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)

4 hours later, I Heart Radio just played Squeeze again.

i heard a goddam andrew thomas kompakt pop ambient deep cut at half price books, it was weird

David Crosby - "Hero"

have just heard julia fucking holter in the dentist's office. hell yes.

Father John Misty: "Total Entertainment Forever" at Taco Bell.

“Really Sayin Something” Bananarama and FB3 in the Xmas return line at Kohls.

Scritti Politti "Perfect Way" in At Home: The Home Decor Superstore

Hope you and your teen friends played along to an 80s montage of wackiness, like wearing lampshades, playing throw pillows like drums with spatulas and "framing" each other.

Ran into either a curated playlist or Pandora channel for Morris Day at Dairy Queen:

"Color of Success"
"The Walk"
"The Character"
"The Oak Tree"

And some other stuff before something switched for:

The Spinners: "Love Don't Love Nobody"

Richie Valens: "Bony Maronie" at KFC.

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club: "Stop" at Pepperoni's.

The Shadows of Knight's "Gloria," followed immediately by Joe Cocker's "She Came In Through The Bathroom Window" at the supermarket yesterday.

"Don't try to live your life in one day" by Howard Jones at a local farm-market kind of place (which I had forgotten existed) followed by "Transmission" by Joy Division (which I had not forgotten about but was confused to hear in that setting).

"Thunder Island" at a fresh thyme market which I had to google because I've heard it many times but had no idea who did it and apparently the same guy wrote the theme song to the Office

...and was also the lead singer for somewhat obscure 60s/70s rock bands Spirit and JoJo Gunne.

“Someday, Someway,” by Marshall Crenshaw, at Target.

Ghost: “He Is” at McCarran International Airport, Terminal D

Crowded House - Fall at your feet - community centre bathroom

fastball "you're an ocean" - taco bell

Ghost: “He Is” at McCarran International Airport, Terminal D

― Larry Elleison (rogermexico.),

Wow!

heard Prince's "Strollin'" just yesterday!

wasn't a CVS though, it was a Target!

Ghost: “He Is” at McCarran International Airport, Terminal D

― Larry Elleison (rogermexico.),

Wow!

Is it possible the music player person didn't know who the "He" was

INXS: "Listen Like Thieves" at McDonald's.

At Pennsy Food Hall next to Madison Square Garden, prior to a Billy Joel show, amongst a steady stream of big '70s hits by Stevie Wonder & Paul Simon, came E.L.O.'s "Last Train to London."

A twofer at Safeway today...
First, Semisonic's lesser known, but just as good "Closing Time" followup "Singing in my Sleep"

Secondly, Counting Crows' "Einstein on the Beach (For An Eggman)".
I don't think I'd heard it in a good 15 years, yet that "The world begins to disappear" hook was still etched deep inside my brain.
Strangely, I always thought this was one of their biggest hits as I recalled hearing it played frequently on the radio years after its initial release. But after quick googling, it looks like it was a brief #1 on modern rock at the time which didn't cross over in the slightest to any other format. The single's page on RateYourMusic has 0 reviews and 20-something ratings. Even on Spotify, it doesn't seem to make it even into their top 30 most played songs. "Mr. Jones" alone has roughly 150x more plays than "Einstein on the Beach"....

"Singing In My Sleep" has become quite the supermarket jam.

Today at Five Guy's:

Lynyrd Skynyrd: "Double Trouble"
The Clash: "Janie Jones"
Franz Ferdinand: "Right Action"

Ben Lee: "Catch My Disease" at Kroger.

"ring the alarm" by tenor saw at chipotle, notable because i think i heard it there like many years ago. they still got it.

The Cult “Wild Flower” at Nordstrom Rack

I thought I had posted this before, it was quite a while ago I heard The Slits' version of "Grapevine" at Chipotle. There's definitely some hipsters programming the music there. xp

I was quite surprised to hear "Wrong Impression" by Natalie Imbruglia at my local grocery store in Atlanta, GA.

Oldies at McDonald's, seemingly the most obscure being The Dixie Cups: "People Say" & Eddie Cochran: "Cut Across Shorty".

Maybe not too obscure, but definitely inappropriate on an unseasonably warm Saturday morning: "Don't Cry Out Loud" by Melissa Manchester at the Strack and van Til (local very nice yuppie) supermarket.

Also, "Wildfire", where there came a killing frost while buying gardening supplies at the Ace Hardware. That song makes me want to stick my head in an oven. It did in the seventies.

Hillary Duff: "So Yesterday" at Kroger.

Ariana Grande - “Baby I” at Trader Joe’s.

Travis: "Why Does It Always Rain On Me" at Which Wich.

I also went to this big outdoor flea market, and amongst the radio stuff, Hip Hop, and Tejano being blasted in booths, I heard "Blue Jeans" by Lana Del Rey.

I kind of wish I lived in a place where Travis was obscure

(That wasn't supposed to sound like a dig at you C.G/McC!)

Haha

Come to America then, where we only know them as Jim & Pam's favorite band!

It does cross my mind from time to time about how some CVS obscurities are actually huge records overseas.

weird, i was thinking about "why does it always rain on me" the other day. it got like, two or three weeks of trial airplay on US alternative radio and cracked the top 40 of a couple of airplay charts, but was really out of step with the direction pretty much any american radio format was headed at the time. i can my remember my mom doing mocking, voice-cracking impressions of the sad-sack chorus.

Yeah, and we already had Matchbox 20 to deal with.

The Crusaders: "Street life" at Schlotzsky's.

Fran Healy has a beautiful voice

That’s his name right?

When I was 17 I visited some relatives in England and my uncle took me to a dark dank rock club somewhere.. I was crestfallen when ALL the fucking bands sounded like matchbox 20/eve 6 etc is was horrible

Fran Healy is his name.

One of the other Travis dude's is married to Kelly McDonald.

On further research, I see it was the bass player, and they've been separated since 2017.

Jeff Healy Band: "Stuck In The Middle With You" (yeah, that one) at Randall's.