Listen to Kmart In-Store Music from 1992

Attention Kmart shoppers! There is a Blue Light Special in aisle 2! Former Kmart employee Mark Davis was in charge of the audio tapes that ran over the PA system at his store. Corporate would send the tapes weekly or monthly to the store, and he'd pop them in the tape player, running them on a loop. The tapes are full of bland music and sales pitches, and many of them are in rough shape because they were played so heavily.

What makes Mark Davis notable is that he saved the tapes, reaching back into the 1980s. He has now uploaded a huge chunk of Kmart audio history to the Internet Archive, and made a YouTube video to show what the physical tape collection looks like. If you're curious where this collection came from, here's the video explanation—if you'd rather just hear some awesome old Kmart music (it will take you back), skip the YouTube video and hit the music players below.

Audio Examples

The collection on the Internet Archive has 56 entries. Here are a few favorites. (Note that the first few seconds are the silent tape lead-in, so give it a moment to get going.)

Now just head over to the Internet Archive and pretend you're in Kmart. (And if any of our readers own a business, may I suggest that this become your new in-store music? At least until your customers revolt?)