WOW! I worked for Tower Sound in Greenville for a few years. We produced some of those tapes! It's amazing to see them again, and even stranger to hear them online. It was torture for me to sit in the studio and put them together, especially when the holidays rolled around (producing months in advance). The man's voice is that of Lee Rutherford, the owner of Tower Sound. He was the owner of radio station WDRK in Greenville.
Was there any type of selection process when making the set for the Kmart tapes? The first song on October 1989 is wonderful even though it's just production music. 1:49
Everyone, the entire collection was digitized to 320 MP3 back in 2014 and have reached out to archive.org to determine the best way to preserve these and make them available for all.
Everyone, you begged and I have listened. Give me some time. I am uploading these as fast as I can. All 60+ will be posted soon. Please let me know what you end up doing with them, I would love to know, really! archive.org/details/@davismv
+Mark Davis I and many others may sample it in music, or just enjoy it for pure aesthetic purposes. This stuff has so much promise and I can't wait to hear it all!
+Mark Davis Thanks Mark! However, I've noticed that you've accidentally been tagging the cassettes as vaporware, which is completely different from vaporwave. Could you possibly fix this error?
This is amazing Mark. I worked at Kmart back in Detroit for a few months in the summer of 89' right after I graduated HS. To this day I still remember listening to Kmart radio while I worked. Never in my life did I think I would ever get to hear this stuff again. That muffled sound brings back all the memories. Thanks so much..
News Flash! Somebody I have been corresponding with in Florida just sent me two reels, one is from 1988 and the other is from the 70s. I will be transferring these soon and look for a special UA-cam video on them. These are the real deal. The 1988 tape has a date on it printed and it's in a tape a thon box. So Kmart really did use reel to reel's to the very end.
I worked for one Kmart in the late 80's and another in the early 90's. I think they both used reel to reel. I'm certain that the first store did. Thanks for the flashback!
Thanks Sooo much!! My daughter was born in 1988, my son 1991. My wife spent countless hours in Kmart in Santa Rosa, CA finding the best deals on kids clothes, back-to-school specials etc. As I stood there, with that dumb blank look on my face, waiting for my wife to finish up, this muzak was all that kept me entertained. A real trip down a nostalgic time in my life - Thanks again!
I was born in 1993, and I can still remember shopping at Kmart as a kid. My parents and I would buy clothes, groceries, school supplies etc. If only retail today was like what we had back in the day. Everything is all online now which of course is putting lots of pressure on the retail industry. This video brings a tear to my eye because of the nostalgia I feel.
The Pathmark supermarket chain here in the Northeast had similar "Pathmark Radio" jingles on their in-store music in the '80s and early '90s. As a kid back then, for a laugh I called up a store and asked if Pathmark Radio was a real radio station (I knew it wasn't). The person who answered the phone said it was played from tape, and they got new tapes every month. Indeed, I remember the sound was often dull and warbly and did sound like a worn-out tape, especially when the "commercials" came on.
@@MTLTV-eu4nv Tower Sound and Communications, at least their UK division, was bought by Imagesound - www.imagesound.co.uk - some TSC speakers are still in situ, usually Penton RCS 6/T COAX respectfully.
wii1245 Vaporware was software that didn't exist. It was just 'vapor'. Most vaporware floppy discs were just the plastic outer shell and metal plate, there was no magnetic disc inside for data to be stored on. Vaporware was commonly sold as joke software, where the packaging would advertise it as something like 'Microsoft Doors 98'.
vaporware is a software that has no substance vaporwave is a fairly artistic music genre which remixes corporate mall music type stuff crossing it with the styles of DJ Screw turning it into something else typically instrumentals and staying fairly close to hip hop.
Mark Davis email me your shipping info, I'll send you a cassette! Least I can do for the inspiration these recordings have given me! powerpcme@gmail.com
This is a fascinating glimpse into the recent past, one of the last decades in which physical retail outlets were in many cases the ONLY way to get hold of something. As for audio cassettes, my first home computer used them as data storage for games, and I've spent many a day at the double tape deck recording mix tapes and yeah, copying the odd game too. In hindsight they were an awesome format and in Walkman form stayed superior to CD when on the move for many years due to not skipping. I confess I hadn't even heard of the Vaporwave music genre, but it seems pretty much like what a lot of chill out room DJ's on the house and techno scene would play back in the mid 90's, within a jazzy funky trip hop and ambient style of set they'd often drop and scratch with all kinds of eclectic vinyl and samples, from 70's TV show themes to spoken word albums and anything kitsch or retro sounding. So it's amazing that this type of thing is finding popularity again a further 20 years down the line.
Funny enough I know people have said the song name already for 4:03 but even funnier is I work in a grocery store now and they still play that song even today 😂
I swear there is nothing better than seeing you leave the most honest and true comments on the most random YT videos. I Knew there was a reason I subscribed to you many years ago!
Nice video! I started at KMart on 6/26/1996 at age 16. I guess this is what was playing while I was busy working in the electronics department selling N64's, CD's, and VCR's
If you are talking about plural (more than one of something) then it is only an s at the end of the word. An apostrophe s ('s) is possessive (something belonging to) as in "Bob Marley's many lazy spelling mistakes."
+hkassasin What's funny is while I totally agree with you, there has never been a single offer for the collection other then for a single tape here and there. Not sure what the collection would be valued at?
The announcer sounds the same on all the cassettes. His voice is so soothing. These tapes makes me wish I could buy an Icee, a large popcorn and wander down the Kmart isles, waiting for the announcement to race to the blue light special.
August 1990 was when I was born!!!!!!!! Thanks, for this upload Memories of going to stores such as K-Mart, Caldor, Ames, and Jamesway as a kid with my family.
