Obscure Singles Heard at CVS

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

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.