What will be your Black Friday soundtrack?
As millions of people all around the world search for bargains today, there are two songs perfect for the occasion.
One is by smart-arsed sophisticates Steely Dan, the other by speed-metal degenerates Megadeth. Both are titled Black Friday.
So which is best suited for your own listening pleasure?
The contenders
Megadeth
Apparently inspired by their ex-drummer Dijon Carruthers’ dalliances in the occult, Megadeth’s Black Friday nonetheless perfectly evokes the feeling of fighting off your fellow shoppers in pursuit of discount merchandise. “I’m out to destroy you and I will cut you down, cut you down,” howls Dave Mustaine, presumably having just spotted a cheap TV.
Chris Poland shreds with the stampeding force of a hundred parents chasing the last PlayStation, and Mustaine plays his guitar with the urgency of someone who knows that prices this good cannot last.
Steely Dan
At a mere 131bpm, Steely Dan’s Black Friday is sedate by comparison with Megadeth’s 354bpm double-time assault. Even their references to businessmen diving “from the fourteenth floor” look positively jolly next to Mustaine’s homicidal rampage.
Likewise, Walter Becker’s soloing is adequate but in no way conjures the feeling of trampling fellow bargain-hunters underfoot. Still, you have to admire the chutzpah of a man who records alongside a slew of top-flight session guitarists, Larry Carlton and Rick Derringer among them, and decides to take lead guitar duties himself.
The solos
The undeniable winner here is the minor pentatonic scale, proving its versatility by forming the backbone of solos in both songs. All three guitarists add flavour with occasional chromatic notes. The main riffs to both tracks have a triplet feel too, so maybe there is potential here for the world’s most unlikely mash-up.
In Steely Dan, Walter Becker augments his flowing triplets and sly bends with occasional jazzy forays, while Megadeth’s Mustaine and Poland play really—and I cannot stress this enough—really fast.
Of course, fast playing is not necessarily good playing, as people who can’t play fast are constantly reminding us, but in Chris Poland’s case it is. His solo at the five minute mark is a thrashing triumph. He uses the classic strategy of starting low and slow with wild, sustained string bends before racing his way up the neck in a tumultuous bout of alternate picking.
At these speeds it can be difficult to give the listener anything to latch on to, but Poland’s infectious repeating licks mean the solo has moments both memorable and maniacal.
If you’re going to push Larry Carlton out of the recording chair, you’d better have some chops. Walter Becker… did it anyway. He mishits string bends at 1:45 and again at 1:57, but he also has some tasty moments.
The repeated descending slides at 1:50 are pleasingly dirty, and he follows them up with a little three-note figure that he transposes upwards to create tension. He’d clearly been paying attention when Larry was recording.
The winner
So which should you listen to this Black Friday? Steely Dan is the intellectual choice, and Megadeth the visceral one. Choose the Dan if you plan on smugly sitting at home, getting the best deals from tracking software you coded yourself. Pick Megadeth if you’re ready to get down to the mall and punch someone’s grandmother in the race to the counter.
