The Friday The 13th Soundtrack Song Power Rankings
With yet another Friday the 13th upon us, it’s high time to dig into a now fairly-outmoded Hollywood practice, the synergistic soundtrack album, as it pertains to Camp Blood’s least favorite son. Today, we celebrate the Friday The 13th franchise by making a playlist of its top soundtrack slices.
As a series, Friday The 13th has run the musical gamut, kicking off at the tail end of disco (as the opening theme music of Friday The 13th Part III can attest), peaking during the hair metal ’80s, and then quite thoroughly exploring a renaissance in metal at the start of the 21st century.
Is this list solely a product of the personal taste of this horror and metal fan? Of course. As such, you’ll notice that Hot Ice does not make the cut. Several of the top entries in this list did not even occupy any pre-end credits screen time, but that does not invalidate them as official inclusions on Friday The 13th movie soundtracks.
Be sure to celebrate the franchise in full with today’s other Friday The 13th-themed power rankings, the Jason Voorhees Power Rankings and the Film Power Rankings.
1. Killswitch Engage, “When Darkness Falls” (Freddy Vs. Jason)
One of the best songs from one of the best metal bands in history somehow made its debut as a lead single on Freddy Vs. Jason (2003), several months ahead of its inclusion on one of the biggest and most influential metal records of the 21st century, their landmark third album The End of Heartache (2004). I was shocked that, among the requisite nu-metal dreck (hello, Mushroomhead and Powerman 5000) that was filling up horror soundtracks in this era, several genuinely fantastic metal bands found prominence.
Boston’s Killswitch Engage, a ferocious combo famous for terrific, powerful live shows and incredibly hooky riffs, with gleaming production from guitarist/occasional drummer/main writer Adam Dutkiewicz, number among a handful of proponents of the New Wave of American Heavy Metal slashing their way into the Friday The 13th mythos, one mighty breakdown at a time.
The intense “When Darkness Falls” was momentous in that it marked the band’s first original recorded music with their golden-throated second lead singer Howard Jones, who impressed with heartfelt lyrics, a singing voice that benefitted from classical training, and a multi-tiered screaming attack that included both high-pitched shrieks and low-pitch growls at perfect calibrations. “When Darkness Falls” is lamely only featured in the film’s end credits scroll. It should be in every damn scene.
2. Lamb of God, “11th Hour” (Freddy Vs. Jason)
A band so metal they popularized their own mosh pit move (the “Wall of Death”), Virginia’s Lamb of God get a primo showcase for the Freddy Vs. Jason soundtrack. Lamb of God brought a muscular ferocity to mainstream metal, combining bristling thrash with a thumping ’90s Southern metal stomp and some of the textural elements of pioneering Swedes Meshuggah and At The Gates.
For the band’s single-best song (in this critic’s opinion), “11th Hour,” lead singer/lyricist Randy Blythe ruminates bitterly about the deadly seductive appeal of substance abuse, a theme that has absolutely nothing to do with Freddy Vs. Jason, but still feels like a pretty fitting addition to its soundtrack album.
Devin Townsend’s original murky, compressed production on this song is representative of the sound of the album it’s featured on, As The Palaces Burn (2003), but the elements were happily cleaned up for a deluxe 10th anniversary reissue, with producer Josh Wilbur taking pains to beef up Chris Adler’s drum sound. Blythe’s mid-range bark is in fine form here, leading the charge for riff machines Mark Morton and Willie Adler.
3. Hatebreed, “Condemned Until Rebirth” (Freddy Vs. Jason)
Hatebreed, Connecticut’s favorite metalcore sons, contributed a fresh slab of chugging hardcore brutality to the Freddy vs. Jason soundtrack, “Condemned Until Rebirth,” just two months ahead of the release of The Rise of Brutality (2003), which along with its predecessor Perseverance (2002) set the standard for Hatebreed’s unique combination of blistering mosh-worthy speed and slam dance-friendly breakdowns. Hatebreed screamer Jamey Jasta tackles demons more figurative than literal here.
Incidentally, former Killswitch singer Howard Jones (now fronting Light The Torch) is a frequent guest on Jasta’s excellent metal-themed podcast, where duo frequently supplies action movie commentaries.
4. In Flames, “Trigger” (Freddy Vs. Jason)
Along with At The Gates, Dark Tranquillity (that’s how they spell it), Soilwork, and Arch Enemy, In Flames stand as one of the revolutionary ’90s Swedish melodeath bands that directly inspired the righteous rise of melodic metalcore acts like Killswitch Engage stateside. The band reached its artistic peak with Colony (1999), and by the time of Freddy Vs. Jason, their sound was beginning to mutate into a more muddily electronic, less musically or lyrically complex form, favoring simple riffs over epic dual guitar harmonies.
That said, In Flames knew what they were doing as late as Reroute To Remain (2002), the incredibly catchy album that hosts the lyrically inscrutable “Trigger.” Shredders Björn Gelotte and Jesper Strömblad still manage to sneak in some of their then-signature haunting harmonies into the layers and layers of distorted guitars.
5. Lion, “Love Is A Lie” (Friday The 13th: The Final Chapter)
Also known as the “Crispin Glover dance song,” Lion’s “Love Is A Lie,” a typical hair metal screed against the pains of heartbreak, stands as the soundtrack to one of the ultimate cinematic hair metal moments. Glover, playing purported “dead fuck” Jimmy, seduces Tina (Camilla More) with his one-of-a-kind oddball gyrations to the strains of this thundering anthem. In a 2011 interview, Glover indicated that he actually requested AC/DC’s signature rallying cry “Back In Black” as his dancing theme music. That would have been… a bit pricier than this tune.
