Paul McCartney, U2, Gorillaz Top Record Store Day Black Friday Lineup
Paul McCartney, Gorillaz, Ryan Adams and U2 are among those planning exclusive releases for Record Store Day’s annual Black Friday event on November 24th.
McCartney will help usher in the holiday season with a pair of 7-inch singles. Each contains a new rendition of “Wonderful Christmastime,” which originally came out in 1979. In honor of Record Store Day, McCartney re-recorded the track with the Roots. The green-vinyl version will match McCartney and the Roots with the Decemberists’ take on “Jesus Christ,” while the red vinyl includes a live recording of Norah Jones singing “Peace” as a B side.
In addition, U2 will be selling vinyl copies of their new “Blackout” single – the first physically available music from the band’s upcoming Songs of Experience album. The B side will be a “Blackout” remix by the producer Jacknife Lee. The “Blackout” vinyls were pressed by Third Man Records, which is also releasing reissues of several classic Sun Records singles like Carl Perkins’ “Blue Suede Shoes.”
A number of bands will make recent releases available for the first time in a new format on Friday. Gorillaz latest LP, Humanz, which peaked at Number Two on the Billboard albums chart, will be for sale as a double picture disc. Ryan Adams made 1,200 cassettes of his new album Prisoner. Snoop Dogg’s new Neva Left album will also be available on vinyl.
A variety of live RSD releases are also due on Black Friday. Country star Eric Church took recordings of the first and last song (“Mistress Named Music” and “Holdin’ My Own”) from his 2017 tour and combined them on a new 7-inch. Benjamin Booker is collecting five unreleased live tracks from a performance in Providence on Live for No One. Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris can be heard singing together live in 1973 on Gram Parsons & the Fallen Angels.
In addition, record stores will be stocked with plenty of reissues. Muddy Waters’ 1958 LP The Best of Muddy Waters will be available, as will the Grateful Dead records Wake of the Flood, Blues for Allah, From the Mars Hotel and Steal Your Face, all in a five-LP box set. Country fans can find reissues of Willie Nelson’s Spirit and Yesterday’s Wine. A deluxe issue of Richard Hell & the Voidoids’ Blank Generation honors the album’s 40th anniversary, while a vinyl edition of Kings of Crunk by Lil Jon and the East Side Boyz marks 15 years since that party-starting record’s original release.
A complete list of Black Friday releases is available on the Record Store Day website.