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10/15/2003: "music, you're needed in aisle five"
I love hearing music I like in stores. I like the staticky way that songs sound over the intercom, the shock of recognition, the way that the soundtrack affects my buying mood, and the challenge of figuring out why particular songs were chosen by Faceless Corporate Headquarters to construct a certain 'ambience'. Most fucked-up song heard in a supermarket: 'Singin' in the Rain', which would play on repeat each time the vegetable mist-jets were activated in the produce section (about once every 10 minutes), inspiring awful Clockwork Orange flashbacks. Most affecting song heard over the intercom, in some hip store: Pere Ubu's 'Heart of Darkness', which almost moved me to tears when it got abruptly cut off, during the long, hauntingly slow buildup, for the announcement 'Susie in sales, you're needed in Aisle 3!' Most hilarious song heard while buying a reading lamp the other day: ABC's 'Look of Love', which prompted the middle-aged women shopping next to me in Housewares with babies in tow to start dancing and karaoke-ing the lyrics when they thought no one was looking.