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)

I'm not even sure I knew that 'Sunday Morning' was a single, but I honestly don't think I've heard it since the last time I listened to Tragic Kingdom 20+ years ago. Until today, that is.

At CVS, specifically.

I was surprised to hear "I Am Not a Robot" at a coffee shop in Asheville, NC yesterday but that probably doesn't count cause offbeat music is kind of the coffee shop shtick.

I feel like "Sunday Morning" quickly became the consensus "secret best song on the album" pick, among nearly everybody who bought Tragic Kingdom. With diamond-certified sales, it's understandable some of those people became algorithm-programmers for the CVS muzak providers, but I get and share the surprise at 90s alt-rock deep cuts making the cut.

not that obscure, but i still wasn't expecting to hear the sundays' 'here's where the story ends' in a cvs

1:17 PM (five months ago)

I hear that Sundays song in retail situations frequently, always a treat.

― spastic heritage, Sunday, January 20, 2019 7:05 PM (five months ago)

I heard 'Can't Be Sure' at Walmart a few days ago. slightly more unexpected considering that it didn't even chart in the US

xp I worked part-time at a retail clothing chain in the early/mid-2000s, and “Sunday Morning” frequently appeared on the monthly in-store playlist.... I grew to like/appreciate the song a lot.

probably posted this before - I don't shop at basic clothing store Next very often, but when I do, I nearly always hear 'I don't want control of you' by Teenage Fanclub.

Joe Jackson "You Can't Get What You Want" inside a Friday late-night grocery store.

A trip to my dentist and his Sirius light rock station usually offers up at least one obscurity, between the Elton John and Fleetwood Mac. This morning was "Beautiful" by Gordon Lightfoot (#58 on Billboard's Hot 100, #30 Easy Listening in 1972.) I had only the vaguest memory of this one.

JD MacPherson: "Lucky Penny" at Jack-In-The-Box.

Also heard "It's Bad You Know" there for like the third or fourth time.

Dwight Twilley: "Girls" at Chuy's.

...and The Modern Lovers: "Roadrunner".

...and Peter Godwin: "Images of Heaven"

Oh man, I love that song... and only ever encountered it on VH1 Classic, back when that was a thing.

Nilsson: Me and My Arrow in deirdorfs or beetborts or whatever the stl supermarkets are called.

Wow, great tune

Jason Mraz: "Sleep All Day" at Kroger.

Gap Band: "Sweeter Than Candy" at Walgreens.

I didn't even know that one! Late career, from a movie soundtrack, and no pop chart action.

...and it has a brief rap break!

R.E.M., “Fall On Me” at Chipotle.

Buy some guac and add some guac
And sell the guac, yeah sell the guac

Chipotle? More like, "Falls Out Of Me" an hour later, amirite?

lol'ing at my desk

Lol on me.

Beastie Boys: "Paul Revere" at... WALMART.

At first I thought it was employees blasting it in the warehouse, but there was a "Walmart Radio" bumper afterwards.

Did they helpfully guide you to the wiffle ball bats in aisle 9?

Cops got your gun? See Aisle 12!

i was getting some groceries and heard Television's "See No Evil" in the middle of a mix of more expected supermarket music like Justin Timberlake and Post Malone, a nice little surprise

— Al Shipley (@alshipley) July 26, 2019

Television - See No Evil, at Walgreens.

― Doctor Casino, Thursday, June 4, 2015 12:55 PMbookmarkflaglink

^^^ hahaha, what the hell?! Lock thread.

― Little Latin Lupe Feebfiasco (Dan Peterson), Thursday, June 4, 2015 1:06 PM bookmarkflaglink

It sounded pretty good. Peppy, kinda "indie." Went well with the hair care products.

― Doctor Casino, Thursday, June 4, 2015 1:08 PMbookmarkflaglink

bookmarkflaglink

Spoon, “Don’t You Evah,” at Nordstrom Rack.

It's hardly CVS, but the local family diner is playing tracks from the Portishead s/t album, and I'm finding it extremely incongruous.

New Order's "Age of Consent" at Whole Foods.

"Bizarre Love Triangle", I would have expected. Maybe even "Blue Monday", if they had the edgier Sirius station on. But "Age of Consent" brought a smile to my face.

And the shopper next to you was all, "Oh, I haven't heard this R.E.M. song in years!"

Adult Alternative motherlode at Jack-In-The-Box:

Pretenders: "Show Me"
Crowded House: "Weather With You"
Collective Soul: "No More No Less"
10,000 Maniacs: "Few and Far Between"

Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings: "100 Days, 100 Nights" at FedEx Office.

Not obscure, but my Foodtown hit me with a stealth Michael McDonald three-fer last night:

Steely Dan - Peg
Doobie Brothers - What a Fool Believes
Carly Simon - You Belong to Me

Which makes me wonder once again where they get their music--no algorithm would have come up with that.

Once went to a restaurant where the playlist was weirdly similar to my wife's main playlist. We asked about how they chose the music and they told us they usually just choose a sing they like and then dial up the Spotify radio for that song. Maybe you encountered something similar.

Eisley: "Golly Sandra" at James Coney Island.

R.E.M. - "Carnival of Sorts" at the coffee shop

Not to be the obscurity police, but isn't early REM pretty on-brand for a coffee shop?

Valid question. When I heard it, this thread was the first thing I thought of. Like, deep cut for 2019. Can't remember what came on next, but def was not thread-worthy.

There should be an alternative thread to this where we say "I heard 'More Than a Feeling' at Sufficient Grounds!"

Friend & Lover: "Reach Out Of The Darkness"
Hollies: "Here I Go Again"
Moody Blues: "Question"

All in almost that order at Goodwill.

Almost because there was possibly a non-obscure album track snuck in between somewhere?

The not-obscure enough "She's About A Mover" came after the Hollies.

Talking Heads: "(Nothing But) Flowers"* and Elliott Smith: "Waltz #2 (XO)" at Jack-In-The-Box.

*Actually have this a lot whilst out and about over the years.

Madonna’s “Deeper and Deeper” sounds good early in the morning at Whole Foods.

Rolling Stones: "Heart of Stone" & (Young) Rascals: "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore" at Goodwill.