Late 80s early 90s K-Mart was peak. Takes me back to my childhood. I remember the music being played as my mom took me shopping and then to the K-Cafe which was boss.
YES! I married really young, and both hubby and I worked full time. KMART was the place for household items that I was not going to over pay for. Seriously, I was 19 in 1991, first child, and glasses, dishes, pots, pans on sale for under $10 bucks. Hair Dryer? $4.99. It's probably why they went out of business, but I appreciated it.
Hi, Mark! What a coincidence that this should come up on an old Bolingbrook gal's feed. You worked in a lot of my old haunts throughout Chicagoland! Thanks for posting this!!
Yeah, imagine if that happened at Walmart or Target. Instead you'd hear, "Have you tried that new fleece running hoodie? It's handcrafted in [insert developing country] for your enjoyment!"
@@LighthouseProductions1 Nope. Bulgaria is too expensive for Target and Walmart. Anything textile based is going to be made in the following countries; China,Vietnam, Bangladesh, and maybe Indonesia or Honduras, at least for the North American market. American retailers don't often import goods made in European countries.
yo mark, you don't know how important this is to a new arising genre of music called "vaporwave". You've basically organized a bunch of generic musak sample candidates for remixing. thank you so so much, you dont know how much this helps everyone in the genre. regards
When I worked at Toys R Us in the mid 80's the tapes were these weird things that looked like a cross between an 8 track and a Betamax tape. I guess they made them that way because employees would totally want to steal the music and announcements to listen to when they were not at work.
Saturday Kmart runs with my parents were a staple of my childhood shopping experience. Sometimes we were there so late that the lights would begin to turn off starting from the back in sporting goods. Fun memories, for sure. I never knew where the music came from. Thanks for sharing your tape collection Mark!
This is hands down one of the greatest discoveries I've ever come across on UA-cam. I have no idea how I got here, but I'm glad I did. Damn what a time warp it is listening to these hahahaha!!!
Hi Mark, this is really interesting. BTW, that song at about 2:53 in that you describe as "The Happy Organ" is a Muzak version of "People Will Say We're in Love" from Oklahoma! (the musical, not the actual state).
"The best to you from K Mart radio KMRT!" I definately remember hearing this jingle everytime I went to K Mart and love hearing it. Thank you for uploading this!
Thank you for sharing these tapes with the world! You helped save a special part of history and bring an entire community together while also inspiring new music coming from all these tapes. The first one from October of 1989 is still a good one!
This is one of the most fascinating things to have stumbled across on the Internet in a long time!! Thank you so much for treasuring a piece of hostel and making this available for the public. You're a legend mate xxx
Wow, I just came across this. Completely random. Kinda nifty. I remember shopping at K-mart with my family all the time when I was little. Thank you for sharing this :)
Copying, duplicating or reproducing in whole or in part, is prohibited by federal law +Mark Davis thank you for not listening to that. This is an amazing find
Thanks Mark, As a kid in the 80s going shopping was an experience everything was magical in the stores, you did not know where stuff came from, all you knew is that it was there in the store. The music brings back the good old days. You did not think of this at the time as a kid, but this is 50% of what made it a great experience to go shopping.
It's amazing to hear that 30th anniversary tape say that Kmart went from nothing to a household name. It was very true at the time. It's ironic that we are almost now 30 years past that and Kmart is no longer a household name. Amazing what can rise and fall in such a short time.
These are awesome! I worked at KMart when I was in high school from around 1987-1990. We would play them until the tape dragged. I don't have to listen to them because they are embedded in my brain from countless hours of hanging clothes on the racks, day after day, year after year hearing Alias sing "When I'm With You" and endless Dusty Lenscap commercials. "Hey this is Dusty Lenscap from the KMart photo center! Don't forget the film!". HAHA, thanks for the memories. Never occurred to me to keep the tapes but I didn't work the service desk.
Very unique collection. I think we had a satellite when I worked at Hill's in the mid '90s. Similar set up. A few songs with a commercial inserted every 10 or 15 minutes or so. My first job at a Rax restaurant, we had a set of 8 track style tapes we played which featured about 2 hours worth of songs. One of the tapes got really worn and you could hear it.
The 8 track looking tapes you used were likely the same "carts" that were used at radio stations for ads until the late 1990s (probably much later on smaller stations!). They are NOT the SAME as 8 track consumer tapes, but very similar, in fact the "cart" format LED to the "8 track" as we knew it.
This makes me nostalgic remembering the old town Kmart I shopped at in the early 2000's. I'd go there early (to beat the heat/crowd) on the weekend and hear all this great soft rock music like Winning by Santana and others I've never heard before while looking for work clothes. The store closed years ago, but your video took me back to those fond times. Kmart stores are pretty scarse locally but now they play a mixture of today (SelinaGomez) along great oldies like "On The Radio" by Donna Summer.
I miss Kmart! I have so many good memories shopping there every week with my Dad in the late 90s to early 2000s. I'll even go out of my way sometimes to get that nostalgic feeling again... too bad none are for sale. Great collection! :)
"Happy organ" WTF?! That's 50s Rock n roll... Tune at 2:51 is an instrumental version of "People will say we're in love" from Oklahoma! As he says, it's very "ma and pa", respectable American Broadway show 😄
+Play It Again Rich - I was hoping someone had already pointed this out, so I didn't have to confess my own nerdiness when it comes to Rodgers & Hammerstein's Pulitzer prize winning "Oklahoma!" :-)
Wow so awesome love Kmart store , Super Kmart, Big Kmart and Blue Light special. Back early 1970s and 1980s and 1990s. Once left hospital with my first child Kmart was store find kids items . Thank You.
I was a projectionist at a UA theater in MN. in the late 90's, they had CDs & laser disc. The CDs would be used to play music in the auditoriums & laser disc to play trailers in the lobby, they eventfully went to DVD in the late 90's. They used a few Companies over the years, TRN (Theater Radio Network) was one. I still have a few of them.
