Danse Macabre

Summary: For the first time in a while, the article on Deaths in 2013 failed to breach the top 10; however, it's fair to say that commemorating death was a strong theme this week, with Lou Reed's passing generating interest, as well as a Google Doodle celebrating the costume designer Edith Head. And of course, the world's greatest celebrations of the dead, Halloween and the Day of the Dead, were also popular this week.

For the complete top 25 report, including analysis and exclusions, see WP:TOP25

For the week of October 27 to November 2, the 10 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the 5,000 most trafficked pages* were:

Rank	Article	Class	Views	Image	Notes
1	Edith Head		2,837,065		A Google Doodle on the 106th birthday of Hollywood's Queen of Costumes (who to this day holds the record for the most Oscars won by a woman and who, together with Hubert de Givenchy, created the image of Audrey Hepburn) led to a fairly staggering amount of interest from the public.
2	Halloween		2,298,933		'Tis the night after Hallows, and all through the house, every tummy is stirring, and the children do grouse.
3	Lou Reed		1,350,798		One of Rock & roll's great storytellers and an inveterate New Yorker, Lou Reed may never have attained the status of his contemporaries and friends, Andy Warhol and David Bowie among them, but his all-pervading influence, and continuously played hits like "Perfect Day" and "Walk on the Wild Side", ensured his high regard when he died on 27 October.
4	Day of the Dead		610,516		Mexico's slightly more laid-back take on Halloween, with its sugar skulls and marigolds, is becoming ever more popular each year, particularly in places, like the United States, with an expanding Hispanic influence.
5	Diwali		539,433		The Hindu festival of light, which draws attention to the inner light beyond the material body, the Atman, fell on 3 November this year.
6	Facebook		477,920		A perennially popular article
7	Krrish 3		400,260		Bollywood's homegrown superhero movie franchise opened its latest instalment on 1 November to take advantage of the Diwali holiday, and earned Rs 728 million (US$11 million) in its first three days.
8	Ender's Game		370,617		Orson Scott Card's military science fiction cult classic was finally released as a film in its home market on 1 November after decades in hibernation due to Card's desire for creative control.
9	The Marshall Mathers LP 2		365,868		The next album by rapper Eminem will be released on November 5.
10	World War II		364,003		Another perennially popular article. (The 16th most popular article from 2010–12, in fact, see Table 2 here.)

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• "Passed away"....?! Ghmyrtle (talk) 13:07, 9 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ok... Serendi^podous 13:12, 9 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• The "Day of the Dead" celebration, at least as presented by the article, is one that centers on the Mexican holiday. It is an exaggeration to attribute it as part of the "Hispanic world".--MarshalN20 | ^Talk 20:11, 9 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Amazing to see the response to the Edith Head doodle...it's always notable when an article gets over 1M views in a week but that's close to 3M! Impressive. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 21:29, 9 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]