10 SONGZ: Grocery Store Classics

Let's take a trip to the grocery store! 

I have childhood memories of going to grocery stores once a month with my mom. As an adult, I go to grocery stores frequently. Full disclosure: I don't know what I want to eat 2 weeks from now, yet still somehow always proceed to buy the same crap for myself every few days. ANYWAYS... Many songs I heard at grocery stores as a kid are still being played there today.

I guess this list could get very long if I included music from the late 90s, but the staples that come to mind are from an older time. These are some unintentionally milquetoast hits that became popular before The Chronic officially shattered the innocence of music marketing. Late 80s and early 90s. So today we breakdown the Grocery Store Classics. Don't act like you're above it, when it sure looks like you love it.

Here's 10 SONGZ! 

Don Henley The Heart of the Matter

This song has been king of the grocery store circuit for years. Kind of a perfect recipe for how to end up here. Singer is 10 years removed from his famous rock band, takes a crack at making a Grammy-baiting "mature" album, and its 4th single attains grocery store glory.

Steve Winwood Roll with It

I've heard this song in like 100 different grocery stores and only just now found out it's by Steve Winwood. And I always thought it was titled "Work with It." This man has lived like 7 different careers. Didn't know karaoke machine R&B was also in his bag.

Toad the Wet Sprocket Walk on the Ocean

Sometimes things at the grocery store can get pretty serious. "Somebody told me that this is the place where everything's better" hits a lot different while you're contemplating which flavor of Pop-Tarts you should buy this week. I often imagine walking on the ocean with Toad the Wet Sprocket.

John Fogerty Rock and Roll Girls

John Fogerty's best-selling solo album has a couple notable hits on there. But I feel like I've only ever heard its 3rd single "Rock and Roll Girls" while grocery shopping. Is that just me?

James Brown Living in America

I don't know what was actually considered "cool" in the mid-80s. Was Rocky IV cool? I just remember hearing this once at a Walmart in July while their station was counting down the greatest patriotic songs, and I found myself laughing through the whole thing.

Marc Cohn Walking in Memphis

Like I said before, sometimes things at the grocery store can get pretty serious. I don't think I ever doubted the sincere spirit of this song. Infusing soft rock with gospel isn't a crime. But because the world works the way it does... I'm always gonna associate it with the produce section.

Howard Jones Things Can Only Get Better

I didn't want to include too much synth-pop on here, as it predates most grocery store standards. But Howard Jones should have known when he wrote this hook that this song was gonna be more tied with adult contemporary than anything Duran Duran ever did.

Whitney Houston I'm Your Baby Tonight

There's always something funny about hearing a minor key song at a grocery store. I can feel my eyebrows narrowing downward. The shopping focus you walked in with has now become intense. You reach out for that can of tomato sauce and whisper into it: "I'm your baby tonight."

Huey Lewis & The News Doing It All for My Baby

These guys released 6 singles from their album Fore! and this was single #6. Sounds like an excessive amount, but singles like these tend to live forever in the grocery store circuit. For what it's worth, I've heard some Fore! songs on the radio. But this one's made for the bread aisle.

Go West The King of Wishful Thinking

Choosing songs for this blogpost, I couldn't believe this wasn't made in the 80s. I mean, 1990 is almost the 80s, but still. I wondered if this was by Calloway, but no. They're 2 white guys, and they look like a couple of dorks in their 30s. Just like me. I don't know if I should feel inspired or embarrassed.

10 SONGZ: My Favorite Jerome Summer

We're already back!

I've realized that this 10 SONGZ series is a really easy premise to work with. I could be churning these out every 2 weeks. At least until I'm tired of it. I don't know how to make the blurbs more universally interesting, so I could at least make them personally nostalgic. 

On that note... I've spent my whole summer in Jerome. I've done this a few times in my adulthood. But nothing has come close to my favorite summer in Jerome. Sometimes I walk outside and get a whiff of the air around me and it takes me back...

The year is 2008! I'm 17 years old, between junior and senior year of high school. I could list off a bunch of self-referential stuff that made this summer stick out to me. The bike rides, the late nights, the backpacking trip, The Laramie Project, the 1984 Honda Civic... To me, music is memory. I decided I'd write about the new music I was into from this time. Maybe this will get you reminiscing over your first time watching The Dark Knight or something.

Here's 10 SONGZ!

R.E.M. Supernatural Superserious

The most accurate bellwether for my music taste at the time is the fact that I bought this CD the week it was released at the Twin Falls Best Buy. Accelerate might be R.E.M's best post-Bill Berry album, but I'm pretty biased.

Beck Modern Guilt

I also bought this CD the week it was released at the Twin Falls Best Buy. I show a little embarrassed smile whenever I talk about Beck. He was my favorite artist when I was 17. I thought he was weird + cool, and I also thought I was weird + cool. I might have been 0 for 2 on that... 

Fleet Foxes Blue Ridge Mountains

Just magical times, man. I watched Fleet Foxes play this song on Letterman, then immediately bought the album. Funny to think things used to work that way. The indie folk sound was very much new to me. Didn't know this would go on to influence some of the most annoying music of the 2010s.

The Hold Steady Sequestered in Memphis

I also watched these guys play on Letterman. I really believed there was reasonable anticipation for an event like that. The Hold Steady were definitely part of my transition from scanning alt-rock radio stations to discovering indie acts on the internet. "Subpoenaed in Texas, sequestered in Memphis!"

Santigold L.E.S. Artistes

If you want to know where I was getting all my music recs from, all these first 5 songs were from albums that got 4 stars from Rolling Stone. Santigold was super hyped at the time, like she was the modern day trailblazer for new wave. Didn't know she released that debut album at 31 years old.

Coldplay Lost!

Coldplay was everywhere this summer. This was an album I owned, and a bunch of my friends did as well, so just a lot of shared memories here. I'm still confounded by the song "Viva La Vida" being such a huge hit. "Lost!" was the better single. And "Strawberry Swing" deserved more spotlight.

Lil Wayne Mr. Carter (ft. Jay-Z)

Lil Wayne was everywhere this summer. Rap was still off limits to me at this point. But I basically heard the whole album by way of my friends driving me around everywhere, and they were all listening to Tha Carter III. Learned a lot of new uses for referencing genitalia in a sentence.

Mudcrutch The Wrong Thing to Do

Mudcrutch was a Tom Petty side project that strictly stuck with southern rock. I didn't ask for it, but my high school drama teacher burned me a copy of the album. Honestly, I appreciate it more with age, as a guitarist. And this song is badass.

Love Hӓndel You Snuck Your Way Right Into My Heart

I was never a Disney Channel guy. But here I was, a 17 year-old watching new Phineas and Ferb episodes after work with my 16 year-old sister. The songs never really go away. The Love Hӓndel episode might have been the best. "Goodnight, Tri-State Area!"

Usher Love in This Club (ft. Jeezy)

It took me so long to appreciate pop music. I look back on late-2000s pop fondly, because it feels so blatantly overblown and ironic. "I wanna make love in this club" is a sentiment I'm sure we can all relate to. When Usher played the Super Bowl, I was sad that he didn't bring out Jeezy for his verse here. I needed that. Sexually, mentally, physically, emotionally.