FYI, the store at 51st and Kedzie is closing soon. Its been there about 30 years or so. Fascinating building, being an RCA corp. manufacturing facility before that.
Yes it is a very interesting building and its unique, they never put a real ceiling in some parts of the store go up really high and it's just a very different type of retail environment. I worked there at the end of 1996 and loved it, I learned a lot about myself and the neighborhood. Had a lot of interesting experiences there.
I am not sure how i landed here, but I found this really nice and suprisingly sweet. Its nice to see people passionated/really knowledgable about something even (or sometimes even especially) if it is something I never though about thanks for making and sharing this vid, and your collection
I worked at Kmart in Fairview Heights Illinois from 1984 to 1987. I was so tired of hearing the Dallas Tv show theme, Soul Train theme, and James Brown “ Living in America “ As a full time employee it played over and over and over …………all throughout my 8 hour day !!
That's a really nice collection of rare artifacts! This is the type of stuff I usually pursue for blogging purposes, but I usually only come across one in a huge series. Thanks for putting these on the internet and giving us a taste of them!
I've listened to several of the Kmart Tapes on UA-cam and on the Archive Website. Thank you for uploading them! I'm 30 so I only remember the Music being fed from Satellite. I figured that out when one night me and my Family was shopping and it was coming a Thunderstorm and the Music kept cutting out. One thing I noticed. Sometimes a Song would play and at the end the announcer would say it's available in the Music department. Did that start with the Satellite music? Also sometimes a ad would start in the middle of a Song. Sometimes that irritated me. Lol But just hearing promos for the Kmart Cafe and other things brings me back to my Childhood. Me and my Grandmother would eat at the Cafe. Our location remodeled in the late 1990's and removed the Cafe and Snack Bar. Our location closed about six years ago. Thanks for the memories.
Worked at kmart 1977-1986, they had a reel to reel tape deck. Before that at a Kresge, and we received a 2 sided lp record every month. It was put on a turntable under the candy counter. Don't remember any ads on it, just instrumental music. If you wanted to advertise something, you just made a live p.a. announcement!
Thanks for sharing this. I worked at Kmart for almost 10 years starting back in '86. I vaguely remember these. Even after all these years, I still have dreams about Kmart! Lol
Goodbye to both K Mart and Sears, two iconic stores I shopped at many times when I was a kid and up until a few years ago. Then the new CEO shows up and basically destroys both of them for good. Shame. No K Marts left here in MD and they just tore down the local Sears from me last week. Sad. Good to see someone saving the nostalgia.
Also Dave, I will be creating a video of all my old Kmart memorabilia. I worked there for 10 years and have a tote full of old stuff from earlier times. I started to transfer some of those tapes. The monthly tapes sound terrible and are barely audible. But I am going to keep converting as they are listenable.
2:51 "People Will Say We're in Love" (Rodgers, Hammerstein - 1943). You're a saint for preserving these, and especially for making them available digitally via archive.org.
Hey James. The earliest I have is from October 1989. That's actually the month I started. I was working on Thanksgiving -- those were the days when the store was closed. We were playing our own music while building endcaps and changing out the bargain tables. I rememeber seeing this tape and taking it.
It's amazing how these sounds can trigger a flood of memories I didn't know I was storing in my brain. Cassettes have gone the way of brick and mortar retail stores. But through your collection and this video they will live forever in a the back crevices of my mind. Many many thanks.
Very interesting video. Thanks. I was shopping in my local Kmart in late 2020 prior to the stores closure in the spring of 2021. The shelves were getting bare as they were cutting back on the stock and the open floor space. The song playing as I strolled through the store was "I've seen better days". I thought, how ironic... and sad.
Wow, this is really interesting. It's so incredible to me that such a small, seemingly insignigicant, thing like this was so well presereved just because of one person's interest in it. Thanks for sharing this, man.
This is awesome. I worked there in high school in '90-'91. I've been listening to the sample on chartattack all morning. Too bad there aren't any from the 70s. You could put the Disco back in MelDisco ;)
This is fantastic - thank you so much for sharing! Takes me back to my childhood and simpler times. Spent most of my childhood shopping at the Downers Grove location, not too far east from the Naperville location you spoke of!
Mark Davis... This is genius. I came across the Vice article. I LOVE these lol - I grew up in the Northwest (Salem, OR) and between Kmart and Fred Myers this is the sound track to those times in my childhood when my mom would make us go to the store with her for "just a couple things", but we spent a few HOURS in there... It wasn't all the time, but WOW - this is incredibly nostalgic and oddly fun to listen to. Well played & thank you !
You could probably get better quality if the pressure-pads were fixed (if broken). Also, adjusting the head-azimuth (a screw-adjustment on the front of the deck - you may have to remove the tape-well cover to access it). Also, turn of the Dolby!
+David Perkins Interesting that you mention this. The pads are all pretty good and I did play around with the azimuth. What I found is that the tapes are very worn and scratched, and I am not sure that the transfers were of the highest quality. The tower tapes sounded much better and those were not also in heavy rotation as the earlier ones. The ambient hiss is so strong which leads me to believe that the audio was never recorded loud, or they have degraded from all the plays. Some songs are in stereo, including on the older tapes. My guess is that these were duplicated on a high speed system and on poorly maintained equipment. The 30th anniversary tape is an example where the azimuth is dead on, but you will hear lots of fluctuation and flutter, which is probably from a crappy high speed dub.
This is awesome! Thank you so much for sharing. I worked at store 9703 in Conneaut, Ohio, my first "real" job while I was in high school. (1996-2000) Started out as an "Oh-1" and ended about 3 or so years later as the Garden Shop Manager.
