ARCHIVE

Music in Time: Black Friday (Audio)

Nov 23, 2022
Produced by Evan McCormick.

This special Thanksgiving week broadcast features a sonic-historical trip through the Black Fridays of years past. Black Friday — the day after Thanksgiving — has long been viewed as the official start of the holiday shopping season. In recent decades the day gained a reputation for bringing out the worst excesses of American consumer capitalism. But what has it sounded like? Host Evan McCormick makes stops at some notable Black Fridays through the years, listening to songs from albums that were released to coincide with the late-November sales craze and pondering what Americans were thinking as they added albums to their holiday wish-lists alongside Tickle-me-Elmos and Tamagotchis. Plus a playlist so eclectic that there is bound to be something for everyone around the Thanksgiving table.

Playlist
1. The Orlons - "South Street"
2. Hot Chocolate - "You Sexy Thing"
3. Pink Floyd - "Mother"
4. Bad Religion - "Big Bang"
5. Smashing Pumpkins - "Destination Unknown"
6. Beastie Boys - "Alive"
7. Backstreet Boys - "Shape of My Heart"
8. The Beatles - "I Want To Hold Your Hand"
9. U2 - "Vertigo"
10. Britney Spears - "Womanizer"
11. Grinderman - "Heathen Child"
12. Billie Joe Armstrong - "You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory"
13. David Bowie & Bing Crosby - "Peace On Earth/Little Drummer Boy"

Music does not just exist. It exists in specific times and places, and in the sonic world of each individual listener who engages with it. That’s the basic idea behind "Music in Time," which explores the social and political context in which songs and albums emerge, are listened to and reflected on over the years. Each broadcast will focus on a single album, detailing the social and political circumstances surrounding its release and moments in time that made certain music resonate anew. How is music shaped by these historical moments, and, in turn, how does it shape the histories that we remember?

By day, Evan McCormick is a historian at Columbia University, where he is part of the Obama Presidency Oral History project, interviewing a range of people — from cabinet members to ordinary folks — about their memories of the Obama years. By night McCormick is a music lover and singer-songwriter, recording under the stage name Egan Caufield. For most of his life, these two worlds remained separate, but after relocating to Catskill, in 2020, he chose to bring history and music together over the airwaves, and Music in Time was born.