New York, New York – Polly Scattergood

The original of this song is almost the exact opposite; bombastic and large. This is just downright creepy. I used it in my showreel and it fit perfectly, timed blood dropping with the beats.

Polly – Amanda Palmer

Yet another cover. I swear this list won’t all mostly covers. I hope. I listened to this song 10 times in a row whilst I was writing Poppy Blooms; which probably explains a lot about that film.

Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright – Ke$ha

Yeah, another cover, and this time it’s by a pop artist. But trust me; this is hauntingly beautiful and is the entire reason why I think Ke$ha gets a lot more stick than she deserves. But you might already know this because if I have a conversation about music with anybody for more than 5 minutes I will bring up this song. And nine times out of ten I have to follow it with “no, seriously, trust me on this”. No music, just her voice gasping the words in your ear.

Where The Wild Roses Grow – Nick Cave and Kylie Minogue

From Ke$ha to Kylie, not the worlds greatest transition, but meh. There’s also a version of this somewhere done by a band who sing it in German. If you listen to that whilst walking through a graveyard at 4am, it will fuck you up. A really good murder ballad which must have taken incredible balls on the part of both performers, who both risked alienating their current fan bases.

Red Right Hand – Nick Cave

I know, two Nick Cave songs, that’s possibly cheating, but who cares? Kind of an unofficial theme song for the Scream film series, being remade/remixed for every entry, but none are as haunting, beautiful, and as “sound of being followed down a dark alleyway by someone with a knife” like as this.

Creep – Scala & Kolacny Brothers

Best known as “that song from that trailer, no, not I Feel Good, or Walking On Sunshine, the unhappy bleak one”. The original was quite creepy yet this makes it more so. They also did a cover of Muscle Museum which just takes on all kinds of an emotional journey.

Cities In Dust – Siouxsie And The Banshees

Oddly danceable, kind of like dark disco. Made an appearance this year in Atomic Blonde, which if you haven’t seen, you need to remedy that and see it immediately, a wonderfully made film with one of the best soundtracks I’ve ever heard. And it means I won’t have wasted my time making sure I spelt Siouxsie correctly.