In all the years America has had a pop chart, no Halloween song has been the country’s No. 1 this century. Not one.
“Monster Mash” did it back in 1962. “Ghostbusters” did it in 1984. Since then, nothing spooky has reached the very top.
This year that could change, and Michael Jackson is right in the middle of it.
“Thriller” came out in 1982 and the famous video followed in 1983, but it has quietly become a Halloween tradition all its own. Every October it climbs back up the chart. It returned to the Hot 100 in 2018 at No. 31, and last year, in 2025, it got all the way to No. 10. Fans have been pushing for years to carry it higher.
Billboard took a close look at the race on October 23. The line that got everyone talking was simple.
“Not only could ‘Thriller’ be in the mix for the post-Halloween No. 1,” they wrote, “but so might a much newer song.”
That much newer song is “Dracula,” by the Australian band Tame Impala.
If the name doesn’t ring a bell, you’re not alone. Tame Impala is a rock and electronic act from Perth, Australia, and “Dracula” was released in late 2025. It climbed to No. 5 over the summer and picked up a remix in February with JENNIE, one of the singers from the Korean group BLACKPINK.
So this is the matchup. A 43-year-old Michael Jackson classic against a brand new spooky hit, both chasing the same Halloween crown.
The numbers are close, and they tell two different stories. On Saturday, October 24, “Thriller” pulled nearly 1.7 million official streams in the United States. “Dracula” got just over 1.1 million. So Michael is winning where people press play themselves.
But radio is a whole other picture. “Dracula” is getting about 10 times the airplay that “Thriller” is. On the stations your car radio lands on, the newer song is everywhere.
That is why nobody can call it yet.
There’s one more thing working in Michael’s favor. Halloween lands on a Saturday this year, so Friday and Saturday both fall inside the same chart week, which runs October 30 to November 5. More of the holiday gets counted. The result should come out around November 9 or 10.
Below is the video that started all of it, the one that turned a song into a Halloween ritual in the first place.
Watch the official “Thriller” video, the 14-minute short film that still gets played every October.
The Michael Jackson video that made “Thriller” a Halloween tradition
Whatever the chart says next week, there’s something sweet about it. More than four decades on, a song Michael made is still strong enough to go toe to toe with a hit that came out last year. Not many records can say that.