On this week’s Billboard Hot 100 (dated Nov. 14), Halloween comes closer than ever to boosting a spooky-season anthem to the top of its rankings.
Though “Choosin’ Texas” reigns for a 27th week on the listing, a pair of fright-night favorites — one classic, and one new — appear right below it, in Michael Jackson‘s “Thriller” and Tame Impala & JENNIE‘s “Dracula,” respectively. Both hit new peaks this week, and lead the six total Halloween-themed titles on this week’s chart, including one first-time entry: “Spooky, Scary Skeletons,” from late ’70s singer-songwriter Andrew Gold.
Will “Thriller” get to No. 1 one of these years? And will Halloween someday have close to the same annual impact on the Hot 100 as Christmas does? Billboard staffers answer these questions and more below.
1. No Halloween songs got to No. 1 this year as we predicted they might, but we did get songs at No. 2 (“Thriller”) and No. 3 (“Dracula”). Are we moving towards Halloween becoming a perennial Hot 100-dominating holiday like Christmas?
Katie Atkinson: It sure looks like it! And the chart tracking week will allow for even more Halloween music action in the coming years, because Halloween was on a Saturday this year, meaning the only Halloweekend activity was Friday through early Sunday. Next year, it falls on a Sunday, allowing for an extra tracking day, and it just goes up from there. With music streaming at an all-time high, the more closely we can follow people’s listening habits, the more these seasonal spikes will occur.
Kyle Denis: I think we just might be! Obviously, not every Halloween will coincide with a $1 billion-grossing Michael Jackson biopic and a hit single that just so happens to share a name with one of the holiday’s most enduring characters, but 2026 certainly helped refine the sub-genre of “Halloween pop.”
Chris Eggertsen: I hope so! Halloween is my favorite holiday, and I’d love to see an influx of songs about ghosts and monsters flood the Hot 100 starting every late September or so. While it does seem we’re moving in that direction, I don’t think it’ll ever quite match the power of Christmas — a holiday in which seasonal music is so deeply embedded — in terms of Billboard chart dominance.
Lyndsey Havens: I think so and I hope so. Halloween may not be as cheery as Christmas, but it is a bit more inclusive and playfully spooky — and that’s something worth getting behind.
Andrew Unterberger: I don’t know if we’re ever going to quite get to the regular 40-of-the-top-50 levels of domination Christmas can now claim at its yearly Hot 100 peak — there are still only a half-dozen Halloween-themed titles on this week’s chart, after all. But yes, failing some major shift in listener trends (or how Billboard measures them), it should become more and more of a factor year over year, as the streaming sea level among contemporary hits continues to lower and seasonal perennials continue to stick out like they do.
2. As it has essentially every year since Halloween bumps started re-charting songs on the Hot 100, “Thriller” leads the pack this year. Do you think it will get to No. 1 in the next couple years? Will it become an every-year No. 1 like “All I Want for Christmas Is You”?
Katie Atkinson: Yes, “Thriller” is the obvious contender for the perennial Mariah slot. That being said, I think it’s worth remembering that in addition to Halloween, the MJ catalog has been seeing a boost all year thanks to April’s Michael biopic. So I do wonder if that increased popularity factored into the song reaching its No. 2 peak this year. I love seeing Christmas songs climb up the chart every year, and this will be a new fun holiday race to watch – and could even lead to a song like “Thriller” that many people might assume was already a Hot 100 No. 1 hit possibly taking a four-decade-plus route to getting there.
Kyle Denis: I’m going with yes. Chart watchers will remember that “All I Want for Christmas Is You” didn’t hit No. 1 during its first few holiday-induced re-entries. Between “Thriller” playing in a far less crowded field in terms of yearly Halloween-themed releases and a new generation of listeners who are freshly enamored with the King of Pop, I can definitely see the song becoming an every-year No. 1, barring a gargantuan competitor like “Choosin’ Texas.”
