Consider the Bangers
The lost art of hearing a silly song in public.
Last Friday, the capstone to a weekend where none of us knew whether the country and its torturous leadership was coming or going, I held a small memorial for one of my favorite traditions that seems to be on its way out: the CVS banger.
Conceived in 2013 by artist Jayson Musson under his "DJ Hennessy Youngman" moniker, CVS Bangers is an ongoing faux-mixtape series combining adult-contemporary or pop-recurrent radio-friendly songs—the kind you'd hear while re-upping on toothpaste or cold meds—interspersed with absurd interjections that make DJ Khaled seem like Dick Clark. The first roommate I had when I moved to Queens hipped me to the format, whose fifth volume was released last year, and it became a running joke in our friendship.
Of course, the CVS Banger was never far from my ears as a youth. As a child, the car radio was most often tuned to 105.1 FM—which was WNSR ("New York's Soft Rock") and then WMXV ("Mix 105")—or Magic 98.3, Central Jersey's equivalent on WMGQ. (This was before the eventual hegemony of Clear Channel (and then iHeartRadio)'s 106.7 Lite FM.) I vividly remember the lite-rock hits that filled my ears from this era: songs like this, this, this, or this, which would occupy the corners of my mind only to bring forth great waves of emotion in my 20s and 30s as I got into some of those artists, not realizing the seeds had been sown long ago.
The inter-media advertisement is a weird little art form. I was always struck by this run of WPLJ ads rallying against some of the most commercially viable pop music of the age, and also snuck in a few seconds of a "Weird Al" Yankovic video in that thesis.
Hearing music in public is a sure sign you're alive. Department stores and malls have been pumping music into the backgrounds of our lives for decades. It's an honest-to-God aesthetic, even to generations who've had to cope with monuments to commerce decaying under the weight of Internet, pandemic, venture capital or other forms of social malaise. It still happens, but you'll have to take off your headphones and seek it out. On a good day, a trip to a store will smack me with a surprise—a song I know well and love dearly, but would never expect to hear in public. Songs like this, this, this, or this.
I live for these moments because they often feel so different to the insular musical experiences that seem to be default. Maybe that's nostalgia, but you can sometimes feel the liner notes on these tracks, or smell the studio they were recorded in. I don't fret about where pop music "is," in part because I am nearly 40 years old. That said, I once got emotional hearing Autograph's "Turn Up the Radio" in public and realizing the lyrics were directed outward to an invisible crowd of multiples instead of the person-to-person dialogue space that the last year's best future CVS bangers all seem to occupy. (It feels like a revelation when a one-to-many song escapes containment, which is why it rules to hear "Hot to Go!" at a wedding.)
Do you think anyone from Empire Records was reached out to for this video?
Back to the present. On this particular trip to CVS, while waiting in line for my prescription, I was greeted by the jangles of Gin Blossoms' "Til I Hear It from You," a song that makes me feel all sorts of feelings: disdain for a wildly-overrated movie, heartache for the Blossoms' occasionally dark narrative, and adoration for the pen of Marshall Crenshaw. At this particular moment, however, that is not exactly what happened. About 75 seconds into the song, it was suddenly replaced by a cacophony of automated calls—you know the ones. Customer service was needed in about four or five different aisles, all holding merchandise in locked glass cases. The din didn't quell until the song's last vamps.
I won't dwell too deeply on the abject stupidity of these practices—practices, one should at least note, even the CEOs of these companies almost acknowledge are ill-conceived. But I will wonder if this is just another fun thing left to wither on the vine in the 21st century? Nothing is sacred to These People...but will we let the in-public song go the way of the ringback tone?
One time I heard this song in a Five Guys and two other people, older or younger than me by 5-7 years, perked up and began to sing along. I'm telling you, it's a good feeling.
One can only ask so much of their fellow man, but let this be your reminder to keep an ear out once in awhile. Maybe you'll catch a stranger's eye as you both share an unspoken memory of whatever song is playing. It's not a meet-cute, but it's a reminder that there are others out there who can open their hearts the same way we all should for those who are only trying to live. Maybe you don't want to take advice from fools...maybe you'll keep thinking everything is cool...but music of all stripes is a balm in the toughest of times. As one of those CVS bangers goes: you only get what you give.