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 wish it were obscure!

XP "Super Special Two-For-One Sale On Headbands! Boppa Lula Only Today!"

we got to move these
digiorno's pizzas
we got to move these chef boyardeeeeeees

“Walk of Life” was playing in the grocery store earlier, and I was enjoying it so much I felt a flash of annoyance when someone cut through on the PA to make an announcement.

I feel like Byrne would appreciate that.

True story.

While pumping gas at a Holiday station in rural upper Michigan today I heard Alphabet Street and Electric Avenue back to back which felt very out of place and amazing simultaneously

Relevant...

Huge riffs in unexpected places: When I was walking into @LiveCasinoPHL around noon today, "Rock Bottom" by @UFO_rockband came over the sound system! A few hours later they played "Gypsy" by @uriah_heep!

Almost made losing that huge pot with top two against middle set worth it.

— Brian O'Neill (@NYC__Native) June 10, 2021

Waiting for Somebody - Paul Westerberg

― how's life, Saturday, August 13, 2016 6:41 AM (four years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Just got Dyslexic Heart.

L'Trimm - "Cars That Go Boom" at the garden center

the pods that go bloom

Lately I feel like I have heard the Kurt Vile version of Box of Rain in grocery stores at least a couple times.

I’m a bar/restaurant where I just heard 311 “Down” for the first time in about two decades, and I can report that it still slaps

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 13, 2021

yesterday I walked past Five Guys in Cambridge, they were playing Jimmy Olsen's Blues by the Spin Doctors, then they played a song I didn't know but which was identifiably by The Nation of Ulysses.

Five Guys is usually pretty good for eclectic Rock muzak.

i heard "The Sound" at Vons the other day, i don't think i have heard any 1975's songs in the wild before.

Yeah, I heard "Kick out the Jams" at a Five Guys once.

I realized what it was before noticing if the "motherfucker" was included but my bet is it was not.

ALL THE WAY receives only toppings in black, Motherfucker

"It takes five seconds, five seconds of decision, five seconds to pick your mix at the Coke Freestyle machine!"

Kroger had "All Star" playing last night (foisting it on workers twice an hour should be a crime) but I would swear it was remixed or something to be even peppier and more upbeat.

^^This might not be it, but I read some time ago in Rolling Stone that Smash Mouth had to rerecord parts of it when it to RockBand because the digital multitracks had become corrupted*; iirc, among other things they had redo all the drums as those tracks had all disappeared.

*This was part of a larger article about the vulnerability of digital masters being discovered as more and more tracks from the then-recent past were getting licensed in 5.1 mixes for film and games.

Of course, it's really probably a "Top 40" radio mix that ultimately didn't have the legs or availability of the regular version.

DJ MILF's All Whistling and Turntable Work Mix (3:55)

<AS HEARD ON MTV'S ROAD RULES>

"All Star (Upbeat Version)" by Smash Mouth

"All Star (Clean-Up On Aisle 12 Dub)" by Smash Mouth Ft. DJ Kroger Signature

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=en1uwIzI3SE

The Hib-Tone Radio Free Europe at Trader Joe's. I dutifully bought an extra bag of Scandinavian Swimmers.

Not obscure or CVS, but our local Giant plays Ex's and Oh's by Elle King probably 1 in 5 times I go there. That song puts me into rough headspace, which has only grown worse since I looked her up and learned that she is Rob Schneider's daughter.

Extended remix of Tom Tom Club's cover of "Under the Boardwalk" in Wawa.

(That's a convenience store for those of you outside the U.S.)

You usually find wawa under the boardwalk.

Disappointingly, there is no WaWa in Mahwah, New Jersey.

sounds like a TMBG track

“Love Me,” by Justin Bieber, at Dollar King.

https://www.spin.com/2021/08/gin-blossoms-alt-rock-saviors/

At a time in my life when the grocery store’s overhead PA system was my lifeline, Gin Blossoms were my alt-rock radio saviors — raining down hard truths about lust masquerading as love as I sat on a milk crate, turning cans so all the labels faced the same direction, always English side out

...

“Hey Jealousy” is a song best heard over a tinny in-store PA, where you can only grasp the high-end of the guitar and the vocals. Many, many years later while test-driving a 2009 Toyota Tacoma, the salesman suggested I turn on the radio to get a feel for the overpriced stereo he was trying to upsell me. “Hey Jealousy” came on immediately, and it felt different with the full range of woofers and tweeters — dulled, despite the broader dynamics, like eating your mom’s homemade pasta in your youth and then years later going to the Olive Garden. Something was lost in the translation.

Tegan & Sara: "Walking With A Ghost" at James Coney Island.

Jethro Tull: "Teacher" at Northern Tool

FB memories reminded me of one of my absolute weirdest pairing of song and restaurant, which happened just a few weeks before this thread was started:

Stone Roses: "Breaking Into Heaven"...at FUDDRUCKERS.

I think the version they played didn't have the intro.

Swing Out Sister "Waiting Game" at the grocery store just now.

I heard "Waiting Game" at Publix last Saturday.

Today: Breathe's "Say a Prayer."

Red Right Hand by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds at Party City.

Presumably part of some seasonal Halloween playlist. I should have stuck around to see what else they had on, but I just dropped in real quick for a Moana piñata.

― ☮ (peace, man), Wednesday, October 2, 2019 7:50 AM (two years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Had to go in there last week and got the theme song from Demons (1985), which was definitely part of a Halloween playlist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYFP-777t-c

Ha I heard Killing Moon at Party City a couple of weeks ago

I had to go to two different Walmarts on Sunday, and--while I heard nothing very obscure--I was a bit delighted that all that I could hear them playing on muzak was '68-'80 R&B. It was like 'Walmart's Soulful Sunday' or something.

I heard "Waiting Game" at Publix last Saturday.

"Breakout" at Home Depot today!

“Borrowed Time” by Parquet Courts in Trader Joe’s

"just another dream" by cathy dennis at a pricey health food store/juice bar in south pasadena

Target’s got De La Soul’s “Me Myself and I.”

Jo Boxers: "Just Got Lucky"
The Hooters: "All You Zombies"

At Denny's.

I like the fact that I will first hear hit songs from seven years ago in a fabric store three years from now.

— Rachel Lichtman (@rachelichtman) December 5, 2021

Also relevant:

Everyone in CVS when “Steppin’ Out” came on pic.twitter.com/GhiAndT61L

— Rachel Lichtman (@rachelichtman) May 19, 2021