Obscure Singles Heard at CVS

Talking Heads: "Warning Sign" at this mom'n'pop pizza joint I ate at last night (noteworthy mainly because it was surrounded by really played-out Classic Rock stuff--think "Carry On Wayward Son" & such--and Johnny Cash for some reason)

John Mellencamp: "Key West Intermezzo" at the FedEx Store.

Marshall Crenshaw: "Someday Someway" actually at CVS (and interrupted at least twice for ads)

― Don A Henley And Get Over It (C. Grisso/McCain), Thursday, November 13, 2014 7:19 PM (two years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I too have heard "Someday, Someway" at CVS. Also heard "IGY" by Donald Fagen.

― ablaeser, Friday, November 14, 2014 9:45 PM (two years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Crenshaw - Whenever You're on My Mind. Hear it all the time now in the grocery...

― Jimmy_Chop, Sunday, May 1, 2016 8:59 AM (seven months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

My friend is interviewing Crenshaw on the radio rn, and they just had a little sidestep wherein they discussed hearing his music (particularly "Whenever You're On My Mind") in stores and restaurants.

"Recover" by Chvrches at Cane's.

Carl Perkins: "Matchbox" at Whataburger.

White Stripes: "Conquest" and Black Crowds: "Go Faster" at Freebirds

Black CROWES

Thanks to Spotify/Pandora it's easy nowadays for obscure stuff to slip into background music.

live version of Life During Wartime from Stop Making Sense

Heard a version of The Cramps' "TV Set" in a restaurant yesterday. Turns out it's a cover by Spoon, from the Poltergeist OST, I had no idea.

The Cure — Cut Here

Singing along at the top of my lungs whilst driving the forklift.

Howard Jones "Life in One Day" at the bank.

Delaney & Bonnie: "Only You & I Know" at Fuzzy's Taco Shop

Saint Etienne: "I Was Born On Christmas Day" (on Deep Cut Xmas Muzak) at Denny's

"Hong Kong Garden" at a Vons grocery store in San Diego.

lol

Moby Grape "8:05" in a McDonalds, how did that happen?

Ray Kroc was a head

Edwin Starr: "Agent Double-O-Soul" at McDonald's

Polly Brown "Up In A Puff Of Smoke" at a restaurant in Kissimmee, FL. I'm certain I have not heard this since it was new in 1975.

http://i.imgur.com/2oZoffa.jpg

I have literally never heard Sugarloaf before in my life. Song was decent.

Oh, that's a big one! Love that kinda lumpy, good-natured but insistent riff.... I guess there's not much else to it as a song. You'd hear it - the single edit anyway - infrequently on classic rock radio when I was a teen. Not a total out-of-the-blue thing but not in regular rotation. I can remember a point in tenth grade or so when I specifically registered it as a song that existed and got excited figuring out that riff in keyboard class (it didn't take long). Their other hit, "Don't Call Us, We'll Call You" is pretty different in style/vibe, honestly not too great but interesting if you're into "rock stars bitching about the rock business" things.

The touch-tone phone dialing you hear in "Don't Call Us, We'll Call You" was the real (and unlisted) phone number of their previous record company that had just dumped them, the band likely hoping they'd get lots of prank calls

Ha! Wow.

not exactly fitting for this thread, given its status as an underground classic, but i was surprised to hear "Vitamin C" by Can at a Chipotle in south Phoenix last month

IMHO that counts! Although it crystallizes something about this thread to me, which is that there's at least two versions of this. One is where retail playlist designers design or lease some algorithm meant to add "hippitude" (I'm guessing) - hence the Can and Television and Buzzcocks and so on. The other is where an algorithm meant to capture popular, well-liked music omnivorously consumes anything that's ever charted or been semi-popular or was released as a single by a top-40 act.

Version two is sorta more interesting in that it gives the uncanny sense that you are dealing with a live human DJ pulling out unjustly overlooked faves, even though everything they play can still be found in a reasonably well-stocked karaoke binder. AFAICT the people who make professional licensed karaoke CDs are similarly wont to include anything that was ever a 'hit.' A shame there is no way to measure the actual performance rate of these things - I have a strong suspicion nobody has ever once actively chosen to sing Van Halen's "Feels So Good" or Swing Out Sister's "La La," but there they are in the listings...

