Obscure Singles Heard at CVS

I like Afterburner but yeah outside of "why am I hearing Sleeping Bag at CVS?" insanity I don't know why anything from it would make regular rotation on rock radio now

― da croupier, Thursday, October 11, 2012 2:32 PM

I tweeted this a few days ago. Recently:

Duran Duran - Do You Believe in Shame
Michael Penn - This and That

Semisonic: All About Chemistry

Grocery store, not CVS, but "Echo Beach" by Martha and the Muffins.

Not a CVS but I recently heard "I Am The Slime" by Zappa when I was getting my hair cut

once heard the entirety of they might be giants' flood on the walmart radio station.

jesus buddy were you waiting for an oil change or something?

ie it wasn't some worker blasting flood thru the store pa, it was the corporate radio station piped into walmarts coast to coast for some reason doing a 'showcase' on flood.

haha i think (dear god i hope) it started soon after i arrived and i may have indeed lingered to take it in, hear 'twisting' for the first time in however many years, take half an hour to decide whether or not i want poptarts, etc. something very fucked about hearing this blasting at walmart though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zNoxjUUyec

hahaha that's better than what I was guessing, which was "Your Racist Friend"

I heard Cracker's cover of "Shake Some Action" in CVS just two nights ago.

Others:

Boz Scaggs - Miss Sun
a-ha - The Sun Always Shines on TV
Tyler Collins - Girls Night Out
Toni Childs - Don't Walk Away

Huh I heard echo beach at Barnes & noble last week.

weirdest one i remember was "change your mind" by neil young while i was standing in line to get painkillers a few years ago. must've been a radio edit. felt appropriate.

Michael Penn - This and That
also, this song is so classic

Heard "Let's Hang On" which was a minor Top 40 for Barry Manilow at a Rite Aid once.

Sunrise by Duran Duran at Papa Ginos a month or so ago.
Why would THAT happen?

lite rock cover of Catch the Sun by Doves @ my bank

"Heaven's on Fire" by KISS was playing on at least two separate occasions at the CVS by my college

not an obscure single really but jarring in the soft-rock context, heard "More Bounce to the Ounce" at the local grocery store a few months ago

REM - "All The Way To Reno"

ie it wasn't some worker blasting flood thru the store pa, it was the corporate radio station piped into walmarts coast to coast for some reason doing a 'showcase' on flood.

― balls, Thursday, October 11, 2012 5:25 PM (6 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That is exceptionally weird and now I want to listen to that album which I haven't done in years.

It's not obscure but I was euphoric when I heard Amy Grant's "I Will Remember You" yesterday.

was picking up prescription for antidepressant at walgreens and they were playing "i wanna be sedated." no lie.

heard velvet underground - oh! sweet nuthin' at walgreens last week

Sugar Ray's "Chasin You Around" at Met Foods. The second single off In Pursuit Of Leisure, the album after the last one anyone cared about

not obscure but heard like a 10-minute Tool deep cut in a 24 hour kroger once. it was weird because there was usually just soft rock & r&b playing there

a couple visits to shop rite ago i heard the 12-inch edit of "she's always in my hair"

I'm just gonna use this thread for obscure songs heard in any retail setting:

Roxy Music - 2HB in Noodles and Company yesterday.

The other week in Morrisons they were playing 'If I Could Talk I'd Tell You' by the Lemonheads (a #39 smash in 1996).

Heard the Kinks' "Juke Box Music" in a grocery store a couple of years ago. Barely a hit in the US in 1977, never played on "classic rock" radio.

lol i heard donna lewis's flop second single "without love" in a cvs once

Heard "For What It's Worth" by The Cardigans in the grocery store the other day.

not that obscure really but heard dennis deyoung's "desert moon" followed by madonna's "this used to be my playground" on KRGR kroger radio last night, the algorithm was feeling some super intense nostalgia apparently

Thought this was a revival of this thread: albert hammond, "it never rains in southern california"

Not obscure, but I really enjoyed hearing Scritti Politti at CVS yesterday.

I heard the song 'On the Beach' by Neil Young at the grocery store once.

