Friday on My Mind: Black Friday!

It’s time again for Friday on My Mind. Our weekly blog post where we look at videos centered around one common theme. This is a collaborative effort between KEXP and King 5 News.

It’s Black Friday again. I know you are all stoked about it. On average, about 226 million Americans purchase around $52 billion worth of items throughout the Thanksgiving weekend. Statistics have also shown that 57% of people enjoy Black Friday shopping while about 43% of people don’t. Roughly half of the 57% of those who said it was enjoyable have never actually shopped on that day, they just wanted to answer the stupid question and get on with their life. I mean, that has to be why 57% of people would enjoy such a thing. Whoever took these statistics also found that women younger than 30 are in it for the experience. You know, because angry, crowded, deal obsessed people, who’ve been up all night, camping outside a Target are fun to hang out with. People ages 25-55 take shopping and sale deals seriously, so they are more likely to arrive at stores Thanksgiving evening. They also hate football and are just sick of hanging out with their family. According to Google Trends, online shoppers begin looking for deals related to Black Friday around October 14th, which is insane. And speaking of insane, some of you may remember the story from a few years back when a Walmart shopper in California attacked her fellow shoppers with pepper spray in order to get dibs on a video game display. Nearly two dozen people, including children, suffered nose and throat irritation. Merry Christmas!

Here’s to hoping that of none of you get trampled today and now here are a few songs for this blackest of days: AC/DC - Back In Black

“Back In Black” was written in tribute to AC/DC’s previous lead singer Bon Scott, who had passed away the year before. Brian Johnson wrote the lyrics for “Back In Black” with the idea of celebrating Scott’s life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAgnJDJN4VA

Squeeze - Black Coffee in Bed

“Black Coffee in Bed” is the first single off of the album Sweets from a Stranger. In this riveting music video for this song, there are a few misleading images. One being the visualization of guitarist Chris Difford playing the song’s guitar solo, but in real life lead singer Glenn Tilbrook, played the solo. The other falsehood is that the band members are shown singing backup vocals, but Paul Young and Elvis Costello were actually the singers who provided the backing vocals.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUx5z9O2ZGk

Soundgarden - Fell on Black Days

May 21, 2013, during a Soundgarden concert, a superfan in Camden, NJ held up a sign that asked the band if he could play drums, or guitar on any song. Initially, Chris Cornell said no, but for one reason or another had a change of heart. The fan was invited on stage and he played guitar for this song. He did so well, and then walked off of the stage into the sunset and was never heard from again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySzrJ4GRF7s

Honorable Mentions:

Depeche Mode - Black Celebration

Black Celebration is the fifth album from Depeche Mode, and marks a change in sound for the band from their previous albums. Black Celebration is the only Depeche Mode album with a title track.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2BSHNeQntY

Pearl Jam - Black

“Black” was originally called “E Ballad”, and was on a instrumental demo that Stone Gossard made called Stone Gossard Demo ‘91. Gossard circulated this demo around in hopes of finding a singer and drummer. Some dude named Eddie Vedder who was a gas attendant in San Diego heard the demo and recorded vocals to three of the songs: “Alive”, “Once”, and “Footsteps”. After hearing Vedder’s vocals, the band invited him to Seattle to test him out in person. During his trip to Seattle, Vedder wrote the lyrics for “E Ballad” and he called it “Black”. Here is the band performing the song during their appearance on MTV’s Unplugged in 1992.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ChbxMVgGV4