Actually there is a sort of way to track karaoke performance rates--albeit a very localized one. For my friend's birthday last summer, his wife rented out a private room at one of the big (although imho not the best) places in town. Alongside the binders (which were a bit out of date), they had a computer terminal where you would actually pull up and queue the track you wanted to sing. Each entry had a play count for the venue alongside it. There were several obvious Pop and Country things that were in the thousands. As for me, I gave (iirc) "Dead Flowers" and maybe a couple other things a debut.

Oh, yeah, that makes sense. I pretty much avoid booth-style karaoke though, and there's no tracking with the "hand in a penciled-on slip to the emcee" version.

last week, I went to a different location of the grocery store that I always go to (where I've heard everything reported on in this thread) and it was all instrumental smooth jazz.

Heard "Fascination" (the Human League song) in At Home. Not so obscure, but at the same time not something I can ever remember hearing in a store, while out and about, at least since the 80s.

not exactly fitting for this thread, given its status as an underground classic, but i was surprised to hear "Vitamin C" by Can at a Chipotle in south Phoenix last month

Very interesting to see this, because there was something I've wanted to post here for a while but I felt it might not be relevant. At the gym I go to - and this is why I hesitated, I wasn't sure if a gym is comparable to CVS or a similar retail outlet, but anyway - they normally play one of two things, a) a spectacularly dull classic rock mix, with CCR played at least once every half hour, or b) a Top 40 dance mix. Well one day recently I was doing my exercises and suddenly Can's "Vitamin C" came on. I don't know why, or what algorithm brought that about, but there it was.

Bowie's "Sound and Vision" in the supermarket just now.

IMHO that counts! Although it crystallizes something about this thread to me, which is that there's at least two versions of this. One is where retail playlist designers design or lease some algorithm meant to add "hippitude" (I'm guessing) - hence the Can and Television and Buzzcocks and so on. The other is where an algorithm meant to capture popular, well-liked music omnivorously consumes anything that's ever charted or been semi-popular or was released as a single by a top-40 act.

A third version of this kind of works as a fusion of the first two. BACKGROUND: Both my Mom and my sister are merchandisers for a magazine & other goods company that services most of the major chains in America. This jobs takes then into multiple stores daily, incliding CVS, Walgreens etc. Occasionally they'll ask me about some song they hear in those stores. one that sticks out was a single by JD McPherson, a neo-Rockabilly guy who's on Rounder, which was getting a lot of play in drug and grocery stores. I imagine his label, knowing that there is no place for him on commercial radio, instead turns promotion towards Muzak and related services. His song gets played in stores, getting exposed to way more ears than any terrestrial radio could (since alot of these services can guarantee one spin being heard coast-to-coast in thousands of Krogers), and hopefully a % of those hearing said song will Shazam it with a purchase or stream following.

So you get a song that is already kind of hip and at best will only be semi-popular chart-wise rubbing shoulders with the latest dispatches from Adele, Taylor, or Meghan Trainor in every grocery/drug/clothing store.

I think this was discussed somewhere on ILM when it broke, but it needs to be here too:

http://www.chartattack.com/news/2015/10/09/someone-just-uploaded-their-complete-collection-of-kmart-in-store-background-music/

Not me, but a friend is at Pearson Airport in Toronto and heard the Yardbirds' "I Can't Make Your Way" over the PA.

"Sleeping Satellite" by Tasmin Archer in a local burger joint (#32 in the US).

Lulu: "Oh Me Oh My" at Goodwill

...and Mercy: "Love Can Make You Happy"

Doobie Brothers - "Echoes of Love" at my local supermarket.

War: "All Day Music" at the FedEx Store

Reminds me that I heard "Cisco Kid" last week st the supermarket.

Steve Miller: "Dance Dance Dance" & Boz Scaggs "Breakdown Dead Ahead" at Krogers

The Yardbirds' "For Your Love" at Walmart.

Not obscure, but it's still kind of strange to hear "London Calling" when I'm (lost) in the supermarket.

Holy Shit!

Big Star: "September Gurls" at FUDDRUCKERS

the fuck are you doing at a Fuddruckers

Elton John "Tower of Babel" at Foodtown

ok woah.

Lyle Lovett: "Private Conversation" at Randall's

INXS: "Disappear" at Fuddruckers