Remember our little musical mad science project a couple months back? You know, the one where we asked what tunes the grooviest vampires might load on their mp3 players before slipping out on their midnight rounds? Well, that little experiment went over very well, thank you very much... and since we're all about the monster love here at FEARnet, we think it's about time we gave another classic beastie some time to rock... and that would be our buffed-out, flesh-ripping friends of the lycanthropic variety. Just like last time, it was hella tough narrowing down a manageable playlist, but I managed to sort out my personal top thirteen, scouting through many decades and musical genres to find the ones that bring out the full-moon fiend in all of us. I remember the words of my good buddy and fellow scribe Drew Daywalt: we all have our own personal "power monster"... and maybe it helped that I have a touch of the wolf's blood in me, because so many of these tunes make up the soundtrack of my nightlife.

Read on and sink your canines into these tasty tracks, enjoy the clips and trivia (as well as some excellent runners-up that just wouldn't fit our lucky 13), and be sure to let us know what you think... we'd like to hear your choices too!

Sam the Sham & The Pharaohs: "Li'l Red Riding Hood"

I didn't get an 'A' in music history, but I do suspect this is the first rock & roll tune that could legitimately be considered a werewolf song. Sam the Sham was known for a flamboyant style that included tooling around in a hearse and dressing like a sultan, and his band is probably better known for the hit "Wooly Bully" (which, despite the title, isn't about a monster), but this one runs a close second. Sam is also one of the first popular artists to draw on the sexual undertones of the classic fairy tale: the wolf singing this song has his great big eyes on Little Red's goodies... but not the ones in the picnic basket, if you know what I mean, and I think you do.

Credence Clearwater Revival: "Bad Moon Rising"

In order to maintain my horror cred, I'm obliged to include at least one song from the soundtrack to An American Werewolf in London on this list... so I went with this 1969 classic from John Fogerty's legendary roots-rock band, which can be heard in the movie as David Naughton's character is pacing around his girlfriend's apartment, wondering if the werewolf curse will take hold. (Spoiler alert: It does.) Although Fogerty's songwriting was inspired by the classic fantasy film The Devil and Daniel Webster, the tune's lyrics are still ready-made for a werewolf story: "Don't go out tonight/Well, it's bound to take your life/There's a bad moon on the rise." I mean seriously, how perfect a fit is that?

Warren Zevon: "Werewolves of London"

This is another classic rock standard that's popped up in tons of different movies, but none of them involved actual werewolves. (Tom Cruise dicking around with a pool cue in The Color of Money is pretty terrifying, but doesn't really count.) Still, it's an incredibly catchy tune, with that unmistakable piano riff and Zevon's "Ah-hooo" chorus howl, dropping a couple of smart references to werewolf films ("I saw Lon Chaney Jr. walkin' with the queen") and has the narrator seeing lycans in all kinds of cool situations: in his world, they're fond of beef chow mein and piña coladas, and are apparently very style-conscious – which is admirable, considering the whole fur problem. This song has been covered by dozens of other artists, from The Grateful Dead (who often played it at their Halloween shows) to Adam Sandler (the less said about that the better), and it still rocks over three decades later.

Ozzy Osbourne: "Bark at the Moon"

Hard rock's original madman dealt with a lot of his own inner monsters, ironically when his career was at its absolute peak, so he must have drawn on them for inspiration: when the video for this hit single (from the 1983 album of the same name) hit the airwaves, fans were literally terrified to see the Ozzman in full werewolf makeup, with a crazed look that wasn't entirely an act. The lyrics involve a wolf-like beast stalking the citizens of a small village, but the clip – one of the most popular rock videos of all time – is more of a fusion of The Wolfman and Dr. Jekyll & Mister Hyde, with the singer playing a scientist who transforms into a toothy monstrosity after drinking his own potion. Despite the '80s production values, the video is still wildly entertaining – a four-minute gothic horror movie with a supremely cool soundtrack.

Duran Duran: "Hungry Like the Wolf"

One of the first tracks to put these '80s British pop icons on the US radar, this single is probably best known for two things: first, the slick, atmospheric video by the legendary Russell Mulcahy (who directed the cult horror flick Razorback in 1984 and later went on to helm his masterpiece Highlander); and second, that chick having multiple orgasms during the song's final refrain. But people tend to forget most of the lyrics, which are yet another sexy take on the Red Riding Hood tale, sung with horny urgency by Simon Le Bon and driven home by Andy Taylor's slinky, animalistic guitar licks. The band wrote and recorded most of the song in a single day, and the spontaneous, sensual energy comes through, further magnified by the steamy jungle setting of Mulcahy's video.

Rainbow: "Run With the Wolf"

While we're still mourning the passing of the legendary Ronnie James Dio, we can at least take some comfort in the enduring legacy of his music. Founded by another rock icon, Ritchie Blackmore, Rainbow was one of Dio's first high-profile vocal roles, showcasing his epic, operatic musical style and demonstrating how even the simplest of lyrics could become profound in the hands of the right artist. "Run With the Wolf" is a perfect example: a proud celebration of dark, primal instincts and the call of nature, it paints its images with broad but beautiful strokes. During Dio's tenure with the band, they focused mainly on fantasy themes, and this was one of their best – a standout track on what most consider the group's greatest album, Rising.