@@NickDalzell Wow, memories just came flooding back! That's how it was done here at one of the local K-Marts. I remember the announcer telling the customers that there was going to be a drawing for a 14 k gold, squirrel charm lol. It was probably being given away because who would buy that? I remember my mom entered my name and to my surprise I won! Having an announcer in the store added a lot to making a positive shopping experience.
Thanks for uploading these. Never been to a Kmart as I live in Canada and they left back in 98. It is great music to listen to currently playing the March of 92 one and it is awesome
can you please start recording all these tapes, or at least a few of them, with direct line-out audio & post videos of those for archive enjoyment purposes, please?
+EDWARD J. FOX no what he means is that Mark actually did what you asked and put them all online at archive.org archive.org/details/attentionkmartshoppers&tab=collection
Very interesting collection here, love this sort of thing! I've heard that first song you played on a couple other places before. I do remember the earlier musak-y type stuff played as a kid going to the Kmart in Forest Park, IL with my grandma way back when. Yes, very cool you kept all those tapes. Certainly a unique collection. Thanks for sharing these when you did. -Carm
LOL, I thought "KMRT" was really some kind of special private radio service, or perhaps satellite-fed! Well, was it sat. or even online once we got into the 2000s, maybe? Wow, it's COOL that you got access to these, including that 30th anniversary one! I'm sad that Kmart has been closing down over the years. :-(
"...trade [it is] stock"? Anyway, yeah, Axel M., if I had known that stock-ticker symbol, I would've thought about that too. Well, what do they trade under nowadays: SHLD (Sears Holdings, which reminds me of "shield")?
Mark this is some great retail history, and brought me back to being a kid cruising the store with my parents. Thanks for posting all of them on the archive website!
As a huge fan of 80's and early 90's retail nostalgia, I love this. Thank you for the video. I don't suppose you would like to maybe rip and upload some of these for folks such as myself to enjoy in their entirety, would ya? :P
WOW! I worked for Tower Sound in Greenville for a few years. We produced some of those tapes! It's amazing to see them again, and even stranger to hear them online. It was torture for me to sit in the studio and put them together, especially when the holidays rolled around (producing months in advance). The man's voice is that of Lee Rutherford, the owner of Tower Sound. He was the owner of radio station WDRK in Greenville.
Was there any type of selection process when making the set for the Kmart tapes? The first song on October 1989 is wonderful even though it's just production music. 1:49
You have done the Vaporwave world a huge service.
+Alexandria Hart Yes!
i was going to post that very comment xD
5:40 INTERNATIOAL.
Alexandria Hart K M A R T W A V E
please i want this to be real.
All I can say is, you care about Kmart more than their CEO does.
Sad truth... SOB Shut down store #1 this year.
Yeah. They got hacked and I don't know if the ceo cared.
Sounds like it.
@@alexandert8620 I guess if one of their stores got bombed he wouldn't even give a single fluck.
That’s not saying much, freaking Walmart cares more about Kmart than the CEO does lol
You're an absolute legend for keeping and preserving this piece of history. Thank you.
DITTO
Everyone, the entire collection was digitized to 320 MP3 back in 2014 and have reached out to archive.org to determine the best way to preserve these and make them available for all.
+Mark Davis hell yeah mark, can't wait to hear them
Everyone, you begged and I have listened. Give me some time. I am uploading these as fast as I can. All 60+ will be posted soon. Please let me know what you end up doing with them, I would love to know, really!
archive.org/details/@davismv
+Mark Davis I and many others may sample it in music, or just enjoy it for pure aesthetic purposes. This stuff has so much promise and I can't wait to hear it all!
+Mark Davis YES!!!!
+Mark Davis Thanks Mark! However, I've noticed that you've accidentally been tagging the cassettes as vaporware, which is completely different from vaporwave. Could you possibly fix this error?
This is amazing Mark. I worked at Kmart back in Detroit for a few months in the summer of 89' right after I graduated HS. To this day I still remember listening to Kmart radio while I worked. Never in my life did I think I would ever get to hear this stuff again. That muffled sound brings back all the memories. Thanks so much..
News Flash! Somebody I have been corresponding with in Florida just sent me two reels, one is from 1988 and the other is from the 70s. I will be transferring these soon and look for a special UA-cam video on them. These are the real deal. The 1988 tape has a date on it printed and it's in a tape a thon box. So Kmart really did use reel to reel's to the very end.
I used to work at K Mart in the mid 80's. Do you have any music from the early to mid-80's? Thanks for uploading these!
is there anyway to get this would be fun to own one?
where can i hear all the casettes?
I did too - I seemed to recall that our store music and generic announcements were on reel....
I worked for one Kmart in the late 80's and another in the early 90's. I think they both used reel to reel. I'm certain that the first store did. Thanks for the flashback!
Thanks Sooo much!! My daughter was born in 1988, my son 1991. My wife spent countless hours in Kmart in Santa Rosa, CA finding the best deals on kids clothes, back-to-school specials etc. As I stood there, with that dumb blank look on my face, waiting for my wife to finish up, this muzak was all that kept me entertained. A real trip down a nostalgic time in my life - Thanks again!
My aunt worked in that very store around that time
I was born in 1993, and I can still remember shopping at Kmart as a kid. My parents and I would buy clothes, groceries, school supplies etc. If only retail today was like what we had back in the day. Everything is all online now which of course is putting lots of pressure on the retail industry. This video brings a tear to my eye because of the nostalgia I feel.
The Pathmark supermarket chain here in the Northeast had similar "Pathmark Radio" jingles on their in-store music in the '80s and early '90s. As a kid back then, for a laugh I called up a store and asked if Pathmark Radio was a real radio station (I knew it wasn't). The person who answered the phone said it was played from tape, and they got new tapes every month. Indeed, I remember the sound was often dull and warbly and did sound like a worn-out tape, especially when the "commercials" came on.
