| When Andrew Gold set out to record Halloween Howls, the hitmaking singer-songwriter and parent sought to fill a serious void in Halloween music. “Each holiday has a mood and usually has music to go with it,” he wrote in the album’s original liner notes. “However, it’s been very hard to find any tapes or CDs of Halloween music. In fact, there’s mostly just scary sound effects available and very few songs. So, I fixed that.”
But that’s just the beginning of the story. Nearly 15 years after the album’s 1996 release, “Spooky, Scary Skeletons” became a global phenomenon when a YouTuber paired it with a 1929 Disney cartoon called “The Skeleton Dance.” The video garnered over 34 million views, helping to popularize the song. Most recently, a new generation of fans has embraced “Spooky, Scary Skeletons,” thanks to a dance craze imagined by TikTok star Boomer (@minecrafter2011). Today, the song has become a Gen Z anthem, the track amassing upwards of 4 billion views across different incarnations on YouTube, with 7 million-plus individual clips uploaded on TikTok and celebrities such as Will Smith joining the dance phenomenon. The single, meanwhile, hit No. 1 on the Billboard Children’s chart as well as No. 2 on TikTok’s Weekly Top Tracks chart.
“Spooky Scary Skeletons (Wubbaduck Remix) is a new remix of Andrew Gold’s cult favorite and modern-day viral Halloween sensation by Dubstep remixer Wubbaduck. |
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| A prolific singer, songwriter, producer, arranger and multi-instrumentalist, Andrew Gold (1951–2011) not only enjoyed a successful solo career but also worked with some of the world’s biggest artists. Beginning with 1975’s Andrew Gold, he released more than a dozen solo albums and numerous charting singles, including the Top 10 hit “Lonely Boy,” the UK Top 5 hit “Never Let Her Slip Away,” and 1978’s “Thank You For Being A Friend”—a cover version of which became the instantly recognizable theme song to The Golden Girls. Over the years Gold penned songs for artists ranging from Trisha Yearwood, Wynonna (the Billboard No. 1 hit “I Saw The Light”), 10cc, Lila McCann, Celine Dion, Alvin & The Chipmunks and Jesse McCartney, to name just a few. As a member of the British pop duo Wax (with guitarist/bassist Graham Gouldman), Gold scored hits like “Right Between the Eyes” and “Bridge to Your Heart” in the ’80s. Throughout his three-decade-long career, Gold was also an in-demand collaborator, who worked in the studio and on stage with the likes of Linda Ronstadt, James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, Cher, Art Garfunkel and the Eagles. |