Heard "Couple Days Off" by Huey Lewis & The News last night at Whataburger.

Heard "Emerge" Fischerspooner at a Florida water-park

https://soundcloud.com/hennessyyoungman/cvsbangers

haha thank you, a classic

Jack In The Box is good for these. Today it was "Wild Wild Life" by Talking Heads, and last time a couple weeks ago I heard "Canary In A Coalmine" by The Police.

It's not obscure but I was euphoric when I heard Amy Grant's "I Will Remember You" yesterday.

alfred i'd start straight up bawling

I heard that really sterile, generic, terrible ballad by "Sergio Mendes" from the 80s...."Never Gonna Let You Go"...in a Zaxby's.

whenever i'm in cvs i hear "shattered dreams"

I heard Jack Wagner's "All I Need" and Richard Marx's "Hazard" once in an Albertsons during a 4 hour shift. I remain convinced that they had not changed their Muzak since my childhood.

and whenever I hit the "from this empty heart" falsetto several mothers in the cold medicine section scowl

hahaha. I can't help not singing along to that tune either. that or "All I Need is a Miracle".

haha otm

Shopping for pencils and invisible tape at CVS this morning I heard "Soul Drifter" by Lindsey Buckingham!

^^^^ I've heard it at CVS too

Manu Dibango - "Soul Makossa," in H.E.B. yesterday (though for some reason, in that store, the only place you can usually hear the music without straining your ears is in the restroom)

Michaels: "Liberation" by Pet Shop Boys!

Randalls

Fred Wesley & The JB's: "Same Beat (Pt.1)"

Walmart:

Warren Zevon: "Werewolves Of London" (Live)

"He's looking for James Taylor!"

I heard "Young Folks" at Vons and was reminiscing about simpler times.

Moody Blues' "Ride My See-Saw," local pub--first time ever in a public space, sounds great.

Elton John - The complete 'Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding' at the grocery store.

Target:

The Main Ingredient: "Evening of Love"
The Temptations: "My Baby"

Five Guys:

Strokes: "Someday"
Offspring: "I Choose"

Exile's "Kiss You All Over" in one of the 73 Tim Hortons I stop into in the course of a week.

(Made me think of Mindhunter.)

HEB:

B-52s: "Deadbeat Club" followed by a not at all obscure REM song, which was neat given both groups intertwined histories and the fact that Stipe appears in this song's video.

Skeeters:

10cc: "Dreadlock Holiday"

Jason's Deli:

U2: "Stuck In A Moment..." (Acoustic)
Bob Dylan: "Simple Twist Of Fate"

cvs-core is a thing. i heard a lesser-known barry manolow song in speedway. i forget which, but it wasn't mandy or i write the songs. maybe somewhere in the night or somesuch. regardless, it were some corporate cvs-core attempt at hip ant-hipness. i was confused and didn't know whether this a a good thing or a bad thing.

U2: "Stuck In A Moment..." (Acoustic)
Bob Dylan: "Simple Twist Of Fate"

More intertwining: Dylan has a much better song about being stuck.

https://i.imgur.com/cDWNbae.gif

Freebirds:

Jimi Hendrix: "If 6 was 9"
Led Zeppelin: "Candy Store Rock"
Violet Femmes: "Kiss Off"
Steely Dan: "Black Friday"

The Dan was directly followed by Olivia Rodrigo's "Brutal"--an ILM-esque segue if I've ever heard one.

HEB:

Barenaked Ladies: "Pinch Me"

no idea what HEB is, but you are the master

how many of these do you have to shazam/search for?

Texas grocery store chain, named for founder's son Howard E. Butt

nice . . . in ways

Guided By Voices - Bulldog Skin at the suburban McDonald's I took my 6 year old to for dinner tonight

that's like a vintage entry for this thread, bravo

how many of these do you have to shazam/search for?

A good number, although frequently it's because I already have half an answer and just need the title or artist (and more frequently than I'd like to admit I'm already Shazaming before the chorus/main hook hits and I'm like "Oh, yeah <that one>...")

heard Love's 'Alone Again Or' in the Walgreens, really caught me off guard

HEB:

Arcadia: "Election Day"

HEB

ABC: "(How To Be A) Millionaire"

At CVS, walked in to hear the Siouxsie and The Banshees version of “The Passenger”.