60'S and 70's stores played the Seeburg players, they were vacuum tube and record players.
I bet Pathmark contracted with Tower Sounding Communications for its background music/ad tapes as well.
@@MTLTV-eu4nv Tower Sound and Communications, at least their UK division, was bought by Imagesound - www.imagesound.co.uk - some TSC speakers are still in situ, usually Penton RCS 6/T COAX respectfully.
This is where vaporwave listeners go when they die.
+TimmiT I was thinking more along the lines of "how many vaporwave remixes are going to have samples of this stuff."
Lawhaus what's a vaporware? Some kind of software?
wii1245 a genre of music that's pretty much just a meme
wii1245 Vaporware was software that didn't exist. It was just 'vapor'. Most vaporware floppy discs were just the plastic outer shell and metal plate, there was no magnetic disc inside for data to be stored on.
Vaporware was commonly sold as joke software, where the packaging would advertise it as something like 'Microsoft Doors 98'.
vaporware is a software that has no substance vaporwave is a fairly artistic music genre which remixes corporate mall music type stuff crossing it with the styles of DJ Screw turning it into something else typically instrumentals and staying fairly close to hip hop.
Mark, I'd like to just say thank you for these. Anyone who recognizes my name will know that these tapes changed my life. Thank you.
PowerPCME yes I have seen your tapes out there, one of these days I will get around to sequin out to listen!!
Mark Davis email me your shipping info, I'll send you a cassette! Least I can do for the inspiration these recordings have given me! powerpcme@gmail.com
PowerPCME lol
Song at 4:03 "Do It To Me" by Lionel Richie and 5:12 "Here's To You" by Billy Ocean.
This is a fascinating glimpse into the recent past, one of the last decades in which physical retail outlets were in many cases the ONLY way to get hold of something. As for audio cassettes, my first home computer used them as data storage for games, and I've spent many a day at the double tape deck recording mix tapes and yeah, copying the odd game too. In hindsight they were an awesome format and in Walkman form stayed superior to CD when on the move for many years due to not skipping.
I confess I hadn't even heard of the Vaporwave music genre, but it seems pretty much like what a lot of chill out room DJ's on the house and techno scene would play back in the mid 90's, within a jazzy funky trip hop and ambient style of set they'd often drop and scratch with all kinds of eclectic vinyl and samples, from 70's TV show themes to spoken word albums and anything kitsch or retro sounding. So it's amazing that this type of thing is finding popularity again a further 20 years down the line.
This video made my realize how most grocery stores around here no longer play music & I guess I never noticed.
Most nowdays just play popular radio stations.
@@numb3r5ev3n In my area they literally play nothing.
Funny enough I know people have said the song name already for 4:03 but even funnier is I work in a grocery store now and they still play that song even today 😂
This is amazing man, such a nostalgic sound !
I swear there is nothing better than seeing you leave the most honest and true comments on the most random YT videos. I Knew there was a reason I subscribed to you many years ago!
Nice video! I started at KMart on 6/26/1996 at age 16. I guess this is what was playing while I was busy working in the electronics department selling N64's, CD's, and VCR's
If you are talking about plural (more than one of something) then it is only an s at the end of the word. An apostrophe s ('s) is possessive (something belonging to) as in "Bob Marley's many lazy spelling mistakes."
You have a really cool collection of random late 80s-early 90s retail ephemera. Those commercials really take me back to my childhood. 📼📻🎙
Having all of those tapes would be a vaporwave lovers wet dream.
GUARD THESE WITH YOUR FUCKING LIFE
+hkassasin What's funny is while I totally agree with you, there has never been a single offer for the collection other then for a single tape here and there. Not sure what the collection would be valued at?
Some things are worth more than vulgar money. That's why people call them...priceless.
/r/vaporwave
I definitely would not have lasted in that job. I'd be way to tempted to stick on a death metal tape.
Iain Cowell- Fuck yeah throw some GG Allin on that deck
The announcer sounds the same on all the cassettes. His voice is so soothing. These tapes makes me wish I could buy an Icee, a large popcorn and wander down the Kmart isles, waiting for the announcement to race to the blue light special.
August 1990 was when I was born!!!!!!!! Thanks, for this upload Memories of going to stores such as K-Mart, Caldor, Ames, and Jamesway as a kid with my family.
Late 80s early 90s K-Mart was peak. Takes me back to my childhood. I remember the music being played as my mom took me shopping and then to the K-Cafe which was boss.
YES! I married really young, and both hubby and I worked full time. KMART was the place for household items that I was not going to over pay for. Seriously, I was 19 in 1991, first child, and glasses, dishes, pots, pans on sale for under $10 bucks. Hair Dryer? $4.99. It's probably why they went out of business, but I appreciated it.
Hi, Mark! What a coincidence that this should come up on an old Bolingbrook gal's feed. You worked in a lot of my old haunts throughout Chicagoland! Thanks for posting this!!
ＡＥＳＴＨＥＴＩＣ
RSKN H O W D I D Y O U M A K E T H E L E T T E R S T H I N
ｈｅｌｐ
HOW?
Ｍａｇｉｃ
*p u r e*
Thank you so much for sharing these with us, Mr. Davis!
wait.......did the voice say 'made in the USA" lol. now thats old
angry chick lol
i was thinking the exact same thing lol
Yeah, imagine if that happened at Walmart or Target. Instead you'd hear, "Have you tried that new fleece running hoodie? It's handcrafted in [insert developing country] for your enjoyment!"
@@thebenalvarez Bulgaria
@@LighthouseProductions1 Nope. Bulgaria is too expensive for Target and Walmart. Anything textile based is going to be made in the following countries; China,Vietnam, Bangladesh, and maybe Indonesia or Honduras, at least for the North American market. American retailers don't often import goods made in European countries.
