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)

Siouxsie and the Banshees - Dear Prudence

― Austin, Friday, June 17, 2016 2:27 AM (three years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Siouxsie and the Banshees - Hong Kong Garden

Cool! At this rate, maybe someday Siouxsie's "Lord's Prayer" will hit the in-store playlist.

Baby Huey & The Babysitters: "One Dragon Two Dragon" at Jack-In-The-Box.

Cool! I was just reading about them in Aaron Cohen's (brilliant, essential) Move On Up: Chicago Soul Music and Black Cultural Power.

Queen: "Radio Ga Ga" at IHOP.

I also heard this odd, like underdub of the not obscure at all "Brown-Eyed Girl". Felt a little slower, more acoustic, and I don't think it had all the full-ham Van at the end (the "bit-by-bit-by-bit part). Definitely had the rest of the original vocal parts and backing. Checking the newest Bang Masters box on Spotify, I see there's the original stereo mix, a mono edit (probably the censored 45 mix), and then some blocks of earlier takes, which it kind of sounds like it was harvested from.

Listening further, I see that it was probably Take 6, the first full take. One of the things that was throwing me is that electric guitar part isn't quite there yet, and isn't as prominent in the mix. Also the drum and bass breakdown part appears here after the last verse instead of before it. The full-ham Van bit is also present and accounted for.

Gary Wright - "Love is Alive"

Not super obscure or forgotten, but I also don't think I've heard it in 30+ years.

i played it on my wzbc show a few months ago. a jam

It's a goodie.

Rivingtons: "Papa Oh Mow Mow" on outdoor Muzak at a shopping complex.

Modest Mouse: "Dashboard" at Which Wich.

"White Light/White Heat" at Trader Joe's this morning.

^^The only way that could have been more on-brand was if it was the Ralph Stanley version.

There's a great sample of "Love is Alive" backing "Wordz of Wizdom" by 3rd Bass, but even that was 30 years ago. (xposts)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwvMgZfsD3Q

I remember hearing this when it came out and thinking, "Dammit, I've heard this somewhere before. Did she do this in Rufus too?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2fqonY1EuI

Fruitful day for this kind of stuff.

"Planet Rock" at HEB.

Wait, you live in Texas?

H-Town Baby!

"planet rock" will never be considered obscure hence you not having to mention the artist

HEB got the tunes!

Rolling Stones: "Respectable" at Wendy's, this location drawing from an extensive (mostly hits) Stones playlist during my visit.

Paul Anka’s swing-band “Eye of the Tiger” at Ace Hardware.

Dire Straits: "Water of Love" at Randall's.

band in the subway is playing srv"s 'mary had a little lamb'

Sparks & Jane Wiedlin: "Cool Places" at Which Wich.

Fleetwood Mac: "Songbird" and Van Morrison: "These Dreams of You" at P. Terry's.

Buncha deep cut '60s stuff at Freddy's:

Spanky & Our Gang: "Sunday Will Never Be The Same"
The Grass Roots: "Things I Should Have Said"
Hollies: "I Can't Let Go"
Byrds: "He Was A Friend of Mine"
Canned Heat: "Rollin' and Tumblin'"
Buffalo Springfield: "On The Way Home"

“Never Anyone But You” by the Clientele at Bartell Drugs.

i dig it.

QOTSA: "My God Is The Sun" and Buzzcocks: "Ever Fallen In Love..." at Five Guy's.

Right now in the supermarket: the Band’s version of “Rockin’ Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu,” followed immediately by James Brown’s “Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag.”

Was it The Band? I couldn't find a version by them (on Spotify). It seems like a natural for them to have covered.

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

For me, it's been brit bands as of late that really stood out...

Style Council's "You're the Best Thing" in Walmart. Not TOTALLY obscure, but pretty damn close (Just googled: #76 Hot 100, #31 Adult Contemporary, moderate MTV play at the time). Always cool to hear a bit of Weller over here though...

Oasis' "Stop Crying Your Heart Out" in a Target (not even released in America as a single iirc?).

Stereo MC's "Step it Up" at a Whole Foods.Not super strange, but it's always been hugely overshadowed by the previous smash hit "Connected" and I assumed mostly forgotten. The average person would probably recall them as as one hit wonder here, if they remembered them at all. (Also googled this: #16 Alt, #30 pop radio, #56 Hot 100, minor MTV play)

Also, I recall walking into a Gap store once and hearing some sort of drum 'n' bass/jungle/breaks type tune.... in 2000s suburban America... That was pretty cool.

My local gym's playlist has had a few anomalies as well. Mostly just the typical uptempo, current pop and rap but there's been some awful 2000s stuff in there that I had managed to block out of my memory until recently, like the the nu-metal "remix" version of Ludacris' "Get Back" for one.

Bizarrely, Genesis' "Taking it All Too Hard" and Scorpions' "Wind of Change" I've heard several times as well. Not exactly "pump up" music.

I also used to go to this gym which just used some dude's iTunes/ripped CD collection over the speakers, which included U2's Best of 1990 - 2000. So every now and then you'd get stuff like "Even Better than the Real Thing", "Mysterious Ways", and "Beautiful Day" come on shuffle (recognizable uptempo pop hits; good gym material), but you'd also get stuff off of Zooropa or "Miss Sarajevo" which is like Bono mumbling over Eno/Edge/Flood ambient washes + a minute Luciano Pavorotti opera section (definite vibe killers; bad gym material).

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.