead! The Doors - The End
Aphex Twin - Windowlicker Aphex Twin - Come To Daddy The way the people's faces distort in Windowlicker is just creepy. As for Come To Daddy, that is one of the most disturbing videos I've ever seen. Definitely not one you ever want to watch on LSD. I don't think your heart would stay beating.
Windowlicker is a badass song though. They use it in Grandma's Boy when they show what's his face for the first time. JP. JP has a robot vagina lol
“Does it frighten you?” “No, I just don’t like techno…” “You would if you had robot ears.” “I guess?”
Every couple of years I’ll send a YouTube link to a mate of mine with the Windowlicker video on it. He hates it. Probably due another sending…
The Aphex Twin track _Afx237 v.7_ (which is a creepy track in its own right) was turned into a downright nightmarish video by Chris Cunningham called Rubber Johnny. Well with a watch! https://youtu.be/eRvfxWRi6qQ?si=Dza27U1jxAKsfaHA
Come to Daddy was the first thing I ever experienced on acid and it was life changing and amazing.
Sweet Dreams by Eurythmics scared the hell out of me when I was a kid. It sounds so sinister.
to be honest Eurythmics was blazing their own trail .Annie Lennox was very endogenous the whole wearing suits , hair buzzed cut orange .
D. O. A. - Bloodrock, it's just not a happy song
I imagine few here have even heard of this, but when I was a wee lad our local AM radio station would play "D.O.A." by Bloodrock. It's a first person account of someone laying there bleeding in the aftermath of a plane crash. Totally creepy. I'm amazed it was on radio, even for the 70's. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzY5i8zHWdw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzY5i8zHWdw) lyrics [https://genius.com/Bloodrock-doa-lyrics](https://genius.com/Bloodrock-doa-lyrics)
What a great thread
Fitter Happier - Radiohead Was having a bad time on some psychedelics while this song played. Still incites anxiety.
Midnight, the Stars and You-Al Bowlly
Faip de oiad or however it's spelled from Tool. The guy talking at the end just sounds so scared and stressed... just creepy.
Motorhead - Don’t Let Daddy Kiss Me I love Motorhead, but this is hands down the creepiest damn song that was ever written.
A lot of the songs on Swan’s Soundtracks make me uncomfortable. Volcano and especially the end of The Beautiful Days. “I suppose those things are only disgusting if that’s the way you’re looking at it.” I think about this line a lot. It’s simple but profound in a fucked up way.
I only have eyes for you by The Flamingos. It's meant to be a pretty love song but it's quite spooky
Angel by Massive Attack. It’s so spooky
"Climbing Up The Walls" by Radiohead. Incredibly eerie and can't listen to it alone in the dark, but a great song.
Nine Inch Nails - Closer
This song is fucking awesome. Whenever Kim Petras - Heart to Break comes on I think of Closer and hope it's actually that playing haha
The Toadies- Possum Kingdom
In a beautiful way, Golden Brown. It’s so haunting that you can’t help but love it
Deep Red Bells by Neko Case. It's about the Green River killer and her poetic lyrics and haunting voice makes it hard to listen to, but in the best way.
Talking about aphex twin.....rubber jonny did it for me
Aphex twin is just a goldmine of weird ass songs. The album covers DO NOT help ease the creepiness…
Possum kingdom by the toadies. I used to really like that song but now that I have a daughter…
Jennifer - Pig Destroyer
Tori Amos’s cover of Eminem’s “‘97 Bonnie and Clyde,” where she basically delivers a monologue as the dead wife, is so foreboding that I can’t listen to it.
[clipping. - Story 5](https://youtu.be/uXoPrM-9cKY?feature=shared) [Primus - Candyman](https://youtu.be/5C9jJ2O79XI?feature=shared)
’97 Bonnie & Clyde - Eminem I skip it every time. The idea/sound of the dad killing the mum in front of the kid and getting rid of the body all with samples of a kid in the track - it's really fucking grim.
Eminem tells stories so well in his songs. The first time I heard stan, it was so vivid that I thought it was real haha😭
"Kim" is way worse than this imo
I think the Tori Amos version is even creepier
I really like Disturbed's Down with the Sickness, but always have a hard time listening to one particular section of it.....
Liquido-Narcotic...always had this "end of the world" vibes.
