Who Thinks Up This Stuff Anyways? Top 25 Scariest Music Videos

©Yahoo

I was on the phone with my son Matt tonight. Matt will be 16 shortly after gidget makes her appearance this winter. Well I should say Matt and Meg (the M&M’s) will be 16. We talk about a lot when he calls. Tonight the topic was music. He asked me what I was listening to lately and I am always honest with my kids, so I told him. Told him I’d gotten the Rob Zombie compilation disk and was listening to that, as well as some Baroque, Mozart, Italian café music and movie soundtracks. So I asked him what he was listening to.

His answer didn’t surprise me. He is still listening to rap/hip hop. Now, some of this stuff I’m ok with. I even have a lot, some that would surprise you, on CD. And this is the stuff I don’t want Matt listening to. Even if I have it though, I don’t want Matt listening to it. S to read. Gee, big surprise Auds – that your children hate to read.

Ok so I asked Matt about one of the artists he listens to, Mike Jones (no boys and girls, not Mike Jones formerly of the Monkees, I only wish!) and decided to check them out via Yahoo’s Launch music thingy while I was on the phone with him. I didn’t care for what I saw but wasn’t in a place to get into the specifics with him other than to let him know that what I heard was degrading and just so-so as far as the music itself was concerned. To which he replied; “well if you were still working at radio stations you’d know this guy and know he’s not a bad dude and his music is tight.” Well, thank gosh his music is “tight” because heaven forbid we have loose music running rampant out there. And believe me, I’ve had plenty of these fools in the studio before….some I’d have in my home, and some I wouldn’t let lick dog crap off the bottom of my shoe!

I digress.

Matt had to get off the phone (the joys of having an almost 16 year old sister who was yelling and screaming in the background about “needing the phone RIGHT NOW to make a VERY VERY important phone call!”) so we hung up and I decided to surf around the Yahoo music site.

Being that it’s the Halloween season they have this list, The Top 25 Scariest Videos of All Time! Being the scary movie/book/music lover that I am, I had to go check this list out. And I gotta tell ya, I don’t know who the people are that rate this stuff, or who deem it the “scariest” but if they find these videos scary, then they sure as heck have never watched movies like The Exorcist, Rosemary’s Baby, Nosferatu (1922), or even Silence of the Lambs.

Here’s the list, and I’ve seen all of the videos, none are scary. I’d venture far enough to say possibly disturbing, but scary? Come on, I’m scarier than any of these videos when I first get up in the morning.

1. Aphex Twin – “Come To Daddy”

2. Skinny Puppy – “ Worlock”

3. Slayer – “Serenity In Murder”

4. Nine Inch Nails – “ Closer”

5. Queens of the Stone Age – “Burn the Witch”

6. Marilyn Manson - “ Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)”

7. Slipknot – “ Spit It Out”

8. Porcupine Tree – “Strip The Soul”

9. Six Feet Under – "The Day the Dead Walked”

10. Cradle of Filth – “ Born in a Burial Gown”

11. Anthrax – “What Doesn’t Die”

12. Primal Scream – “Miss Lucifer”

13. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – “Y Control”

14. Jon Spencer Blues Explosion – “She Said”

15. Rob Zombie – “Dragula”

16. The Misfits – “ Dig Up Her Bones”

17. Ozzy Ozbourne – “Bark at the Moon”

18. Michael Jackson – “Thriller”

19. Gwar – “Sick of You”

20. Alice Cooper – “He’s Back (The Man Behind The Mask)”

21. The White Stripes – “Blue Orchid”

22. Mudvayne – “Forget to Remember”

23. Billy Idol – “White Wedding”

24. Rocket From the Crypt – “Born In ‘69”

25. Interpol – “Evil”

Some of these videos are downright silly, especially the Billy Idol video. “White Wedding” was not scary when it came out back in 1982 (oh my gosh, I was in Jr. High School back then, talk about making a girl feel OLD!) and it’s not scary now. The only thing remotely scary about it is how badly Billy Idol has aged and how he’s trying desperately to hang onto his looks from the early 80’s.

Some of the videos, while the songs themselves might be considered “scary” or “dark”, the videos maybe only go so far as to being slightly gothic. And it takes a lot for me to say even that, seeing as how the term “gothic” gets labeled on just about anything and everything that mainstream people don’t understand. You wear black clothes and have pale skin – you’re labeled a goth….you listen to Depeche Mode sometimes – you’re labeled a goth…..it’s far too easy for people just to lump what they don’t understand into that category.

Still though, where is the Depeche Mode, Christian Death, Switchblade Symphony, Rosetta Stone, Sisters of Mercy, or even the song “Remedy” by Seether, which could be considered “scary” (although it doesn’t scare me, but is by contrast, more frightening than anything listed) in this list? What about other Alice Cooper videos that are far more disturbing or scary? And the Rob Zombie video on the list isn’t even remotely frightening. Give me a break….you want scary Rob Zombie, I can show you scary Rob Zombie. But it ain’t Dragula….nope that song is a humorous take on the Munster’s race car of the same name and the video is comedic in nature.

I’ll give the folks at Yahoo this much…yeah the guys in Slipknot and Marilyn Manson look scary, but are the videos scary? Not on your life.

I’m really curious after seeing this list, as to what they’d vote as the scariest movies of all time, I need the laugh!