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The biggest-selling record of all time, Thriller marked a zenith in pop-music songwriting. With practically every song on here hitting the Top 5 at some point, the album was a sensation in the truest sense of the word, inspiring millions across the country to dress like one-gloved space captains. [Mike McGuirk] Hear It Now!

Fellow Rhapsody scribe Chuck Eddy recently charted the roots of shock/horror rock. My aim is to pick up where he left off — with Alice Cooper in the 1970s — and deliver the genre to the 21st century.

After Cooper's transformation into a pop icon, right around 1972 or '73, somewhere between the release of the albums School's Out and Billion Dollar Babies, shock rock became deeply intertwined with heavy metal. Though punk bands like The Plasmatics, The Sex Pistols and The Misfits employed shock-like tactics in both their stage performances and headline-grabbing media shenanigans, it was bands such as KISS, and in the 1980s Venom, King Diamond/Mercyful Fate and W.A.S.P., that truly embodied the genre's core aesthetic: overblown theatrical absurdity. Venom in particular played a vital role. By filtering this theatricality through Satanic imagery and a sonic assault that made Judas Priest and Iron Maiden sound like Judy Garland and Bing Crosby, respectively, the gnarly British trio laid the groundwork for black metal, one of two genres to help carry shock rock into our current era. The other is industrial. Closely tied to metal since the late 1980s, industrial and its obsession with dystopian nightmares, genocide and such modern-day bogeymen as serial killers and dictators offered shock rockers like the Alice Cooper-inspired White Zombie, Marilyn Manson and, of course, the infamous GWAR a whole new spectrum of themes to explore when attempting to freak out pop audiences.

Sonically speaking, modern shock rockers like GWAR and black-metal weirdos Immortal have very little in common with creepy ancestors such as rhythm-and-blues legend Screamin' Jay Hawkins, who would rise from a coffin during performances in the mid-1950s. Yet there can be no doubt that all these artists are united in their love of producing twisted theater.

To taste a healthy sampling of modern shock rock, check out the expanded playlist here.

Following are 10 albums that encapsulate shock/horror rock's creepy evolution from the 1970s to now. Explore them at your own peril ...

Halloween is only one day out of the year, but people listen to bewitching songs and monstrous tunes all October long on Rhapsody. We decided to compile some of the season's most popular tunes — not the scariest ones or those that contain the most carnage, but those that spike on Rhapsody in October and, we assume, get played at Halloween parties across the land.

Listen to all these spooky songs and more on Rhapsody's Classic Halloween Party playlist here.

Stevie Wonder: "Superstition"
It would be a real horror not to start the list with Stevie Wonder. First off, this song will get any party started (unless it's a tea party). Second, since this number gets played all year long, it sometimes gets overlooked at soulless Halloween parties. Wonder drops a litany of Halloween set-pieces — "Very superstitious/ The devil's on his way/ Thirteen-month-old baby/ Broke the looking glass" — before admonishing the listener to forget about superstitions and enjoy real life. Stevie, relax and let them pretend for just one night!

See also: Frank Sinatra's "Witchcraft" and "That Old Black Magic" (beware: these sublime songs can result in a seriously scary Sinatra addiction).

Even on a good day, rock is a strange and scary beast. Hotel rooms are trashed; drugs ingested; bizarre sexual acts perpetrated; egos massaged; guyliner applied; and so on and so forth. So, in terms of scary stories, five decades of debauchery, excess and generally abnormal and unacceptable behavior have set the bar pretty high for rock 'n' roll.

Fortunately, rock does not disappoint. In the tomes of its hallowed history, there are dark masses and blood orgies; Norwegian death-metal cults and their church-torching cohorts; incessant back-masked devotions to a certain Dark Lord and a long list of legends held in the throes of occultists, mass murderers and witches. For this Halloween, we've gathered some of our favorite stories of the macabre. Sit back, light a candle, cast a protective spell if need be — and enjoy these macabre tales of rock 'n' roll horror.

Alice Cooper gets credit for putting shock-horror into rock, and there's no question he perfected the idea — especially as his music got cheesier and more theatrical, starting with Welcome to My Nightmare in 1975. But the truth is, creepy-crawly spooky-ooky stuff had been a part of rock all along, which comes as no surprise given that the exact same teens who loved rock 'n' roll in the '50s had been buying comic books full of ghouls, graveyards and greasy grimy gopher guts (until the Comics Code killed that concept in 1954), and '50s drive-ins were loaded with body-snatcher and mummy exploitation flicks. So it was only natural that somebody like Screamin' Jay Hawkins would come along, once so many radio stations banned his moaned-and-groaned drunk-in-the-studio 1956 recording of "I Put a Spell on You" for alleged cannibal tendencies, and start rising from a coffin in concert while brandishing a skull. Rockabilly crazies, meanwhile, yelped about zombies (Billy Taylor), bones (Ronnie Dawson), vampire women (future country star Bobby Bare) and hanging dates' chopped-off heads on the wall to prevent hot-dog consumption (Hasil Adkins). And then two big hits in 1958, and one in 1962, made horror rock safe for the wee ones.

If ever there were a rock 'n' roll holiday, it's Halloween. Ghosts, ghouls, goblins, blood sports, sexy costumes and hard candy all take center stage. And while that sounds frightening to some, it's also all the ingredients for a great party. Get your own holiday started with our selection of music's greatest Halloween songs as well as a collection of some of the scariest songs ever made. If you dare, read the tales of debauchery and occultism in our "Rock's Scariest Stories" feature. Dig in, and don't forget to turn off the lights.

	From "Monster Mash" to "Thriller," party down with these classic Halloween jams.			Blood orgies, mass murderers, ghosts and more of rock's scariest stories.
	Get in the mood with this ghoulish collection of music's scariest songs.			True blood: From My Chemical Romance to Evanescence, the music that fuels the undead.
	Check out our exclusive Halloween Radio.			The kids aren't alright — listen to this playlist of witch house and beyond.
	Learn about the history of modern Shock Rock.			An extended playlist full of pre-shock rock classics.