Grocery Store Music

Just last week on Facebook I wrote, "Songs you never hear on the radio anymore now get played at the grocery store." This seems to be a scenario these days while navigating the grocery store aisles, checking for the lowest priced items, trying to remember that you need butter and making sure you have all the ingredients needed for a recipe you want to try. Then suddenly on the overhead speaker at the store there is a song playing that you haven't heard on the radio in years or it's something you have on  one of the CDs that you still have but don't listen to much anymore. I msut admit I don't listen to the radio as much as I used to, but a lot of the songs that seem to come up at stores seem unlikely to be played by most stations today. And when I did last have the radio on, I can not recall when any station did last play that songs I am unexpectedly hearing.

Every time I hear such music at the store, I begin to remember what I was doing when the song playing was current--almost like being transported back. A lot of the stuff that comes up this way is often stuff I have not heard--or even thought about!--in such a long time. And it's not just at food stores either. Such unexpected music also plays at Walgreens, Rite Aid, and Target as well. And at  Kmart when they were still around. And even at fast food joints (which have only been drive-thru lately).

It would be impossible to try to name unexpected every song I have heard at stores recently but there are some I'd like to note. 




When this came up one day at a local grocery store, I realized how often I had heard it when it was first released, then how long it had been since I'd last heard it.  





I don't recall hearing this song at a store, but somehow it came to my mind recently and when I looked it up on Youtube, someone remarked about having heard it at a grocery store. So I won't be surprised if it I ever do hear it while food shopping one day:





And last year just after Christmas when I needed milk one day, when I went to one of the grocers I don't usually go to (I got to Safeway the most), I heard this ong below. I have the CD it's on, but it has been so long since I've played any of the CDs I still have, most bought in the early 1990s. This came on just as I got in line to check out. I managed to hear it all before I was done paying, and it was stuck in my head for many days and weeks that followed (thought I like this one, so I didn't mind that):





And this is just scratching the surface. I'd also like to note how last September at Kmart when I went in to look at the Halloween stuff one Sunday afternoon. Hearing Britney Spears was annoying enough (and I always dread hearing something I can't stand before I'm done shopping) and at the end of the song playing, I went to use the restroom, and when I got out, something else started playing. It sounded familiar, like something from 30 years earlier. And it was. I never liked Milli Vanilli and thought everyone hated them once they were exposed for lip-synching. It was so weird to be hearing them at Kmart this one day. And once Kmart announced it was closing, the unexpected music just kept coming, with all Christmas tunes in December. Several Prince songs came up in the days and weeks before the closing in February. Someone remarked that a dead musician was playing in a dead store! 

This is where I'll end. I could go on all day with this. I bet this happens to everyone these days.