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 think that Oasis track was a US single, it's just that America had long stopped caring (Charles Aaron or somebody wrote it up in Spin along the lines of "Another god-like Gallagher ballad, America shrugs--Wake Up Kids! Do you really want to hear Nickleback at yr Prom!").

If it was, I never heard it played anywhere and it certainly never charted. I remember it being in a movie or something though at some point though, I believe.

And that's saying something because even during that era of Oasis' new millennium nadir, I recall even their comeback track "Go Let It Out" from the year prior getting rotation on both MTV and MTV2 (and Liam Gallagher going on TRL to befuddle Carson Daly for all of 2 minutes) as well as my local modern rock station spinning it in between all the Drop D-tuned angst. Granted, it was completely forgotten after a couple months, but still...

"Stop Crying" is a decent tune. In an alternate timeline, '02 era Coldplay probably could have turned it into a smash. But it's little wonder why it flopped in the states. Poor vocal performance from Liam, substandard arrangement, probably little promotion for an out-of-touch band with tons of baggage/negative press that had flopped over and over for the past 5 years running.

toad the wet sprocket 'in my ear' at . . . cvs

Charles Aaron or somebody wrote it up in Spin along the lines of "Another god-like Gallagher ballad, America shrugs--Wake Up Kids! Do you really want to hear Nickleback at yr Prom!

How did Aaron find meaning in his life after the War on Scrunge ended?

Citizen King: "Better Days (And The Bottom Drops Out)" at Randall's.

Was it The Band?

What I noticed first, before recognizing the tune, was Levon's voice, and a guitar that sounded similar to Robertson's. But I can't find anything in a cursory Google search, so...maybe it wasn't the Band, or maybe it was one of Levon's solo projects or something. It was definitely Levon singing, though. I'm like...98% sure.

Listening now, that Oasis song would be good to hear at a Prom.

Obscure Singles Heard At Proms

Stevie Nicks: "Every Day" at CVS.

richard marx & donna lewis "at the beginning" at the grocery store

(second time i've heard it there in the past couple years or so so maybe it's actually being heard more than i think)

John Anderson: "Somebody Slap Me" at Kroger.

Good Lord.

His last Top 25 Country Hit, from 1997

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QzqV28LdJ8

It's stuff like this that makes you wonder just how deep the barrel is that their Muzak people are drawing from.

SHURAV DHAKAL
5 years ago
This plays at my local #Kroger everyday!
it's now stuck in my head

rhonda h
4 years ago
OMG! I work at Kroger. It is played at my store too! When we hear it my co workers say "Just slap him already so he shuts up." lol

KRDsonic
KRDsonic
4 years ago
@rhonda h I work at Kroger too and it plays in our store too. It's such a weird song D:

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

Social Distortion: "I Was Wrong" at a pizza joint.

...and "Kinky Afro" by Happy Mondays.

The Replacements: "I Will Dare" at Randall's.

Love Will Tear Us Apart at a Smith's grocery store

Gorillaz: "On Melancholy Hill" at Target.

Speaking of incongruous music at CVS .

Pfft, I mean, yeah. Anyone can tell you that while Walgreens is your place for ambient and trance, their industrial section has been pilthy for years.

There's a CVS I'm in sometimes that has $5.99 CDs like that. IIRC, according to their barcode stickers, they date back to 2006-8. Mostly catalogue stuff: Diana Ross' Diana; Robin Trower's Bridge of Sighs; The Rod Stewart Album.

They've also got a batch of new release DVDs that are just as old--Indiana Jones & The Crystal Skull for $25.

My local supermarket, back when I lived in Western Mass, had a small, cheap CD section in the late '00s. One day I found two -- TWO! -- John Coltrane live discs that I'd never see nor heard of before. They were kinda bootleg-looking, and presumably recorded from radio broadcasts, but one had what instantly became one of my all-time favorite Coltrane pieces.

I Heart Radio's Christmas music channel, playing in the halls here at work, just played Squeeze "Christmas Day."

References to Morecambe and Wise will mean nothing to 99% of the people here.

Camera Obscura: "Happy New Year" on the Holiday Muzak at HEB

...and again at Lowe's.

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