You are listening to Kmart from beyond the grave.
yo mark, you don't know how important this is to a new arising genre of music called "vaporwave". You've basically organized a bunch of generic musak sample candidates for remixing. thank you so so much, you dont know how much this helps everyone in the genre.
regards
Nice
which Cameron is best Cameron
Vaporware is a really stupid music genre though.
BROWN CAMERON
Its not even music
Sometimes my local Kmart stores play some of the old tapes for fun. The young like myself and the old timers get a kick out of it!
2:59 "People Will Say We're In Love" from Oklahoma! I hope you transfer all of them. It has a place in our American History!
With that particular version being performed by Klaus Wunderlich
Gregory May I knew I recognized that!!
Always admire the brain who knows these things!
I CAN NAME THAT TUNE IN 6 NOTES OR LESS! LOL
the peppermint twist was done by the starlighters not chubby checker. You were wrong!
When I worked at Toys R Us in the mid 80's the tapes were these weird things that looked like a cross between an 8 track and a Betamax tape. I guess they made them that way because employees would totally want to steal the music and announcements to listen to when they were not at work.
I would like to learn more about this weird format
So cool!
Ikr!
Saturday Kmart runs with my parents were a staple of my childhood shopping experience. Sometimes we were there so late that the lights would begin to turn off starting from the back in sporting goods. Fun memories, for sure. I never knew where the music came from. Thanks for sharing your tape collection Mark!
Mark Davis... I can't thank you enough for taking the time to convert and upload all these cassettes! Incredible! Great video as well THANK YOU!
This is hands down one of the greatest discoveries I've ever come across on UA-cam. I have no idea how I got here, but I'm glad I did. Damn what a time warp it is listening to these hahahaha!!!
Song at 4:03 "Do It To Me" by Lionel Richie
Thanks for sharing this!!!!! This brought me down memory lane when I worked at Kmart throughout my school career in the early 1990s 😢
Hi Mark, this is really interesting. BTW, that song at about 2:53 in that you describe as "The Happy Organ" is a Muzak version of "People Will Say We're in Love" from Oklahoma! (the musical, not the actual state).
"The best to you from K Mart radio KMRT!" I definately remember hearing this jingle everytime I went to K Mart and love hearing it. Thank you for uploading this!
If anyone is wondering what the song is at 5:13, it is "Here's to You" by Billy Ocean
Thank you for sharing these tapes with the world! You helped save a special part of history and bring an entire community together while also inspiring new music coming from all these tapes. The first one from October of 1989 is still a good one!
There are music producers out there that would die to get their hands on this audio. Please consider copying these to the computer and uploading!
This is one of the most fascinating things to have stumbled across on the Internet in a long time!! Thank you so much for treasuring a piece of hostel and making this available for the public. You're a legend mate xxx
Wow, I just came across this. Completely random. Kinda nifty. I remember shopping at K-mart with my family all the time when I was little. Thank you for sharing this :)
thanbini theirs an old kart by my old house and it's still open
I just went to you Internet Archive account Mark and I was blown away....thanks for all the hard work so we can share in the Kmart memories.
Copying, duplicating or reproducing in whole or in part, is prohibited by federal law
+Mark Davis thank you for not listening to that. This is an amazing find
Fat Stephen Breaking the law, Braking the law!
Thanks Mark, As a kid in the 80s going shopping was an experience everything was magical in the stores, you did not know where stuff came from, all you knew is that it was there in the store. The music brings back the good old days. You did not think of this at the time as a kid, but this is 50% of what made it a great experience to go shopping.
It's amazing to hear that 30th anniversary tape say that Kmart went from nothing to a household name. It was very true at the time. It's ironic that we are almost now 30 years past that and Kmart is no longer a household name. Amazing what can rise and fall in such a short time.
These are awesome! I worked at KMart when I was in high school from around 1987-1990. We would play them until the tape dragged. I don't have to listen to them because they are embedded in my brain from countless hours of hanging clothes on the racks, day after day, year after year hearing Alias sing "When I'm With You" and endless Dusty Lenscap commercials. "Hey this is Dusty Lenscap from the KMart photo center! Don't forget the film!". HAHA, thanks for the memories. Never occurred to me to keep the tapes but I didn't work the service desk.
Very unique collection. I think we had a satellite when I worked at Hill's in the mid '90s. Similar set up. A few songs with a commercial inserted every 10 or 15 minutes or so. My first job at a Rax restaurant, we had a set of 8 track style tapes we played which featured about 2 hours worth of songs. One of the tapes got really worn and you could hear it.
+Daniel Westfall Thanks.
The 8 track looking tapes you used were likely the same "carts" that were used at radio stations for ads until the late 1990s (probably much later on smaller stations!). They are NOT the SAME as 8 track consumer tapes, but very similar, in fact the "cart" format LED to the "8 track" as we knew it.
This makes me nostalgic remembering the old town Kmart I shopped at in the early 2000's. I'd go there early (to beat the heat/crowd) on the weekend and hear all this great soft rock music like Winning by Santana and others I've never heard before while looking for work clothes. The store closed years ago, but your video took me back to those fond times. Kmart stores are pretty scarse locally but now they play a mixture of today (SelinaGomez) along great oldies like "On The Radio" by Donna Summer.
I did not know "Made in USA-" was already a thing back in 1989! Thanks for sharing this, buddy!
