7. Ministry | "(Every Day Is) Halloween"

"(Every Day Is) Halloween" by Ministry from the album All Day (1984)

Before he perfected his group’s bludgeoning jackhammer attack, inspiring Nine Inch Nails and the rest of the ’90s industrial scene, Al Jourgensen was just a Chicago party kid obsessed with UK imports and wearing black on both the outside and inside. This ode to donning the black is atypical in the Ministry canon as it not only lacks the heaviness of their later output but is spat out in a fake-ass limey accent that is as amusing as it is pretentious. But fuck it, because Jourgensen knew what he was doing when he crafted this outsider anthem that still stands tall against all the norm-baiting Marilyn Manson attempts that came in its wake. “I dress this way just to keep them at bay,” Jourgensen intones in a wounded-yet-defiant voice — it’s the fist in the air that helped kick the goth phenomenon stateside, and it still elicits a tear-streaked mascara cheek from even the most stoic gothster to this day.
 Daniel Brockman