Panic! At The Disco v. Marilyn Manson: This Is Halloween

Okay. It’s that magically spooky time of the year, which means we have to ask the tough question. Which cover version of “This Is Halloween” ranks higher? Panic! At The Disco’s orchestrated, theater-esk version? Or Marilyn Manson’s hard rock version?

Panic! At The Disco’s version of “This Is Halloween” pulls you into a music box world. It starts off light and airy and definitely builds into what we can expect from a song produced by Disney. It’s never been a secret that Brendon Urie can practically transform any song he touches to gold but you can’t deny that there’s something missing from this track. Layers. If you know the original version of the song, you know that there are so many voices that come together on this track. Panic’s version seems to build and build instrumentally but not vocally. He does, however, bring the musical theater aspect to the song with the backing instrumentals, giving us the image of the scene from the movie. Even though, the dynamic layer of the vocals is missing, we can’t deny that this was still very well done by Panic! At The Disco.

Marilyn Manson’s version is very different. Who better than to sing a song about Halloween the human version of the Pumpkin King himself? Hard rock instruments, dark tones, mixed with his raspy voice give you the vision of a Halloween nightmare. Manson turns this fun, catchy Disney song, into a literal version of what the song is about. He doesn’t try too hard to stay true to the original, even though it still is Nightmare Before Christmas. But is it still Disney? That kind of gets lost in this version; which was probably the goal of the Nightmare Revisited album. Even though it’s a song about Halloween, Disney still keeps it fun and family friendly and it’s safe to say that Marilyn Manson’s version isn’t that. For what the song actually is, however, it fulfills its purpose.

It’s definitely hard to pick which version is better because they are different is so many ways, but both do exactly what they were intended to do. Panic! At The Disco brings the fun, theater version that we got from Disney and is a fun song for everybody who listens to it. Marilyn Manson personifies Halloween and all the things that go bump in the night with his hard rock version; which is exactly what the movie intended to do.

Whether you prefer Panic’s cover or Manson’s cover, we all can agree that nothing will ever beat the original version sung by the citizens of Halloween.

Which is your favorite?

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