Sounds of Darkness

Frankie Stein and His Ghouls – Discography (1964-1965)
Old Time Rock ‘n Roll

Here’s the pitch … my friends and I are going to record a record of rock ’n’ roll dance songs. None of us are any good at writing lyrics, though. Instead of lyrics, we’re going to just throw some spooky sound effects on top of the music. Screams, howls, laughs, whistles, and just general weirdness. Then we’ll name each song with some random spooky sounding name, and we’ll call ourselves something scary, and we’ll have scary album covers.

If you’d told me that pitch had gotten a five-album contract with a record label, I’d have laughed in your face. And yet, here we have five albums by Frankie Stein and his Ghouls. Each album consists of old-time rock ‘n’ roll dance music (twist, swim, watusi, etc.) with sound effects. That’s it. Take away the sound effects, and you’ve got your basic instrumental 60’s rock ‘n ‘ roll. That’s it. That’s all there is.

I will admit that I like the album covers. And I’m thankful that each song lasts only 2 or 3 minutes. But the sax wears thin, the harmonica gets old, and after a few songs, they all start sounding the same. I tried to listen to all five albums in a row, and I couldn’t do it. I got through the first two pretty well, but I found myself listening to the first 30 seconds or so of each song on the last three. It all sounds the same, and none of it is very interesting.

I’m sure some old-time Halloween classic purists will disagree with me, which is fine. I’ve got my Halloween music grouped into “Great”, “Lousy”, and “Everything Else” … and this batch of music is in the Lousy bin. Sue me.