Our internal dialogues can wax philosophical while we move through the freezer section in a cloud of depression, slowly feeling the fog lift as Joan Osborne’s “One of Us” brings immediate clarity to the nuances of our existence while we reach for the Häagen-Dazs. And when the Christopher Cross classic “Sailing” comes on — and you know it will — just leave us weeping into our fresh-baked loaves of bread.
When we traded nights at the club for a club membership to Costco, our definition of a “banger” quickly changed.
Maybe this is all because grocery stores were once a place of much less stress, a place where we followed blindly behind our moms and picked out our favorite sugary cereals and frozen pizza rolls before heading home, unaware of how much money preparing meals at home would actually cost.
The music hasn’t changed much since those days. We’re not sure why, but we’re not complaining. And the playlists we’re talking about only make sense in this one, fluorescent-lit context, with occasional interruptions on the overhead speaker from flustered cashiers needing backup, and excitable managers hyping free samples of Cheez Whiz right when the memorable chorus is about to start.
Michael Bolton, Phil Collins, Mariah Carey: all supermarket superstars. These and dozens of other artists and their songs don’t usually make it past the sliding doors and into our cars and headphones at home, but they grasp at all of our feels while we trudge along with our shopping carts, looking for diapers, Tums and lunch meats.
What a beautiful place to be. Because, let’s face it, where else are we going to hear “The Tears of a Clown” followed by “She’s So High”? Below, we’ve curated a list of the 20 most quintessential grocery store songs to help us stock up without feeling down.
