Obscure Singles Heard at CVS

"Don't Cry out Loud," a live version by Joe Longthorne (!), blasted out of flat window I happened to be walking past, with the entire room singing along.

I don't know the song, or Joe Longthorne beyond his cheesy reputation, but I found it to be a strangely affecting piece of bombastic kitsch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0yvXmSmZxQ

went back to back from Sabbath's "Iron Man" to Olivia Newton John's "Magic"

What in the ...

“Don’t Cry Out Loud” is a great song and I appreciate that strange man for trying it. Melissa Manchester’s version is obviously definitive

"Longthorne was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2012 Birthday Honours for services to charity."

and he just keeps giving

Music best heard in a charity shop

Animals: "Boom Boom" at Freebirds

Cool

Not obscure, really, by my local Trader Joe's recently did something I've never heard in a supermarket before - back-to-back songs by the same artist.

"Time After Time" --> "The Goonies 'R' Good Enough."

Dave Mason ft. Michael Jackson "Save Me" at Rexall's

Stephen Bishop "Save it for a Rainy Day" at Giant Food

Nick Drake's "Northern Sky" at Lidl

Head East's "Love Me Tonight"* at a Sonoco convenience store.

(note: "Love me Tonight" was a bigger hit than "Never Been Any Reason")

I didn't know there were still Rexall's in the US (apparently there's an unrelated Canadian Rexall's)

I don't think there's any more real parent company, but older Rexall franchises are allowed to keep the name and several (including the one I was at in Virginia) still do for the name recognition. Alot like the Howard Johnson's restaurants whose last store finally closed last week, although the HoJo support system was long gone before that and the food tasted nothing like the old chain restauarants did.

Puns I had missed: "Rexall" is a contraction of "RX-all" - as in, we have all your prescriptions.

I was about to be gobsmacked, but the internet has differing opinions:

The "Rex" in the name was derived from the name of Ellen M. Regis, who developed "Rexall remedies" and from whom the company purchased the mark.

The name Rexall (meaning “king of all”) was chosen for the group of products for what later became the United Drug Company.

"Tell Me Something Good" by Rufus at Vons. It sounded amazing.

Tweeter and the Monkey Man at a pseudo Parisian bistro in New York

Bony M: "Rivers of Babylon" and Kinks: "Picture Book" at Chuy's

digging in the dirt and celebrity skin back-to-back at kroger. also love will tear us apart, sometime in the last year.

again, not really obscure except the terrestrial radio stations here in sw ohio that feature retro musics don't even get close to this. not really forgotten, not big enough to be in whatever they think the canon is.

I stood in line at the federal credit union yesterday, listening to all seven minutes of "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" by Led Zeppelin.

Not gonna lie, kinda miss Muzak at times.

does muzak-qua-musak still exist?

erstwhile (billy bob fargo ref), is there any chance radio will take the hint from the hipster-curated-in-store-playlist algorithm or paradigm or whatnot or are the economics too much to oppose? my local 80s station will play i want to know what love is or waiting for a girl like every other hour but never that was yesterday or midnight blue or heart turns to stone, which is awesome beyond belief. i can't believe i forgot that song exists. stop with the your love and play all the love in the world or say it isn't so or since you've been gone or everytime you cry. i know every outfield song is essentially the same song but how is that any more redundant than playing the literal same song over and over? i can't fucking hang out in kroger or meiijer all day hoping to hear don't talk to strangers or change by john waite or show me by the cover girls. or going back to cali. never existed, says my local 80s station. wishing well, gone. you can call me al, gone. i don't think i've ever heard them play things can only get better, or all cried out.

i got so emotional when i watched that killers video of their electric blue cover, because everything happens so much, and that's what i'm talkin' about. why does this slay me so hard and make me so lachrymose? at the time i thought it were a middling song but now as oblivion approaches it's the middling that hits the hardest.

i can play anything ever on youtube but i don't want that; i want radio to recover that middle ground, like what if i'd been the one or the freaks come out at night or alphabet street or running with the night or it's a sin. or oh yeah or lessons in love. can dan and ned and alfred do a tedtalk on this?

i mean, NOW my local 80s station plays running up that hill now that it's a hit of sorts when they didn't before, but honestly you don't get to do that without playing yourself.

like , i know why in between days or once in a lifetime or don't change or even i got you loom so large in my psyche, but why do the honeythief or pop goes the world or stay with me by shakesphear's sister or perfect way or digging your scene or ah, fuck it, i quit.

i just can't explain to 80s me why there is and has been for 25 years or so 80s radio that doesn't play lovergirl or sign of the times or glamorous life or poison arrow.

