Choosing 100 hits from the 80s is easy, though some still get that wrong by including ‘Groove Is In The Heart’ or some other clearly 90s track. But a specific theme like Halloween is a tough one.

I realised there aren’t that many well-known spooky songs out there. Apart from ‘Ghostbusters’, ‘Monster Mash’ and ‘Thriller’ there isn’t a huge amount to keep the night going on that theme alone.

called ‘Horror’. And secondly, I’m against playing Michael Jackson’s records full stop these days (this is a personal thing and not everyone agrees with me, obviously).

’m sure some of you will be screaming, “Oh, there’s more than that!” Of course there are, but many of those will be relying solely on the title rather than the lyrical content or music. I mean, I’ve encountered people pushing Steps' cover of ‘Better the Devil You Know’ as a Halloween record! I get the feeling that some people just scan the Guinness Book of Hit Singles for anything that has the word 'devil' in the title.

Instead, the forgotten or lesser-known tracks I’m about to reveal have a certain Halloween 'sound' to them, rather than just relying on some vaguely scary title.

Here are my spooky-sounding pop suggestions for a Halloween party like no other:

Aqua – Halloween

Quite why this wasn’t released as a single is a mystery. None of the singles from Aqua’s second LP ‘Aquarius’ were particularly inspiring, but ‘Halloween’ is a great piece of novelty pop with a purpose. Taking cues from the Scream movies with Lene receiving a sinister phone call from Rene, the whole boy/girl duet thing works well. Lene is home alone and Rene is outside telling her she’d better run. It really is crying out for a classic Aqua video.

Surrounding the stalking narrative are crunching guitars, harpsichords and classic horror-movie wailing. Even though it's not that well-known, I still play this without fail at Halloween parties because it’s so clear what it’s about. You can’t get more perfect than a Halloween song called ‘Halloween’. And maybe, if more of us play it, it might gradually become famous – although I suspect it needs to be in a Netflix series for that.

allSTARS* – Things That Go Bump In The Night

“Beware of the fog, stick to the path,” a voice rasps, giving us an intro that comes straight from ‘Thriller’. This track is ...

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