Lion the band’s regal reign was short-lived, yielding just a debut EP, Power Love (1986), which included this tune, followed two studio albums. Their mark on ’80s movie soundtracks, however, is irrefutable, as they went on to land key cuts on the compilation albums for The Wraith (1986) and the animated, Orson Welles-starring The Transformers: The Movie (1986).
6. From Autumn To Ashes, “The After Dinner Payback” (Freddy Vs. Jason)
The Long Island post-hardcore act From Autumn To Ashes, who opened for Killswitch during this period, is another beneficiary of some sharp-eared producer’s ability to highlight one of their better tracks for inclusion on the surprisingly loaded Freddy Vs. Jason soundtrack.
“The After Dinner Payback,” a ferocious breakup song, is a representative track of the streamlined melodic, mainstream-friendly metalcore of its era. “The After Dinner Payback” happens to soar over a lot of its peers because hot damn is it catchy. If you don’t find yourself humming its irrepressible chorus guitar melody, you’re as heartless as Jason Voorhees. Too good to be relegated to soundtrack throwaway status, the track would soon find its way onto the band’s full-length The Fiction We Live (2004).
7. Metropolis, “The Darkest Side Of The Night” (Friday The 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan)
The short-lived rock duo Metropolis comprised bassist/vocalist Peter Fredette and drummer/guitarist/keyboardist/vocalist Stan Meissner. Their lone studio album, The Power of the Night (I’m sensing a theme), was released 11 years after “The Darkest Side Of The Night” first enticed ear drums as probably the best thing about Jason Takes Manhattan this side of the boxing scene. “The Darkest Side Of The Night,” co-written by Meissner and Manhattan composer Fred Mollin, was clearly birthed in pieces in a studio and carefully designed to rip off Whitesnake, loaded with atmospheric, moody electronic instrumentation, evocative guitar layering (including two limber solos!), a pronounced wandering bass, and a street-savvy vocal, lamenting the lonely dangers of fast city living.
“The Darkest Side Of The Night” scores a moodily mysterious opening credits sequence, showcasing the steamy sewer covers and drifting denizens of Manhattan and Vancouver-as-Manhattan that the rest of the movie utterly fails to live up to. To be fair, most of the rest of the movie does not so much transpire on Manhattan as it does on a boat headed to Manhattan. But Jason Takes A Boat To Manhattan doesn’t have pack the same punch as a moniker.
8. Night Ranger, “Sister Christian” (Friday The 13th circa 2009)
“Sister Christian” gets some nice screen time in the Friday The 13th remake, and is a great yearning mid-tempo power ballad from Night Ranger’s Midnight Madness (1983). The song builds from a simple piano-and-vocals introductory verse to its emphatic chorus, and boasts a simple squealing solo courtesy of lead axeman Brad Gillis. The song, written by drummer and lead singer Kelly Keagy in tribute to his younger sister Christy, is a yearning tribute to youth misspent. Certainly the doomed campers of Friday The 13th can relate.
The song’s inclusion in Friday The 13th pales in comparison to its application in Boogie Nights (1997), however, when a coked-out Alfred Molina, wearing merely a bathrobe and speedos, supplies a passionate singalong, moments before an attempt to rob him goes fatally awry.
9. Alice Cooper, “Teenage Frankenstein” (Friday The 13th Part VI: Jason Lives)
The Super Duper One had three songs on the Jason Lives soundtrack. The more guitar-heavy “Teenage Frankenstein” holds a slight sonic edge over lead single “He’s Back” or the fairly generic “Hard Rock Summer.” Thematically, Jason Lives essentially turns a resurrected Jason into a lurking Frankenstein’s monster, making the thematic tie-in pretty on-point (although Jason is anything but a teenager at the start of Part VI). Alice’s biting comic lyrics shine here (“I walk into the night/Women faint at the sight/I ain’t no cutie-pie”).
Alice Cooper is so damn good, “Teenage Frankenstein,” though excellent, is ultimately only his second-best Frankenstein-themed song to be featured prominently in a movie! First place bragging rights go to “Feed My Frankenstein,” star element of the immortal Cooper concert scene in the original Wayne’s World (1992).
10. Alice Cooper, “He’s Back” (Friday The 13th Part VI: Jason Lives)
Alice Cooper has graced many, many movie soundtracks (and, occasionally, movie screens too, as when he played Freddy Krueger’s adaptive father Mr. Underwood in Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare), but he does the Friday franchise one better and supplies a theme song to one of the series’ better movies! It’s no “The Man With The Golden Gun” (the Cooper band’s iteration was, insanely, rejected by film producers EON, but happily muscled its way onto Muscle Of Love), but stands as a foundational piece of Alice’s post-sobriety ’80s comeback.
“He’s Back” is more directly about Jason Voorhees than either of Alice’s other two soundtrack contributions (down to Alice slipping in a few Harry Manfredini ch-ch-ch‘s). It also boasts its own music video where Alice fights Jason — very, very briefly at the end of the video, but still. “He’s Back” is a mostly electronic confection, and has more in common with the new wave pop of Flush The Fashion (1980) than the spooky gothic concept rock of, say, Welcome To My Nightmare (1975), but it retains the signature morbid wit, delivery, and vocal melodies that always put Alice a hair above the competition, even during this wandering period pre-Poison (1989). Kane Roberts turns in a soulful guitar solo that brings this Cooper cut home.
Morons his eyes from part 5 is the best song by far u retards