No Longer “Lost” in the Supermarket

As with most albums by chart artists at the time, I listened to Ashlee Simpson’s “I Am Me” album once when it came out in 2005. I remember liking a song or two enough to rip them into iTunes, one of which was probably the Gwen Stefani-ish “Burning Up,” but if I did, those songs didn’t stay there forever.

Last fall, I was at a Shop Rite supermarket in Northern New Jersey. I heard a song that sounded great — at least at half-volume in the aisles. Out came Shazam. It was “Burning Up.” When I got home, I dug out the CD. In the store, it was hot and propulsive. At home, it was just okay.

That is the magic of programming for retail. Over the years, I’ve Shazammed lots of songs that sounded like potential radio secret weapons at the right volume on the store speakers. On the home listen, some were just songs that sounded like other hits, others felt a little too left-field for radio. But in their intended environment, they added the right energy, something which has become a particularly tall order now.

In recent years, retail music has expanded beyond bricks and mortar. James Cridland has been writing (and podcasting) for years about Coles Radio—the in-store service of Australia’s largest supermarket chain, now available via DAB as well. Walmart World Radio is hosted in several dayparts and solicits requests from the employees who are its intended audience. Reader Brian Michael hipped me to it; Fred Jacobs wrote about it last fall.

Music heard in retail or other public venues has always been a favorite topic of Ross on Radio readers. It has even become a trope on social media or fodder for comedians in recent years. Usually, it’s the lost oldie that gets the attention. But there’s something about certain never-familiar songs that sounds great as well. The ones you don’t recognize are fun to discover; the ones you do know are secret handshakes.

Coles Radio and Walmart World Radio are available via streaming. Village Radio is the soundtrack of Village Supermarkets, owner of several New York area ShopRites and other local chains. Village Radio does not stream. Since last March, I’ve heard it for a few songs at a time while moving through the aisles with dispatch. (Honestly, some of what made the Ashlee Simpson song sound great was probably the elevated adrenaline of doing any errand in person last fall.)

Much of the business of supermarket radio now is safety. In COVID’s early days, when stores were the intersection of safety concerns and shortages, I heard a Village Radio promo thanking their associates for work under extraordinary circumstances, followed by “Eye of the Tiger.” It was as good a motivational moment as any I heard on radio anywhere. Coles Radio urges you to scan in when you enter the store for contract tracing. Also, if great radio teaches you something about where it’s broadcasting from, it was running promos for drought-relief efforts for local farmers.

I took a Fresh Listen to Walmart World Radio and to Coles Radio’s service for the Melbourne region (one of seven different feeds). Village Radio’s Rob Moorhead, whose broadcast-radio stops include New Jersey’s WSOU, WDHA, and WNNJ, furnished a log so I could share a longer stretch of the service.

Village Radio uses retail secret weapons heavily, although you’ll also hear some of what could be called “in-store’s greatest hits.” Walmart is more based in songs that were once on the radio at some point. Hearing Coles Radio in America is somewhere in the middle, because of the songs, both Australian and international, that were bigger hits there. All of them, of course, offer variety and depth beyond what a major-market radio station would play now. 

Here’s Walmart Radio at 7:40 a.m. ET on Sept. 20:

• Sam Smith, “Diamonds”
• Jennifer Lopez, “On the Floor”
• Dua Lipa, “We’re Good”
• Katy Perry, “California Gurls”
• Lewis Capaldi, “Before You Go”
• Dan + Shay f/Justin Bieber, “10,000 Hours”
• Tai Verdes, “A-O-K”
• James Brown, “Living in America”
• Florida Georgia Line, “Cruise”
• Tara Kemp, “Hold You Tight”
• Kygo & Whitney Houston, “Higher Love”
• Carrie Underwood, “Before He Cheats”
• Neil Sedaka, “That’s When the Music Takes Me”—when I last listened to the service in June, the ‘70s-pop outlier in the mix was Jefferson Starship’s “Runaway”
• Miley Cyrus, “Midnight Sky”
• Christina Aguilera, “Fighter”
• Janet Jackson, “When I Think of You”