The other day I was in my local CVS and heard a song I’d never heard before. This is not as regular an occurrence as one would think, because even if it’s not. song I like or have heard many times, I can usually pinpoint what’s playing to a certain degree.

Except the other day— I’d never heard Howard Jones’ “Everlasting Love,” apparently!

My memory of that song is riding in the backseat from the revival to the pizza place with a burned-out acid casualty lipsynching to it on the radio.

"Ever notice how you can see some of the notes float out of the speakers?"

The dub breakdown in the middle is the sound of puppies bludgeoned to death.

Yesterday at Publix I heard back to back Little River Band's "The Night Owls," Luther's "Stop to Love," and 10,000 Maniacs' "Candy Everybody Wants." Whew.

pplains, that's something. if that line was in some iconic scene of some iconic movie made/set in the Sixties, it would be an iconic "acid trip" quote.

I haven't been to a revival since.

Londonbeat's "I've Been Thinking About You" really dialed up the horniness at Trader Joe's tonight.

In CVS earlier, heard Chris Cornell (RIP) doing a godawful rendition of GNR‘s “Patience.”

while i was waiting for my vaccine at walgreens they played Eddie Rabbit’s “I Love a Rainy Night” which i hadn’t heard for…decades?

NKOTB's 'I'll Be Loving You Forever' iright now in Walgreens. Love this deeply stupid thing. 'The things you do is forever' indeed.

not too "crazy", but i heard that seal song at a microcenter this weekend. that has to be one of the greatest songs of all time

just heard In the Morning by Junior Boys playing over a Sunday Night Football segment about Deebo Samuel

sonic youth, "within you without you", last night in my local asian supermarket

Supermarket this morning was playing Bjork's "Venus as a Boy."

Al Green & Annie Lennox: "Put A Little Love In Your Heart" at El pollo loco

scritti politti "perfect way" at sprouts

Sparks: "This Town Ain't Big Enough For The Both of Us"
Indeep: "Last Night A DJ Saved My Life"
Aliotta Haynes Jeremiah: "Lake Shore Drive "

At Chuy's

Bob Dylan’s “From a Buick 6,” over the loudspeakers at Radiator Springs in Disney’s California Adventure.

Madonna: "Beautiful Stranger" at IHOP (not obscure, but kinda forgotten)

I've paid for you with tears
And swallowed all my fries

Da-da-da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da, dum
Philly Cheese Steak Stacker

Not obscure, but I heard Bryan Adams's "Straight from the Heart" at CVS this morning and thought it really was the essential shopping background song.

Forlorn chemical lovesick vapors waft the clearance Halloween nightmare shelf while Santa sits with malicious windows in the bathroom

Willie Dixon: "The Seventh Son"
Georgia Satellites: "I Dunno"
Wilson Pickett: "Fire and Water"
Big Momma Thornton: "Hound Dog"

All at Slim Chickens

Joe Jackson - “You Can't Get What You Want (Till You Know What You Want)” in an actual CVS rn.

Thai restaurant I'm in right now has played back to back singles by Michael Learns to Rock

Correction, everything has been Michael Learns to Rock for 20 minutes

Joe Jackson - “You Can't Get What You Want (Till You Know What You Want)” in an actual CVS rn.

― Elvis Telecom, Thursday, December 29, 2022 7:41 PM (

I hear this at Publix at least once a week.

Probably doesn’t count because Whole Foods has been playing “edgy” music in its stores for a while now, but I was surprised when the ‘Mats’ “Swingin Party” came on yesterday as I waited for the oyster man to bag my oysters. (Here in Philly, at least, Fridays are 12 for $12 oysters at WF, great treat when one can swing it)

If being strong is what you want, I need help here with this oyster