Chris Eggertsen: Given its fairly steady upward trajectory over the last close to a decade — from lingering just within or just outside the top 40 starting at the end of the 2010s before hitting No. 2 this year — it certainly does feel like “Thriller” is destined to hit No. 1, though I do wonder how much of the bump this year was due to the release of the smash-hit Michael biopic. Then again, with a Michael sequel in development and MJ’s music seemingly hotter than it’s been in decades, a No. 1 placement is certainly plausible over the next couple of years. I don’t think we’re necessarily looking at a perennial Halloween No. 1 a la “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” though, as “Thriller” doesn’t (yet) feel quite as undeniable as the Mariah classic, which effectively occupies its own airspace in the canon of Christmas songs.
Lyndsey Havens: It sure could. Obviously, this year, the film Michael helped the superstar enjoy sustained bumps across his catalog. So, I do think “Thriller” had a leg up compared to years prior, but that’s not to say it won’t continue for years to come. All it may need to jump to that top spot next year is a thoughtfully strategic campaign to say “it’s tiiiiime” a la Mariah.
Andrew Unterberger: Yeah, it seems inevitable — maybe even next year, when Halloween falls on a Sunday, meaning “Thriller” should get pretty major streaming numbers throughout that entire weekend. But if not next year then someday. Maybe for the 20th anniversary of MJ’s death in 2029, or the Thriller album’s 50th anniversary in 2032.
3. Though the percentage of its bump wasn’t nearly as big, “Dracula” did also see noticeable gains from spooky season this year, earning its best day on streaming and now reaching its highest peak on the Hot 100. Do you think it will remain in the inner circle of the Halloween canon once its real-time popularity fades, or will it still have to prove itself there?
Katie Atkinson: This one is trickier. (Trick-or-treatier?) I could see it getting an annual bump, but I think No. 3 will be the highest it climbs on the Hot 100. Think of it as the new “Disturbia” or “The Dead Dance” or “Heads Will Roll” – the kind of modern song that is seasonally appropriate and gets playlisted on all the Halloween party soundtracks, but not to a “Thriller” level.
Kyle Denis: I think it remains in the canon, albeit on the more contemporary side, with cuts like Lady Gaga’s “The Dead Dance”; if Kevin Parker’s goal was to deliver the new-school Halloween anthem, he timed the whole thing pretty perfectly! I’ll admit, I’d be a bit surprised not to see “Dracula” post substantial streaming gains next Halloween.
Chris Eggertsen: “Dracula” is only a year old at this point, so it’s a little too early to tell. Can a song that’s only tangentially “spooky” sink its teeth into the Hot 100 every year in the way more straightforward scary-season tracks like “Thriller,” “Monster Mash” and “Ghostbusters” have managed? I’m not convinced of that yet, but a No. 3 placement also can’t be discounted.
Lyndsey Havens: I think it will have to prove itself. As much as I love the song, it’s been a bit of a sleeper hit since JENNIE hopped on the remix in February, which is to say, the song was already becoming a slow but lasting hit well before Halloween. I think the holiday gave it that final boost, of course, but I’m not sure if it’s a repeatable process or timeline for years to come.
Andrew Unterberger: I think it’ll hang around, but it’ll have some work to do before it can really compete with the Halloween heavy-hitters. Even at its new daily streaming peak on Oct. 31, it was still multiple millions behind any of the other spooky songs on the Hot 100 this week — and may be even further back next year as it fades as a contemporary hit. But with this early moment under its belt, cementing it as a Halloween staple so early in its lifespan, it’s in the best position to eventually join the all-time canon of any song of the last decade or two.
4. In addition to the usual Hot 100 re-entrants (“Ghostbusters,” “Monster Mash,” “This Is Halloween”), we also get a first-timer this year from ’70s singer-songwriter Andrew Gold, with his remixed and TikTok-revived “Spooky, Scary Skeletons.” Do you see this as a worthy (or lasting) entry to the Halloween canon?
