Title: Sounds of Halloween
Manufacturer: Madacy Entertainment
Year: 1994
Total Runtime: 1 Hour
Repeats on both sides: Yes
Stories: No
Music: Opening theme (the same library music from the 1950s that appears on Night in a Graveyard) and some other ambient music throughout
Narration: No
Distinct Audio: Backward music and effects
Review: All this reviewing makes me think about music critics. The blight of their job is all the unoriginal material they have to sift through. But imagine if they had to review albums that are literally two or three existing records spliced together. Okay, you could argue that this happens all the time with so much sampling going on, and mashup artists like Avalanches, Danger Mouse, and Girl Talk. Then imagine reviewing five different albums with five different titles that are all exactly the same recording. Sounds of Halloween is a mix of two or three records slapped together, and it's been released under at least five different titles.
About half of the effects can be heard on Night in a Graveyard, and the rest sounds like Scary Sounds of Halloween. Who knows if Sounds of Halloween stole the material straight off of those records, or if they stole from the same records that those stole from.
The audio has been repackaged numerous times according to the Scary Sounds of Halloween blog.
These are all the same album...
Speaking of unoriginal content, I've yet to talk about the "Lonesome Ghosts" scream sequence that shows up on about forty percent of all my Halloween albums. The ghostly yawn can be heard at the beginning of Disney's 1937 animated short, and it was featured on the track Screams and Groans from Chilling, Thrilling Sounds of the Haunted House preceded by some shrieks. Knowing Disney's reputation for legally protecting their content, it's surprising that the sound has been used so much. Further proof that nobody pays attention to what's actually on Halloween records.
Sounds of Halloween is still making Halloween memories thanks to a YouTube video (see below) that's received nearly a million views since 2011. It's unavoidable. It's like the standard government issue of Halloween records.
It obviously gets the job done year after year, but in my eyes Sounds of Halloween has no honor.
Rating: 2 of 5
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