I miss Kmart! I have so many good memories shopping there every week with my Dad in the late 90s to early 2000s. I'll even go out of my way sometimes to get that nostalgic feeling again... too bad none are for sale. Great collection! :)
"Happy organ" WTF?! That's 50s Rock n roll... Tune at 2:51 is an instrumental version of "People will say we're in love" from Oklahoma! As he says, it's very "ma and pa", respectable American Broadway show 😄
+Play It Again Rich - I was hoping someone had already pointed this out, so I didn't have to confess my own nerdiness when it comes to Rodgers & Hammerstein's Pulitzer prize winning "Oklahoma!" :-)
Wow so awesome love Kmart store , Super Kmart, Big Kmart and Blue Light special. Back early 1970s and 1980s and 1990s. Once left hospital with my first child Kmart was store find kids items . Thank You.
I was a projectionist at a UA theater in MN. in the late 90's, they had CDs & laser disc.
The CDs would be used to play music in the auditoriums & laser disc to play trailers in the lobby, they eventfully went to DVD in the late 90's. They used a few Companies over the years, TRN (Theater Radio Network) was one. I still have a few of them.
I miss Kmart and the 80s so much... That is an *amazing* collection of history that would be lost if not for you.
FYI, the store at 51st and Kedzie is closing soon. Its been there about 30 years or so. Fascinating building, being an RCA corp. manufacturing facility before that.
Yes it is a very interesting building and its unique, they never put a real ceiling in some parts of the store go up really high and it's just a very different type of retail environment. I worked there at the end of 1996 and loved it, I learned a lot about myself and the neighborhood. Had a lot of interesting experiences there.
I am not sure how i landed here, but I found this really nice and suprisingly sweet. Its nice to see people passionated/really knowledgable about something even (or sometimes even especially) if it is something I never though about
thanks for making and sharing this vid, and your collection
vaporwave as fuck
5:13
I worked at Kmart in
Fairview Heights Illinois from 1984 to 1987.
I was so tired of hearing the Dallas Tv show theme, Soul Train theme, and James Brown “ Living in America “
As a full time employee it played over and over and over …………all throughout my 8 hour day !!
This is so cool. Thank you for posting this. This is super interesting? Can you play some of the Halloween and Christmas tapes?
That's a really nice collection of rare artifacts! This is the type of stuff I usually pursue for blogging purposes, but I usually only come across one in a huge series. Thanks for putting these on the internet and giving us a taste of them!
I've listened to several of the Kmart Tapes on UA-cam and on the Archive Website. Thank you for uploading them! I'm 30 so I only remember the Music being fed from Satellite. I figured that out when one night me and my Family was shopping and it was coming a Thunderstorm and the Music kept cutting out.
One thing I noticed. Sometimes a Song would play and at the end the announcer would say it's available in the Music department. Did that start with the Satellite music?
Also sometimes a ad would start in the middle of a Song. Sometimes that irritated me. Lol
But just hearing promos for the Kmart Cafe and other things brings me back to my Childhood. Me and my Grandmother would eat at the Cafe. Our location remodeled in the late 1990's and removed the Cafe and Snack Bar. Our location closed about six years ago. Thanks for the memories.
I watched ONE KMART video and now UA-cam thinks it's my favorite thing ever.
Worked at kmart 1977-1986, they had a reel to reel tape deck. Before that at a Kresge, and we received a 2 sided lp record every month. It was put on a turntable under the candy counter. Don't remember any ads on it, just instrumental music. If you wanted to advertise something, you just made a live p.a. announcement!
Thanks for sharing this. I worked at Kmart for almost 10 years starting back in '86. I vaguely remember these.
Even after all these years, I still have dreams about Kmart! Lol
Goodbye to both K Mart and Sears, two iconic stores I shopped at many times when I was a kid and up until a few years ago. Then the new CEO shows up and basically destroys both of them for good. Shame. No K Marts left here in MD and they just tore down the local Sears from me last week. Sad. Good to see someone saving the nostalgia.
Brings back good memories of shopping there with my parents. Thank you for this.
Also Dave, I will be creating a video of all my old Kmart memorabilia. I worked there for 10 years and have a tote full of old stuff from earlier times. I started to transfer some of those tapes. The monthly tapes sound terrible and are barely audible. But I am going to keep converting as they are listenable.
2:51 "People Will Say We're in Love" (Rodgers, Hammerstein - 1943). You're a saint for preserving these, and especially for making them available digitally via archive.org.
Hey James. The earliest I have is from October 1989. That's actually the month I started. I was working on Thanksgiving -- those were the days when the store was closed. We were playing our own music while building endcaps and changing out the bargain tables. I rememeber seeing this tape and taking it.
glad you started then because that’s the best one of them all!
It's amazing how these sounds can trigger a flood of memories I didn't know I was storing in my brain. Cassettes have gone the way of brick and mortar retail stores. But through your collection and this video they will live forever in a the back crevices of my mind. Many many thanks.
Let's get a remix album going
Thanks for sharing this material with us Mark Davis !! Listening to the anniversary show as I type this... AWESOME !!
The latest trend now is to play 80's and 90s rock and its much better than the elevator organ and synth music of the 80's
bjtaudio I'd prefer 70's and 80's
Very interesting video. Thanks. I was shopping in my local Kmart in late 2020 prior to the stores closure in the spring of 2021. The shelves were getting bare as they were cutting back on the stock and the open floor space. The song playing as I strolled through the store was "I've seen better days". I thought, how ironic... and sad.
Thanks for doing this!
Wow, this is really interesting. It's so incredible to me that such a small, seemingly insignigicant, thing like this was so well presereved just because of one person's interest in it. Thanks for sharing this, man.
This is awesome. I worked there in high school in '90-'91. I've been listening to the sample on chartattack all morning. Too bad there aren't any from the 70s. You could put the Disco back in MelDisco ;)
This is fantastic - thank you so much for sharing! Takes me back to my childhood and simpler times. Spent most of my childhood shopping at the Downers Grove location, not too far east from the Naperville location you spoke of!
the mainstream music at 04:04 is Lionel Richie - Do It To Me
Thanks for doing this, Mark! It's a neat snapshot of a different time
I would absolutely pay you to rip all of these, and send them to me. Shoot me a number, and we can work this out.
