What music does your local supermarket play?

Have heard no solid jams in QFCs here

Lowe's Super Saver #98: oldies (with an emphasis on regional western favorites)
Albertson's: depressing 80s MOR
Pro's Ranch Market: Banda! Banda! Banda! and other Mexican music
Smith's: I forget.

I could live in Rockist Scientist's neighborhood.

Big K-Mart has the most interesting mix (but of course it's not a supermarket, even if it does sell food). It plays al sort of familiar Anglophone pop songs alongside Spanish-language pop, and it covers a fwe decades. Today I heard David Bowie's "Let's Dance" and then an okay Latin pop tune and then a couple mediocre Anglo pop songs and then what sounded like an early rock or R&B song, and then a mediocre Latin pop song, etc. I've heard Fleetwood Mac there, I've heard Spanish covers of familiar English songs.

Inexpecliably, I like banda much more when I hear it at Ranch Market. I can't decide if their selection is better or if it's just the environment. Pro's Ranch Market is the most festive supermarket I've ever shopped in. Some of the songs at Albertson's, on the other hand, just make me want to leave the store before I fall into a severe depression.

"I Wanna Be Sedated", yesterday.

PARANOID! At 9:00 on a Saturday!

i was at raley's (grocery store) and they played cat power's living proof

I've heard Neko Case and Calexico at my Wegman's.

The local H-E-B (a Texas chain formerly known as "H. E. Butts") has 80s pop music on. "I Eat Cannibals" and "Word Up!". It makes me feel old.

I swear to almighty God, everytime I walk into a Borders 'Love Is In The Air' comes on, the John Paul Young version I think. It's the kind of song that would go well with some hot crazy homicidal killing spree, but not when I'm trying to buy books. One of these I will crack and mow down the toothless hoardes, making them eat on their Barbara Kingsolver paperbacks. They only have themselves to blame.

anytime i hear stuff on oldies stations, my mind returns to the williamsburg c-town

I was just in the Trader Joes and they were playing some soft piano and falsetto schmaltz that I think was Coldplay (but might have been James Blount or Travis or Keane or Jack Johnson or any of those that I can't really tell apart, but it was a hit that I probably should know), so things were already melancholy and sort of alienated feeling under those fluorescent lights, and then they went right into Tears in Heaven, and the clerk was explaining in vague terms what the song was about to some customer who kept saying, "That Eric Clapton, he's so versatile. He writes songs about everything!"

As a teenager, I bagged groceries at a local Kroger, where they played cassettes which were issued by the corporate headquarters. These cassettes were weird blocky things - almost like miniature VHS tapes. Interspersed w/ cheerful shopping tips and such, the playlists consisted of muzak versions of oldies & soft-rock hits, but, amid the usual AOR standards, there was a version of "Bluebeard" by The Cocteau Twins. That was my jam, when it came on.

my local upscale yuppie-foodmart-for-white-people plays mor chillout, period. doesn't grate but it's kind of yaaaaawwwwwnn... the locals grocery store plays your standard indonesian rock-pop hit bands, but usually play the whole album, which makes it slightly more interesting somehow

Heard Neko Case and Camera Obscura at this dollar store recently.

i heard something off the most recent fleetwood mac album in my supermarket last week. made shopping 1000x more pleasant

On Sunday mornings, my local supermarket in Tokyo plays synthesizer covers of hi-nrg tracks. It really is the most atrocious think you can imagine. While elderly Japanese housewives wander around seemingly oblivious. Strange stuff indeed.

i heard something off the most recent fleetwood mac album in my supermarket last week. made shopping 1000x more pleasant

Coincidentally, while in the car today I was thinking about how I wish to strangle the next person who makes me listen to anything from "Rumours" again without my consent. Good to know the great DJ in the sky is mixing things up.

eating a valium and shopping in a health food store while fleetwood mac was playing in the background would undoubtably take me back to the 70's in the worst yet nicest way possible. but you know what i WISH they'd play in supermarkets? some 60's muzac, al la henry mancini and co. i would've thought the last 10 years or so have been ironic enough for that to have become a popular supermarket meme

I've heard Neko Case and Calexico at my Wegman's.

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

i would've thought the last 10 years or so have been ironic enough for that to have become a popular supermarket meme

Wow, I'm trying to figure out if I'd shop at a store that played ironic shopping music and loved in-jokes.

Mostly unidentifiable world music, but then there's one guy who always puts Sebastien Tellier on.

The post-Leonard Cohen Jennifer Warnes.

yesterday at how's in north hollywood -- that sara bareilles (sp?) hit song. which i'm finally warming up to; it's an earworm for sure.

anytime i hear stuff on oldies stations, my mind returns to the williamsburg c-town

the "western bagel" location i go to always has the same oldies station on ("cathy's clown," "shout," other non-intimidating music for 60-year-olds).

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.