MeTV has a commercial for their line-up of classic Westerns that features a woman singing something like, “Everybody’s got their weapons drawn/Darling, darling/You’re in the Wild West.”
I like the song, but research shows it’s not actually an entire song, but rather a promotional piece. It got me thinking though of times when I bought an album because I heard a song in an unlikely place.
I mean, I think we’ve all had times when they played a song on the radio, or a friend played a song on the stereo, and we liked it so much we bought it. Also times when a trusted music critic wrote about a song that sounded like something we’d like. But how about other ways of discovering a piece of music?
For example, years ago there was a commercial for cereal (Cheerios, I think) that featured a rendition of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” that I really liked. It took some research but I found out it was “Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World” by Israel Kamikawiwo’ole (may he rest in peace). I’d never heard of him before (I’m often quite out of it), but I bought the album and still love it.
Another time, I was reading a book by Jennifer Crusie (her books are a lot of fun). At one point the protagonist and her niece were riding in her truck, singing “Us Amazonians” by Kirsty MacColl (may she rest in peace). I’d never heard of MacColl before (again, out of it) but I bought the album and love it.
So what music have you heard (or heard of) in an unusual place and bought the album?
I miss Tower Records and the new and eclectic music they would play. I made many an impulse buy. In my opinion, we are poorer as a music listening peoples without places like Tower.
I learned of Jessy Bulbo from the Grand Theft Auto 5 soundtrack. This is one of the coolest songs in the game, and there are lots of cool songs in that game!
I learned of Jessy Bulbo from the Grand Theft Auto 5 soundtrack. This is one of the coolest songs in the game, and there are lots of cool songs in that game!
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This reminds me of Monster Magnets See You in Hell from Fallout 4. Dark and hooky.
The Last Temptation of Christ, boring movie but saw the soundtrack was by Peter Gabriel and bought it. Not music you’d play at a party but quite interesting.
I work in advertising. About a decade ago, our creative team had put together a concept for a TV ad for our client (a health insurance company), with a neat piece of music as a temporary soundtrack. I asked the ad’s writer about it, and he told me it was a song by Interpol, “Hands Away.” I went out and bought the CD to get this particular song.
In the late '80s, before my wife and I got together, she was living with her dad in Florida. She heard a song on an ad for Publix supermarkets which she liked, and somehow managed to track down that it was a song by the Pat Metheny Group, “Last Train Home.” She, too, bought the CD for that song.
Twenty years ago, we were driving from Dublin to Cork with our little kids (9 and 4), listening to the local radio. On came a sprightly Irish trad piece, played on PIANO. Ukulele Lady and I said “My god, this is great!”
Passing through Cork, we headed up the west coast, constantly asking about this musician…Padraig SOMETHING. From county Clare. Everyone was “Irish trad on PIANO? It don’t happen.”
We had to drive back from Sligo to Dublin to fly back to NYC, and we found time to hit a local Tower (or similar record shop) and scored the last CD by Padraig, with the piece we heard as the opener.
Most of my CDs are down in the basement now. If Yojimbo or another Irishman music lover can identify this piano guy, great. Otherwise, I’ll go down and burrow around.
On my honeymoon in Jamaica, I kept hearing a song blasting in the streets, and finally found a place that could sell me the album. The song was Sean Paul, “Infiltrate,” and the album was No Fear 2 Hard, which has a number of artists (including Beenie Man) singing over the same couple of rhythm tracks.
I was in a strange little shop near Kilauea Light–unclear if it was mostly selling cushions and cushion covers, or plants, or arty little things. They were playing a song that sounded like weird reinterpreted lounge music, so I bought the CD, Don Tiki Adultrated, a remix album.
Not really an unusual place…the record store was playing it…but Buckshot laFonque wasn’t my usual fare, but I was impressed enough to purchase it on the spot.
Back when Craig Kilbourne was still doing his show after Letterman (I think it was), he started talking about this British singer, and how he’d finally learned who she was, and she was going to be on the show in a few weeks time. So he had a timer at the bottom of the screen for when Dido was going to be on the show. He played a snippet of one of her songs, and I was transfixed by her voice. I went out and bought her CD that next day.
I got into Ben Folds because I’m a huge Counting Crows fan, and a line in one of their songs mentions Ben (“got nowhere left but home to go…got Ben Folds on my radio right now”), so I had to give him a listen.
In rural Tennessee there is a yearly festival - RC-Moon Pie Festival. They have crafts and a stage for different acts. It’s basically celebrating old-time/rural stuff.
One of the acts did a dance to I Don’t Feel Like Dancin’ by the Scissor Sisters. I wonder how many of the conservative country people knew the song, the artist, and what the group is named after.
I hadn’t heard the song before, but I liked it and bought it.
I was walking past a music store in Lisbon, Portugal in 1993 and heard “What’s Up?” playing through the open doorway. I literally stopped dead in my tracks, listened for a moment, then went in a bought the CD. Linda Perry just has one of those powerful voices that demands your attention.
I was 16, it was 1977 and I was reading Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land, and it mentioned the Mars, The Bringer of War by Holst being used as the planetary anthem and I had never heard it before so I went to a record store [Buzzo’s in Geneseo NY] and bought the Tomita version. It is a funky synthesied/sampled version. I also later bought the London Philharmonic version to hear the ‘regular’ orchesteral version. I have to admit, I prefer Tomita’s version. I actually have a fair selection of Tomita [love his version of teh Firebird Suite] I had them on vinyl, but ended up rebuying them on CD later. No longer have the vinyl.
I was in a Barnes and Noble and the music they were piping in caught my ear so I shazammed it - it was Tillery by Becca Stevens Band. Bought their albums, became a big fan. They’re NYC based, so I saw them a couple of times.
A few years ago I watched a spate of European supernatural/science fiction series on Netflix - The Rain, Dark, The Innocents - the soundtracks had songs by Feist, Eefje de Visserand Agnes Obel. I think I bought all their albums. Great stuff, even though Eefje de Visser sings in Dutch exclusively.
A little research into a Volkswagen commercial yielded Y Desacher by Argentinian rocker Marilina Bertoldi.
A query on this very board identified a song that made me grin while grocery shopping - Runaways by Janet Jackson
About a year ago I was in the Tower Records in Tokyo when a Japanese song started playing. It sounded really good, so I bought it even though I never heard of the artist and I don’t speak Japanese. I was very happy with the purchase.
I first heard the group Material when The Sopranos used their piece Seven Souls for the opening montage of season 6, possibly the most unlikely music for a gangster show ever (especially with a narration by William Burroughs). I got the album and love it.
I recall hearing Lua Soberana from Sergio Mendes album Brasiliero at Tower Records in 1992, and immediately getting the record. Mendes had been passe in the US for some years at that point and I wouldn’t have heard it otherwise. I made dozens of impulse buys there. I miss it a great deal.
Ah, Tower records–I bought The Cramps’ Psychedelic Jungle because they were playing it while I was browsing and I couldn’t stop dancing. I miss Tower.
The Sopranos used a track from Alabama 3 as the theme music and I went scouting for the band and discovered that’s the least of their songs. Love those guys.
It used to be WAY more of a challenge to track down music before the internet made it simple. The movie Subway Stories used Los Lobos’ Everybody Loves A Train and that was a real bitch to find but it remains one of my favorite songs to this day. I found Morphine’s Murder For The Money in the movie Wild Things then discovered that Mark Sandman was the vocalist for Treat Her Right as well, and I had the cassette tape of their first album I bought on a whim back when it first came out, years previous. Amores Perros introduced me to Control Machete. IMDB sure makes it easy to find music from movies and TV shows, I must say.