+RelaxRelapse720. All tapes were converted to 320k MP3's back in 2014. Let me think about this -- there seems to be incredible demand.
+Mark Davis please please post them somewhere.
+Mark Davis Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaase
Do them right.not into mp3 but into flac
Thank you for keeping these, its so great to find stuff like this and go back and experience it.
at 4:13 thats Lionel Richie, "do it to me"
Mark Davis... This is genius. I came across the Vice article. I LOVE these lol - I grew up in the Northwest (Salem, OR) and between Kmart and Fred Myers this is the sound track to those times in my childhood when my mom would make us go to the store with her for "just a couple things", but we spent a few HOURS in there... It wasn't all the time, but WOW - this is incredibly nostalgic and oddly fun to listen to. Well played & thank you !
You could probably get better quality if the pressure-pads were fixed (if broken). Also, adjusting the head-azimuth (a screw-adjustment on the front of the deck - you may have to remove the tape-well cover to access it). Also, turn of the Dolby!
+David Perkins Interesting that you mention this. The pads are all pretty good and I did play around with the azimuth. What I found is that the tapes are very worn and scratched, and I am not sure that the transfers were of the highest quality. The tower tapes sounded much better and those were not also in heavy rotation as the earlier ones. The ambient hiss is so strong which leads me to believe that the audio was never recorded loud, or they have degraded from all the plays. Some songs are in stereo, including on the older tapes. My guess is that these were duplicated on a high speed system and on poorly maintained equipment. The 30th anniversary tape is an example where the azimuth is dead on, but you will hear lots of fluctuation and flutter, which is probably from a crappy high speed dub.
This is awesome! Thank you so much for sharing. I worked at store 9703 in Conneaut, Ohio, my first "real" job while I was in high school. (1996-2000) Started out as an "Oh-1" and ended about 3 or so years later as the Garden Shop Manager.
archive.org/details/attentionkmartshoppers
Wow, they kept playing cassettes even into the 90s? They should have sold themselves a CD player! :D
***** Cassettes were cheaper than CD's, is the only reason I presume they didn't switch to CD's.
Well they only used tapes from 1990-93 when they switched to satellite
Ours just played FM radio (96.1 FM Hot 96) and had a live mic announcer who sat behind the service desk. Nothing like this.
@@NickDalzell Wow, memories just came flooding back! That's how it was done here at one of the local K-Marts. I remember the announcer telling the customers that there was going to be a drawing for a 14 k gold, squirrel charm lol. It was probably being given away because who would buy that? I remember my mom entered my name and to my surprise I won! Having an announcer in the store added a lot to making a positive shopping experience.
Cassettes were still the majority of recorded music sales in the early-90's.
Thanks for uploading these. Never been to a Kmart as I live in Canada and they left back in 98. It is great music to listen to currently playing the March of 92 one and it is awesome
can you please start recording all these tapes, or at least a few of them, with direct line-out audio & post videos of those for archive enjoyment purposes, please?
+EDWARD J. FOX They're all available on Archive.org
hahahaha that'd be nice.. it's too bad those
"archives" never work half the time anyway.
+EDWARD J. FOX no what he means is that Mark actually did what you asked and put them all online at archive.org archive.org/details/attentionkmartshoppers&tab=collection
OH MY GOD!!! THANK YOU for telling me its REALLY true!!!!! WOW!!!
+EDWARD J. FOX 3 hour Kmart Reel to Reel from 1988 has surfaced! Just added at archive.org/details/May1988ReelToReel
Very interesting collection here, love this sort of thing! I've heard that first song you played on a couple other places before. I do remember the earlier musak-y type stuff played as a kid going to the Kmart in Forest Park, IL with my grandma way back when. Yes, very cool you kept all those tapes. Certainly a unique collection. Thanks for sharing these when you did. -Carm
LOL, I thought "KMRT" was really some kind of special private radio service, or perhaps satellite-fed! Well, was it sat. or even online once we got into the 2000s, maybe?
Wow, it's COOL that you got access to these, including that 30th anniversary one! I'm sad that Kmart has been closing down over the years. :-(
Kmart used to trade it's stock under the ticker "KMRT". So that's what I thought of.
"...trade [it is] stock"?
Anyway, yeah, Axel M., if I had known that stock-ticker symbol, I would've thought about that too. Well, what do they trade under nowadays: SHLD (Sears Holdings, which reminds me of "shield")?
MaxxFordham Yes, they now trade under SHLD.
Yeah, okay, Axel M., because of that big save by Sears several years ago, I figure.
+VHSgoodiesWA
Heheh, yeah, huh?
Thanks for taking the time to digitize these tapes. Listening while I'm working. Thumbs up and very appreciated.
I imagine the employees ears fell off, and had to file for disability after hearing that insanity over and over. lol
Can't be as bad as ALL I wAnT fOr ChRismAs iS yOu bAby 🎶 all throughout the Christmas season.
Mark this is some great retail history, and brought me back to being a kid cruising the store with my parents. Thanks for posting all of them on the archive website!
What does consumerism even sound like today?
ilikespacedinosaurs iphones ringing
typing on a keyboard :(
you'll hear it when vaporwave comes out 20-30 years from now
Keyboard and crippling depression
I have memories of shopping at Kmart with my parents in the mid 80’s thru the early 90’s! Thanks for the flashback!
As a huge fan of 80's and early 90's retail nostalgia, I love this. Thank you for the video. I don't suppose you would like to maybe rip and upload some of these for folks such as myself to enjoy in their entirety, would ya? :P