Katie Atkinson: As a parent to children under 10, welcome to the “Spooky, Scary Skeletons” party, everyone else! I’ve been a proud annual listener for the better part of a decade, and I think this is a delightful addition to the Halloween Hot 100 hits. The long and winding path of this song is fascinating too, between Gold releasing it in the ’90s and then it getting an EDM remix that brought it new life in 2013. Add to that the lore of Gold’s previous career as an easy-listening hitmaker AND that he wrote the flipping Golden Girls theme song and this man had one of the most unpredictable career paths of all time. (Sadly, Gold passed in 2011, so he never saw his song’s EDM-fueled online resurgence.)
Kyle Denis: Honestly, the remixed version of “Spooky, Scary Skeletons” goes off during a daytime Halloween party, so I won’t scoff at it being added to the canon.
Chris Eggertsen: On the one hand, I appreciate the over-the-top Halloween energy Gold brings to “Spooky, Scary Skeletons,” which also weirdly feels engineered for TikTok virality even though it was released in 1996. But unlike “Thriller” or “Monster Mash,” it’s not exactly a bop — IMO, the vibe is more “pre-trick or treat vibe-setter for the kiddos” than “all-ages Halloween party standard.” I won’t be mad if it becomes an annual entry on the Hot 100, but personally, I can take it or leave it.
Lyndsey Havens: Yes! I think (almost) every Halloween song ever made is a worthy addition to the Halloween canon, and surely this one is. It’s perfectly aged and fun and boasts an alliterative title, what more could you want? As we’ve seen with non-holiday hits, the power of TikTok cannot be ignored when it comes to reviving music and trends from an early or even pre-social media era, so I think it’s expected and fun that a Halloween song would benefit from that too.
Andrew Unterberger: “Skeletons” has clearly hooked the next generation, so it seems like it should only become more of a Halloween fixture from here. Now we just have to figure out additional holidays to attach “Lonely Boy” and “Thank You for Being a Friend” to.
5. What’s a Halloween-appropriate song that hasn’t really gotten to the highest levels of seasonal boosting that you’d like to see get its proper due one of these Oct. 31s?
Katie Atkinson: I’m so glad you asked this question so I can write about my favorite offbeat Halloween song of all time! Please do yourselves a favor and listen to “Halloween Spooks” by jazz trio Lambert, Hendricks & Ross. It was a running gag on KROQ’s The Kevin & Bean Show here in Los Angeles (RIP) that Bean would play this song every spooky season just to annoy Kevin, but while it was a joke on the show, I legitimately love it. And now I’m playing it every year around the house to annoy my kids instead.
Kyle Denis: It’s a six-minute, two-part song that’s not really radio-friendly at all, but Beyoncé’s “Haunted” is one of my favorite creepy, spooky, Halloween-adjacent pop joints from the past 15 years.
Chris Eggertsen: I hold a special place in my dark heart for Blue Oyster Cult’s “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper,” which is featured in John Carpenter’s original Halloween — the best Halloween movie of all time and one of my personal favorite films ever. In my mind, the song and the film are inextricably linked, and no other track puts me in the Halloween spirit more than that one. Taken on its own merits, it’s a haunting piece of work about accepting your own mortality that gives me literal chills every time I hear it — and I can’t think of a better tribute to its eerie power (side note: it was also, of course, the basis of a classic SNL sketch). It was a top 15 Hot 100 hit when it first came out back in 1976, but it’s become a little overlooked in recent years and I’d love to see it be re-embraced as a seasonal classic.
Lyndsey Havens: I mean, Phoebe Bridgers literally has a song called “Halloween” so that sort of feels like what are we even doing if not bumping that during its namesake holiday? Sure, it’s a bit downtempo and emotive, but you could argue nothing is spookier than being honest about your feelings. She has my vote.
Andrew Unterberger: Ministry’s “Everyday Is Halloween” isn’t about Halloween necessarily — more of an anthem for those sick of being picked on for dressing differently — but there’s still not a song that feels more like Oct. 31 to me; it’s always the first cut I put on before going out for the evening.
