PUBLIC LISTENING: WALMART
A SATURDAY IN JERSEY
Did you know that Walmart has its own proprietary in-store radio station? Started in the early 1990s, WNW Radio is currently beamed into every Walmart and Sam’s Club in America. Though the station paused operations in 2010, it reemerged in 2016 with an interesting prompt: Walmart put out an open call to employees across all sectors to apply to be a full-time on-air personality. In the end, three were chosen, with the winners relocating to company headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas.
Public Listening is easily the most psychotic “recurring segment” on this music blog. So far, I’ve gone to a Dunkin’ Donuts in North Brooklyn and an H&M in Midtown Manhattan. In search of another novel way to waste time and listen to barely audible music in a retail environment, I traveled roughly four hours round trip to a Walmart Supercenter in Bayonne, New Jersey.
When I was a kid in counterculture, Walmart was a major corporate enemy. To some extent, that anger has shifted to the Amazon empire. But the Supercenter hasn’t gone anywhere. Last year, I purchased a Kobo Libra e-reader, which is touted as an alternative to the Kindle. And it’s true, it does provide an alternative: When you boot up the device, the default e-store has nothing to do with Amazon. It’s run by Walmart.
3:54: Taylor Swift “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”
After a long subway ride and a short PATH train ride and then a moderately long Hudson-Bergen Light Rail ride, I was spat out somewhere in Bayonne, where I walked 10 minutes to a sprawling parking lot. Living in New York City means living in a permanent 4:3 aspect ratio; entering that parking lot was like switching to widescreen, the kind of widescreen that I know from Springsteen songs. What I’m trying to say: the lot contained a Jersey Mike’s, a Five Guys and a Panda Express. There was also a store I had never heard of called Whole Pets Market. Their logo seemed to play on the classic Whole Foods serif, but the brand was completely unrelated. I entered the Walmart. At first, I couldn’t hear any music. Hiking to the electronics section offered a bit more clarity. I was in New Jersey, listening to Taylor Swift at an almost imperceptible volume.
3:56: Andrés Cabas “Mi Bombón”
"Mi Bombón" sounds like a circa-2000 update on regional Colombian music. Not a coincidence: That year, it sat at the top of the country’s charts for three straight months. As the song played, I checked out a rack of vinyl. These are the records that clog up the pipeline so you can’t press 300 copies of your band’s post-punk album: a Walmart-exclusive "daffodil yellow" pressing of a 2021 Aly & AJ album; another Walmart-exclusive run of a Now That’s What I Call Music! Compilation (magenta and green vinyl); the Forest Gump soundtrack.
3:59: Alessia Cara “Scars To Your Beautiful”
An ident for the Walmart radio network played, complete with its own bumper and stinger sounds—the sonic equivalent of the overhead fluorescent lighting I bathed in as I stared, blank-faced, at a giant flatscreen TV. Sometimes, the peripheral artifacts of radio can feel as important as the music itself. I spent the whole song examining a 2-in-1 desk lamp that was explicitly made for vlogging. It was only $4.88.
Between tracks, I listened to an advertisement promising the ultimate in back-to-school savings. Nicky Jam is a reggaeton legend who has been in it for a minute. He’s really weathered multiple eras of the genre. His 2001 Daddy Yankee collab "En La Cama" is almost unbelievably hard. I was still in the corner of the electronics section, checking out a selection of music-themed Funko Pops. I know very little about these objects, but to many, they seem to signify the worst in contemporary Reddit collector impulses. Funko Pops are so hated that I am convinced the next wave of art school kids will be using them as source material in the same way that Paper Rad used Troll Dolls. There is an entire language of cringe just waiting to be manipulated by a future generation. "Sin Novia'' has a great soccer chant section.
4:07: Keith Urban “Somebody Like You”
I can’t get enough of these Walmart radio bumpers. As one played, I imagined a coast-to-coast community of Walmart shoppers—a shared experience based around pop music, affordable groceries, and underpaid labor. I looked at a prepackaged nylon American flag banner. I felt like I was drifting out of my depth. "Somebody Like You" is the first song on Urban’s 2002 album Golden Road. It’s over five minutes long.
4:13: Daughtry “It’s Not Over”
I wandered around the clothing section as this song slid in and out of coherence. A shirt said, "I speak fluent Friends quotes." Fall gear was already in the mix; a few days ago, I overheard a woman on the subway talking about how ready she was. It’s been a weird ass summer. "It’s Not Over" is the first song on the self-titled 2006 Daughtry record. The cover of the album, which shows the singer standing in front of a series of vanishing bodies, recalls the kind of graphic design work that I associate with Criss Angel Mindfreak. The great active rock/street magic cultural feedback loop. Two album openers in a row. Who is curating Walmart Radio? I have some questions.
4:16: Nickodemus & Quantic “Mi Swing Es Tropical”
Earlier in the day, in an attempt to eradicate an allergic headache, I drank too much coffee—namely, a cold brew from the confusing chain Gregory’s. My entire body felt light and frail. My head was pounding and I was enduring an ad for a rotisserie chicken special. There seemed to be a slight pattern to the programming on Walmart radio: a country or rock song followed by a Latin American song. No rap or R&B to be found, but this cut does feature a producer who put a few records out on Mush back in the day. All around me, grown adults went about their weekend, taking care of the business they were too busy to handle during the workweek. Contrast that with me, a grown child, straining my ears to listen to a fake radio station.
4:20: P!nk (Feat. Nate Ruess) “Just Give Me A Reason”
Last week, I attended a P!nk concert at Citi Field. There was so much going on that my eyes and ears and brain were not able to properly communicate with each other. P!nk dropped onto the stage from an overhead bungee cord; following that, she somehow managed to fuck up the lyrics to "Get The Party Started," which was confusing but didn’t seem to matter. Despite the fact that she was performing for 50,000 people at a baseball stadium—despite the fact that she was building her set around a complicated array of aerial maneuvers—her demeanor was shockingly casual. Sick gig!
In the magazine section, I flipped through an issue of XXL. It was thinner than a coupon supplement. 17-year-old Luh Tyler on his school experience: "Science class was probably the class I liked the most. The teacher, she just made it fun." I was bad at science, but I did have one teacher who actually kind of made it fun. I even got to write a rap for one assignment, which was probably the only reason I was able to pass. Lenier is a Cuban vocalist who you might know from his recent track with 6ix9ine. "Como Te Pago" is more traditional than that song.
4:28: Ringo Starr & Vandaveer “Photograph”
After an ad for Lysol Air Sanitizer, I was treated to a collaboration between Ringo and an “indie folk project” from the DMV. “Photograph” is, curiously enough, the final song on their record. Seriously though… Who is in charge of programming, and are they just choosing the first or last cut from any given record? I didn’t hear a single radio DJ. My mistake: weekends are pre-tapes.
4:32: Marc Anthony “Y Hubo Alguien”
I took in a selection of Sun Chips: Southwestern Queso, Spicy Jalapeno, Original, French Onion, Garden Salsa. It reminded me of the brief period in my life when I worked as a Subway sandwich artist. I wish I could say that I got fired from that job for something cool like smoking weed or stealing money from the register, but the sad fact is that the manager was monitoring my artistic work, so to speak, on CCTV. I got canned because I made the subs too slowly. I ambled into the grocery section, which was much louder. The song dribbled into ambient territory.
I love these 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