Don't Disturb This Groove: We made a 13-hour Key Food playlist on Spotify

By EVG and Stacie Joy

If you've spent any time in the Key Food on Avenue A and Fourth Street, then you already know: the grocery's soundtrack — emanating from the ceiling speakers — leans heavily toward pop and alternative songs from the 1980s, with some early 1990s to break things up.

Not just a few familiar tracks in rotation — we're talking a steady stream of synths, power ballads and the occasional deep cut that has you lingering in the aisles longer than planned. 

After a few reader notes (and several in-store listening sessions through the years), we decided to take this more seriously. 

So… we made a playlist. 

The EVG Loves Key Food playlist on Spotify is now live, currently 183 songs strong (about 13 hours) — all inspired by what's been playing over the store's speakers. 

A quick note: just because a song made the playlist doesn't necessarily mean we like it. (In fact, many of these songs kinda suck, but we don't discriminate when it comes to the soundtrack of our shopping lives.)

You can find everything from the expected to the "wait, really?" — the kind of mix that makes a routine grocery run feel like a slightly surreal trip through, say, 1987. 

Just ask Brooks Headley, owner of Superiority Burger and a Key Food soundtrack superfan. 

Headley, who creates epic, Shazam-defying playlists for his vegetarian diner at 119 Avenue A, is always running to Key Food to grab things like three out-of-season tomatoes, ripe bananas, every pack of Arnold potato buns, and a case of broccoli. ("It's an integral part of R&D for new dishes," he says.) 

Brooks, the floor is yours:

I have always been struck by the music! It’s so special. I am even apprehensive to be quoted about it. I love it so much! And don’t want to ever change. It's this pastiche of 80s music with an emphasis on deep cuts. I have been known to extend my shopping to finish out, say, "Talk of the Town" by Pretenders, or more recently, "Woman in Love" by Barbra Streisand, which had me belting out the words. 

I feel the best place for shazaming is near the tofu and tempeh at the end of aisle 1 near all the weirdo probiotic drinks (fuck Erewhon coming to NYC! All hail Key!) The crowd rules, neighborhood folks. Grocery stores are quiet despite being full of people. No one's talking, just silently cruising through. I swear to God I once heard the version of "Our Lips Are Sealed" by Fun Boy Three, but I didn’t take a video for proof, so did it even happen? 

And now, 13 hours of the Key Food soundtrack ...

   

We'll keep adding to the playlist as new-to-Key tracks surface, as we did the other evening with "I'll Be You" by the Replacements, the lead single from the band's sixth studio album, Don't Tell a Soul, in 1989. 

Coming tomorrow: A long-awaited revelation — just who is programming this music for Key?