There are certain things we’ve collectively agreed to accept about Halloween.
Pumpkin-flavored everything. Adults spending hundreds of dollars on costumes they’ll wear once. People insisting their outfits are clever when they’re clearly just wearing a bedsheet.
And, of course, the annual transformation of perfectly ordinary people into sexy nurses, sexy police officers, sexy firefighters and increasingly questionable variations on the theme.
Someone finally decided this phenomenon needed a soundtrack.
Electronic duo Soul in the Machine have created a dance track called “License to Slut,” accompanied by an elaborate music video that imagines Halloween as the one night everyone receives official permission to dress however outrageously they please.
Yes, really.
The video commits to the bit with impressive enthusiasm. There’s an entire fictional world built around the concept, complete with characters, imaginary licenses and a website exploring the personalities involved.
The premise is simple: Halloween is supposed to be judgment-free. Everybody gets a license. Nobody gets to shame anybody else for their costume choices.
It’s a surprisingly good-natured idea hiding behind a deliberately outrageous title.
And the musicians responsible aren’t exactly strangers to elaborate productions. Soul in the Machine’s Georg Bissen and Henry Chang have spent years developing custom instruments and technology to perform electronic dance music live. Their history includes appearances at EDC, Ultra and AREA15, with much bigger immersive-performance ambitions on the horizon.
Apparently, between inventing electronic instruments and dreaming up elaborate live shows, they found time to establish a fictional Halloween licensing department.
The song and video originally appeared last year, but the duo is giving the concept a broader push for Halloween 2026.
For anyone whose sensibilities are slightly more delicate, they’ve also released a fully cleaned-up version called “License to Strut.”
Whether this becomes an annual Halloween tradition is anybody’s guess.
But if you’ve ever wondered who authorized all those sexy firefighter costumes, we may finally have an answer.