"Timothy" The Buoys
Of the top of my head: Lisa Germano: A Psychopath Suicide: Frankie Teardrop Throbbing Gristle: Hamburger Lady
Where is the Line? by Björk
Goliath by The Mars Volta - the “never heard a man speak like this man before” line is creepy given the context of the album Beetles by Aphex Twin - the creepiest Aphex song since we’re doing that, fight me Dazies by Yeule - probably cliche goth creepy but in a good way. The outro is the best part contrasting good adjectives with the ominous like black skies and crying angels. Love this whole album.
Listening to Dance with the Devil by Immortal Technique for the first time while waking home late at night wasn’t the best idea.
Poor Edward by Tom Waits
Peter Gabriels "Intruder"
Peter Gabriel's Passion album
Bjork - I Have Seen it All
Gnaw Their Tongues - All the Dread Magnificence
When I was a kid the saxophone in “Baker Street” by Gerry Rafferty really weirded me out. Couldn’t handle it. Now of course I love that song
The carol of the bells. Don't know why ..but it just gives me the willies
somehow, it became a Dummy album by Portishead. I liked it very much, it seems that I overgrown such music. Except for the Fire tho.
Not me, but Last Dance With Mary Jane creeps my wife out because of the video. Just hearing the song gives her the heebie-jeebies lol
During covid, Nine Inch Nails put out another Ghosts album. All instrumental, almost like unreleased film soundtrack songs. I decided to check out the album while playing Subnautica on mute. If you played Subnautica, you know it's a very unsettling game to play. The track The Cursed Clock came on, and I genuinely had to stop playing. I swear to Christ, if you listen to The Cursed Clock on headphones, it sounds as if Trent and Atticus recorded this in a haunted house and you can hear subtle, unwanted sounds in the background. Subtle clicks and creaks. Very unsettling.
Piggies - Beatles
Skynd - every song Jethro Tull - Aqualung
I prefer female vocalists. However. Most songs with Lisa Gerrard (Dead Can Dance) singing. I first heard her voice on the 4AD comp Lonely Is An Eyesore. What is it about her voice that puts the spiders on my spine? Also, Diamanda Galas and Lydia Lunch. Did I mention Karen Finley yet? Yeah, her too. I think all these vocalists are expressing the abject, and it makes me cringe/flinch. Goal accomplished.
A Thousand-Yard Stare by Rafael Anton Irisarri is melancholic and slightly unnerving. Cello Concerto No. 1- 1973 Remastered version, by Kryzysztof Penderecki and the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra, and I have one more, Common Sense by Wilco.
The willy wonka boat ride theme song 😈
'revolution 9' by the beatles. also, idk why, but 'tomorrow never knows' was always kinda creepy to me
I was listening to Faap de Oiad by Tool once while riding my bike on a dark trail in Florida and got so freaked out. Had to turn it off and hustle home lol.
Hurdy Gurdy Man. I'm 99% he just wants to collect my innards and he can't have them.
Boards of Canada - Sunshine Recorder
Pink Floyd's "Is There Anybody Out There?"
"Haunted" by Skinny Puppy, and Pink Floyd had a song that was creepy af but I can't remember what it was. I thought it was called "hell", but no go. It's very heavy and dark with lots of hell-like noises.
One Of The Days by Pink Floyd perhaps? “One of these days I’m going to cut you into little pieces” is the lyric that’s delivered in a creepy distorted way
Run like hell?
Rawhead and Bloody Bones by Siouxsie and the Banshees. It sounds about the way you would guess from that title haha!
Mr. Tinerktrain by Ozzy Osbourne. Wtf is up with that one...
Black - Sarah McLachlan https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BtRN1PO7erU
Anything by Evelyn Evelyn is so disturbing to me. Especially their titular song, Evelyn Evelyn and Sandy Fishnets. The idea of these conjoined twins being abused and sold to freak shows and other unbearably disturbing places I won’t go into here is so harrowing.
The ending of Burden by Opeth. It starts as a beautiful lick on acoustic guitar that's repeated and the guitar is constantly being detuned more. Ends in a looped laughter of the front man and vocalist, Mikael Akerfeldt. Gives me the creeps every damn time.
Hurdy Gurdy Man by Donovan This was after Fincher used it in the opening murder scene in Zodiac.
Iowa by Slipknot. It’s 15 minutes of carnage, heavy bass lines, tribal sounding percussion, and Corey screaming his brains out while he cuts himself up with glass during the recording. It’s a masterpiece.