Coles has seven regional feeds. Here’s the Coles Radio feed for Melbourne/Victoria at 7 a.m. on Sept. 21:

• Starship, “We Built This City”
• M-People, “Open Your Heart”
• Delta Goodrum, “Lost Without You”
• Miley Cyrus, “Midnight Sky”
• Wang Chung, “Everybody Have Fun Tonight”
• Khalid & Disclosure, “Know Your Worth”
• Commitments, “Mustang Sally”
• Dionne Warwick & Friends, “That’s What Friends Are For”
• Ed Sheeran, “Shivers” (with a new music sweeper; “now that’s Coles fresh!” declares a listener)
• Ace of Base, “All That She Wants”
• Queen, “Radio Ga-Ga”
• Missy Higgins, “Steer”
• Baker Boy f/G Flip, “My Mind”
• Aretha Franklin & George Michael, “I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)”
• Diesel, “Tip of My Tongue” (the ‘90s Australian pop/rock hit, no relation to the “Sausalito Summernight” act)

I also got to hear the same Coles feed in overnights, local time. In those hours, there are sweepers but no advertisements for in-store specials, merchant partners, etc., and the music is somewhat more dance/rhythmic pop-oriented.

• Taylor Swift f/Brendon Urie, “Me!” — sounded great, after 10 weeks on the radio and two years on hold
• Silverchair, “Waiting All Day”
• Mike Waters, “Keep On Dancing”
• S.O.A.P., “This Is How We Party”
• Dynamic Hepnotics, “Gotta Be Wrong (Way to Love)” — retro R&B-flavored Australian hit from 1985
• Usher, “DJ Got Us Falling in Love”
• Ariana Grande, “7 Rings”
• Atomic Kitten, “It’s OK”
• Blanco Brown, “The Git Up”
• Motiv8, “Rockin’ for Myself”
• Modern Talking, “You’re My Heart, You’re My Soul” — German mid-‘80s synth-pop that was huge outside the U.S. and Canada
• Ladyhawke, “Think About You” — also got the new-music stager
• Calvin Harris, “Acceptable in the 80’s” (punctuation theirs)

And here’s a roughly hour-long stretch of Village Radio on Sept. 19:

• Kiss, “I Was Made for Loving You”
• ABC, “Tower of London”
• Justin Bieber, “Holy”
• Snow Patrol, “Chasing Cars”
• Go-Go’s, “Get Up and Go”
• Emili Sande, “Next to Me”
• Mary Lambert, “Sum of Our Parts”
• Depeche Mode, “Strangelove”
• 98 Degrees, “My Everything”
• Steve Perry, “No Erasin’”
• E.G. Daily, “Say It, Say It”
• Lady A, “I Run to You”
• Script, “Breakeven”
• The Weeknd, “Save Your Tears”
• Fixx, “Secret Separation”
• Jake Scott, “Meet My Shadow” — recent pop
• Andy Grammer, “Red Eye”
• Lionel Richie, “Penny Lover”
• Hailee Steinfeld, “Starving”

I plucked that sample of Village Radio from an entire day’s log. To keep it from being overwhelming, I stopped arbitrarily, but the next hour or so would’ve also included the following (not consecutively):

• Mariah Carey, “It’s Like That”
• Ben Folds Five, “Army”
• Loud Luxury f/Brando, “Body”
• Panic! at the Disco, “High Hopes”
• Guns N’ Roses, “Sweet Child o’ Mine”
• Matthew West, “What If” 
• Billy Idol, “Eyes Without a Face”
• Huey Lewis & News, “Finally Found a Home”
• Third Eye Blind, “How’s It Going to Be”
• Dionne Warwick, “Moments Aren’t Moments” — from Stevie Wonder’s Lady in Red soundtrack
• Edward Sharpe & Magnetic Force, “Home” — along with “Chasing Cars,” probably the ultimate retail/music supervisor song 

Here are Ross On Radio readers talking about their favorite songs encountered in the wild.