Cramps: "I Was a Teenage Werewolf"

These groundbreaking punk-rockers almost never diverged from their classic formula of old school twelve-bar rockabilly and lyrics inspired by horror and exploitation movies, and we love the hell out of 'em for it. Definitely the best track from their 1980 debut album Songs the Lord Taught Us, "Teenage Werewolf" is one of their more direct horror homages, basically a musical version of the classic 1957 Michael Landon film; like its inspiration, the song uses werewolf transformation as a metaphor for the painful transition to adulthood ("I have puberty rights/And I have puberty wrongs/No one understood me/And my teeth were so long"), even forcing its narrator to endure getting braces on his monstrous fangs. But hey, just forget all that intellectual mumbo-jumbo – this song rocks balls!

Metallica: "Of Wolf and Man"

While just about every genre of music has addressed the legend of the vampire, no other musical style has embraced the werewolf more enthusiastically than heavy metal, and you can't acknowledge the power of metal without bowing to the might of the "Big Four" – that being Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax and Megadeth. All four bands wrote songs about horror, fantasy and monsters, and Megadeth did a decent werewolf number ("She-Wolf"), but for my coin this epic track from Metallica's legendary self-titled "Black Album" is the ultimate badass werewolf anthem ("Shape-shift... All senses clean... Back to the meaning of life"), as menacing as a giant moonlit shape bearing down on you on a winter night; you can almost feel the hot breath on your neck.

Cat Power: "Werewolf"

Now that your adrenaline is pumping full-throttle, let's dial it down several notches for a more mellow approach. Don't be misled by the soft and folksy tone of this track, because the lyrics don't exactly portray the warm and fuzzy side of the title creature (well, technically he is warm and fuzzy, just not in a huggable way), but they do depict a strange, almost romantic bond between a woods-dwelling monster and its human companion. Originally recorded by folk legend Michael Hurley (whose artwork often included images of a werewolf in a green and yellow-striped sweater), this version has a much more melancholy tone, aided by a somber cello and violin beneath Cat's acoustic guitar and airy, ethereal croon.

Type O Negative: "Wolf Moon"

Another icon taken from us too soon, Peter Steele had a unique way with macabre subject matter: behind his ominous bass-baritone voice and brooding stare hid a sly sense of humor and a true empathy for the outsider, making his songs about creatures of the night (both real and imagined) feel inviting and openly sexual. At the helm of his gothic metal band Type O Negative, Steele's only direct approach to the werewolf tale is in this piece from their classic album October Rust, which draws a direct connection between monthly wolf transformation and the menstrual cycle – a theme which would become central to the classic horror film Ginger Snaps. It's also a deeply romantic piece, whose protagonist wants to either cure or partake of his doomed partner's "curse" before a silver bullet ends their love forever.

Shakira: "She Wolf"

Speaking of openly sexual wolf-people, how about this steamy dance number from the Columbian pop siren? The first single from her 2009 album of the same name, this song has a lot of things I don't care much for (including the dreaded auto-tuning), but in this case, it's all about the delivery. Basically an ode to exploring one's animal side, this is ironically one of the singer's more robotic-sounding tracks, but the music video takes it back to the sweaty, feral subject matter, with its heroine sneaking out through a very suggestive cave in the back of her closet and slinking into the night to prowl dance clubs and torque herself like a carnival freak in a gold cage (note the sign "please do not feed the animal"). Contorting her body in ways you wouldn't think were possible, she also seems to transform from woman to wolf and back again at will... remaining totally hot while doing so.

Six Feet Under: "Lycanthropy"

Remember what I said before about werewolves and heavy metal? Well, think of this song as the ultimate fusion of the two. Death metal itself is a primal, instinct-driven musical form, with its guttural vocals and savage guitar riffs, so it seems only natural that one of that genre's greatest names would step up to the challenge of a ferocious werewolf ode. Hell, these guys look like they're already in the process of wolfing-out in the middle of a performance, so it's not hard to imagine mighty fangs being bared during the recording of this track from their 1995 debut album Haunted. Steadily escalating in intensity and violence, the song evokes the image of a werewolf cult initiating a new member into its brutal ranks... once "dying in the darkness" from the monster's bite, the protagonist is suddenly "now one of us." Tight, mean and ravenous, this is true monster metal.

Rob Zombie: "Werewolf, Baby!"

The werewolf is just one of countless monsters populating Rob Zombie's musical menagerie, and this isn't the first time he's raised his furry head... but while Rob tends to mix and match his horror imagery for effect, this is one of the few times he tackled him directly. Strangely enough, another attempt, "Werewolf Women of the SS," can be found along with this one on his latest album Hellbilly Deluxe 2; that track was more of a tie-in to his campy mock-trailer for the 2007 flick Grindhouse, but this one is more brutal, opening with an ear-piercing shriek and packing a sleazy roadhouse groove courtesy of John 5's guitar skills. This time the lyrics aren't a metaphor for anything – this is unfiltered werewolf action: "Even a pure man/Deep in his heart can/Turn to insane/From the wolfsbane" is obviously a direct homage to The Wolf Man, but the key difference here is that the wolfman's lady friend seems totally into it, so when our monster says "I am a monster... can I come over?" the expected answer is a very enthusiastic "Yes."

Before we wrap up the show, let's not forget these worthy runners-up... omitted for space, but not because they're any less awesome: "Werewolf Boy" by horror-rockers Calabrese, "Wolf" by epic metallers Iced Earth; Misfits' classic punk anthem "Wolfsblood," Moonspell's gothic opus "Wolfshade (A Werewolf Masquerade)," King Diamond's classic "House of God," "Wolf Like Me" by alt-rock trio Television on the Radio, and "Du Reichst So Gut" by German industrial-metal giants Rammstein. That last one comes with a video that's just too cool to skip, so I'll leave you in their talented claws...