Things the piped-in music in the store sounds like:

• a rejected Boyz 2 Men track from the year 2000


• a Melissa Etheridge cover band who wanted to file the serial numbers off the style


• a surprisingly ugly 90s rayon sundress with princess seams that should work, but somehow just looks wrong


• the wordless vocalization portion of an Ellie Goulding song from before the bridge, heard on repeat when you're trying to wake up and have sleep paralysis


• the vaguely hiphop-flavored backup track that plays before the talent show contestant starts singing


• brand name impostor fabric softener


• something that would be playing in the middle of the night at a truck stop where you were trying to pick out which bargain DVD to buy


• the smell in the back corner of the electronics department of an early 1990s K-mart, which you're trying to recognize while you stare absently at the buildup of floor lacquer in front of the door marked Employees Only


• a neural network's idea of a 2013 Tumblr aesthetic blog


• the album someone gave you when you were a teenager that you later realized was full of nothing but b-sides


• the royalty-free music playing behind a slideshow of stock photography


• a young 20s couple out of central casting who have no believable chemistry


• all you can remember when you wake up of a song you dreamt you composed that sounded incredibly good at the time, but you now suspect was probably nonsense


• a featured artist whom you've never heard of, but whose presence in the 5-year-old movie you've just found and watched is advertised as if you would have


• "Remember the guy who played that brother's friend, not the main friend, the other one, on that network show ten years ago? Turns out he released an album with the word 'soul' in the title."


• a corporate stylist's attempt to make beige youthful and edgy


• a song you can overhear coming from the ballroom of a hotel because some high school is having a prom there, and it sounds familiar but all you can make out is the word "you"