What music does your local supermarket play?

The really nasty Eastgate Foods that is the closest grocer to my house has mix tapes of great oldies hits playing. Motown and British Invasion and early rock and roll and bubblegum. Tommy James and his brethren. The owner makes the tapes, from what I understand. The overpriced locally owned organic market that is next door plays the selections of their hipster staff through one stereo channel and it grates.

I heard "Only Shallow" recently at Wegmans (immediately after "Lido Shuffle," no less).

This world is a good world.

The really nasty Eastgate Foods that is the closest grocer to my house has mix tapes of great oldies hits playing. Motown and British Invasion and early rock and roll and bubblegum. Tommy James and his brethren. The owner makes the tapes, from what I understand. The overpriced locally owned organic market that is next door plays the selections of their hipster staff through one stereo channel and it grates.

i'd probably like the bagel store's oldies station better if it were programmed by one person instead of (i'm assuming) a market research firm.

Working very long days at a supermarket a very long time ago, I have good memories of hearing "All I Need" and "You Make It Easy" from Air's Moon Safari only days after I had first discovered those songs.

More recently at a different supermarket, I've heard The Strokes "Someday" and Weezer "Island In The Sun" multiple times.

Dusty little market on Central Avenue: "Come Together" in the back, "Comfortably Numb" in the front. (Actually, they aren't always classic rock central, I hear a fair amount of punk in there. Depends on whose working there.)

buying 40s at harris teeter the other night, to the smooth sounds of "Imagine" arranged for spanish guitar

"I Wanna Be Sedated", yesterday.

― kingkongvsgodzilla, Monday, March 16, 2009 5:16 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark

I heard this on Friday.

I worked at Publix for eight years (all through high school and college). There was a lot of good 60s music and a lot of really crappy adult contemporary garbage. But I actually discovered Mazzy Star working there because they played "Fade Into You" quite a lot.

When I went back home to visit the Publix I worked at was playing a Spoon track (don't remember which one), which was a nice little surprise.

Not a supermarket, but got a taxi in Belfast the other week, which usually means either the local chart pop station or the station which plays countryish stuff (hear this a lot in NI and never elsewhere in the UK for some reason), and dude was playing "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots" in its entirety. Which was kind of unexpected.

I like my local Co-Op, it sounds like it's on one of those "jammin' oldies" setups mentioned upthread. Right before Christmas I heard "Back Door Santa" a couple of times, which made me giggle appreciatively.

not a supermarket but the falafel shop I ate in today was playing 'kiss me thru the phone' on repeat, it was awesome

My local Publix was playing Grizzly Bear "Two Weeks".

I've heard Air France and jj at my local market, which is always a pleasantl surprise.

Last week I saw a weird guy dancing frantically to Sade's 'Paradise' in the supermarket nearby my house. Which reminded me of the great bass line in that song.

Heard the Go! Team while stopping in for breakfast tacos this morning.

my go-to kroger plays "captain of her heart" about every third visit. makes me a happy shopper.

^Oh man, I love that song!

Steely Dan!

(sometimes)

and the Nightfly

Dusty little market on Central Avenue: some of the coolest sounding Arabic music I've heard in a while, very low-key, mostly drums with female vocals. I couldn't identify the country. That place may be under new ownership, or maybe they just have some new help.

I heard the Kinks' "Juke Box Music" the other day (Price Chopper, upstate NY). Kind of blew my mind, actually.

back when i used to work at the grocery store we listened to pre-programmed "Albertson's Now Thats What You Call Music! Vol 52", but inevitably Gordon Lightfoot's Sundown would play at least 3 times every day and ended up being something I anticipated in the drear of the rest of the day. I always sang along to it while bagging groceries. *nostalgic tears*

back when I worked at a supermarket for all of five minutes in 2004, I was stunned at the Muzak they were playing. It was as if nobody had ever changed the Muzak tapes in 15-20 years. I mean they were playing pop songs that at one time were hits, but like...not iconic, and largely from the 1985-1993 timeframe.

Example -- at one point, Jack Wagner's "All I Need" came on. The next, Richard Marx's "Hazard" came on, then k.d. Lang's "Constant Craving". It was like an eerie timewarp, I got scared a few times that I was in some Outer Limits thriller that I didn't know about.

Pete's Fresh Market is my favorite....it is old skool they have thirty different kinds of olive oil...and they play soul oldies!

I always hear Camera Obscura and The Sundays at my local market.

That's cool, you know a lot of stores stopped playing music entirely, they don't even play the radio. SAD! How can you love food if you don't love music.

The HEB we go mostly plays 80s hits. I'm pretty ok with that.

The Gin Blossoms' "Found Out About You" this afternoon. No complaints about that.

Was in shock when I heard Alice Cooper's "Caught in a Dream" today

I never really pay attention anymore. Once in a while at the Hannaford I'll hear an obscure song from the early 1990s or late 1980s and try to figure out what it is. Sort of takes the boredom out of the trip.

This week at the local Shaw's I heard Sonny & Cher's The Beat Goes On and The Kinks' Sunny Afternoon.

In the lavatoruy of the gas station that doubles as the local supermarket in the village where I live. What am I hearing?

Like a Prayer!

When You Were Mine by Cyndi Lauper!

I like oldies supermarkets the best, everyone can agree on the selections. Not everyone has fond memories of Madonna or Cyndi Lauper. There was a period in the nineties where all kinds of weird songs were re-recorded into muzak.

the fred meyer closest to my house in portland, or is kinda ridiculous and plays tv on the radio, animal collective, ted leo, etc... yknow, indie. i'm sure this isn't shocking to anyone out there but i just want to confirm that YES, it really is like that here

I heard "Bluish" in a restaurant where I lived...

I complained to my server at a restaurant last night about the music they were playing. It was Sunday-morning brunch music, not Saturday night music.

I was in a local gourmet sandwich shop (mostly very good food) owned by a young couple. Modest Mouse was playing. It was not fun.

I've never been forced to hear Modest Mouse while buying a burrito.

i heard Neon Indian once at Whole Foods. that somehow seemed a little weird to me

I was in Sunflower tonight and "Don't Stop the Dance" came on. Sounded pretty amazing. The guys who stock the shelves did not clownishly sing along with it, as they do with a lot of the older oldies. I don't know, maybe the music there gets cooler after 8PM or something.

one time i was in a krogers at like 3 AM and the entirety of tool's lateralus was playing over the loudspeaker. it was weird because usually they just played soft R&B and adult contemporary stuff

Since we have a Target relatively close to our house, I do most of my shopping there and they don't play any music. Its kind of eerie when it gets late and its quiet in there.

the main section of the local co-op plays all sorts of stuff, often a lot of 70s soul/disco. the dairy department, however, is ALL METAL ALL THE TIME. which is awesome.

All 14 minutes of Neil Young's "Change Your Mind" while waiting for prescription at Walgreens.

Not the supermarket, but when I walked into Home Depot today, they were playing "I Feel Love".

My supermarket always plays 80s hits, which is pretty great but also makes me realize that I'm old enough to be the target demographic for supermarket music.

Casinos are the worst. Think I heard a Green Day-Alan Jackson-Al Wilson set last time I was at crablegs buffet.

Heard "Israelites" the other week in the grocery store.

Silence in mine.

last week was that POS Dan Fogelberg song "Longer than...", which I can never remember who perpetrated cuz I am not a fan of it like some of the pervs on ILM.