I don't know if we've discussed this upthread, but for a while, I've assumed that many chain store in-store play selections somehow operate off of their patrons' browser cookies. Like, through app permissions on your phone, they are able to geolocate you to the store and somehow scan your phone for recent songs and then make song selections based on your tastes consumer profile.

For a recent example, last week I spent half an hour or so YouTubing promo commercials for the 1982 TV show Fame. Probably not something that most people think about on a daily basis, but I had a mental flashback to an ad I watched as a child and was trying to confirm it. Then, on the weekend, I was grocery shopping, and what comes on the in-store play? The theme song from Fame, by Irene Cara! Which, of course, I've never heard in my grocery store prior to that.

During the height of my rabid Paramore fandom, I would hear a Paramore song in there about once every other visit. Since I don't listen to them as much anymore, they rarely pop up. At the time, I was just like, "I'm glad this band I like is so popular!"

Fame was just extremely noticable because it was a precise match, but I assume they still have to work within a particular selection of pre-licensed songs.

I think this would go a long way toward explaining some of the more outré selections that I have occasionally heard in there: Built to Spill, Television, Siouxsie.

"Return of the Mack" bumpin at the Home Depot

I have heard Souxsie’s Passenger 3 or four times in random public spots and so once asked my 19 y/o if she even knew it and she at least claimed “oh yeah online stuff has this song a bit but i don’t remember who it is.””do you know who iggy pop is?””yeah that old weird guy.”

Jefferson Starship bringing 'Miracles' to the produce section of Stop'n'Shop

Vons played Down by the Water by The Decemberists. Had to look it up as all I was thinking was the voice sounds familiar.

"All of My Heart" by ABC, at Safeway -- not sure I've ever heard this out in the wild before in the US.

OMG this is freaking me out because i just heard this at my safeway an hour ago and was trying to hear it a d remember the song name!

it was getting washed in ambient sounds and i like changed aisles just to grab it a little

i thought it was “be near me,” not so rare

Breathe's "Say a Prayer" at Publix.

Echo & the Bunnymen "Do It Clean" at Trader Joe's

Dairy Queen:

OMD: "Dreaming"
Men Without Hats: "Pop Goes The World"

Jason's Deli:

Cat Stevens: "Where Do The Children Play?"
Cars: "Since You're Gone"
Fiction Factory: "(Feels Like) Heaven"
Aimee Mann: "Freeway"
Radiohead: "Creep" (acoustic)
Elliott Smith: "A Fond Farewell"

And also "FM (No Static At All)" which--while not obscure--was a staple of retail/restaurant muzaks when I was growing up.

Target:

MC Hammer: "Addams Groove"

Whole Foods this weekend: Blancmange - “Blind Vision”

Kroger

Carly Rae Jepsen: "I Really...Like You" (obscure by standards of the real world)

Target

Justin Timberlake: "Breeze Off The Pond"
Black Keys: "Poor Boy A Long Way From Home"

I Know You Got Soul - Bobby Byrd w/JBs
Lowes Hardware

This is a follow-up to my post from September.

I had spent some time on eBay on Friday afternoon. I was searching for a particular BMX VHS tape that I had loved back then. Spent a while scrolling, clicking on the results, refining my search, scrolling some more. Didn't find it. But one tape I saw over and over in my search results was the 1986 movie RAD.

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/wFAAAOSwRRNmReUY/s-l400.jpg

A couple hours later, I roll into Giant Food, and within 5 minutes, they're playing Send Me an Angel by Real Life

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0N3P2UhT4M

That song has never gone away -- I hear it in the wild a couple times a month. In the Napster days it got often mistaken for New Order.

It's not super-obscure, but I don't think I've ever heard it in my grocery store before.

Ok, there is some precedent upthread

Real Life: "Send Me An Angel" at Denny's

― a full playlist of presidential sex jams (C. Grisso/McCain), Monday, August 15, 2016 11:29 PM (nine years ago) bookmarkflaglink