William Tell Overture

Song - William Tell Overture (Finale)

Artist(s) - Gioachino Rossini

Released - 1995 (HFML version), 1829 (original)

Primetime Usage - 2000

Contained on - Hollywood Film Music HFML 8.4 (Classical, Vol. 1)
Featured Highlight - Chargers @ Rams, 2000

Occasionally, NFL Primetime would—as a novelty—use familiar songs one time only because they were  appropriate for a particular game.  One such instance was the previously posted use of two classic Sam Spence tracks for the 2000 matchup between the Raiders & Steelers.  Another example was the show's use of the recognizable final movement of Rossini's William Tell Overture, also known as the theme of The Lone Ranger, for the St. Louis Rams' beatdown of the San Diego Chargers earlier the same year.  The 2000 Rams had a noticeably worse defense than their championship team from the year before, but their offense was arguably even better (this was also the year the Rams changed their secondary color from yellow to gold).  As a result, allowing 31 points to a San Diego team that would finish 1-15 was completely overshadowed by an unstoppable offensive explosion led by Chris Berman's personal "Lone Ranger," Kurt Warner.

Special thanks to SW561 for posting the original version of this highlight clip, and to Godzfire for identifying the specific album this version of the William Tell Overture was on.  For some reason, the NFL copyright bots really liked this clip, so I had to edit two 10 second portions into audio-only segments.  One of those was oddly the first no-music segment when the Chargers fumbled a snap.  I don't really know why the NFL was focused so hard on that moment, but whatever…

 

Unknown Song #58 (New Primetime)

Song - Unknown Song #58
Primetime Usage - 2021
Featured Highlight - Keyshawn Johnson NFC Championship Analysis, 2021

Unknown Song #58 is a one-off piece used for a highlight clip that accompanied Keyshawn Johnson's analysis of the Rams/49ers NFC Championship game from 2021.  It sounds like a generic & repetitive grunge-guitar track, so it's probably no loss that the highlight clip is only 20 seconds long.  Anyway, this is the last Unknown Song post I can make at the moment.  The only unknown stuff that I haven't posted are non-highlight songs from 2022, but nobody (to my knowledge) has posted 2022 episodes of NFL Primetime online anywhere so I can't cut any videos from them.  There are at least a few more known songs that I haven't posted yet, however, so stay tuned for those.

NFL Primetime Music - Supercharged

Song - Supercharged
Artist(s) - Derek Austin
Released - 1988
Primetime Usage - 1988
Contained on - Amphonic AVF64CD (Hit the Heights)
Featured Highlight - 49ers @ Saints, 1988 (audio-only)

Early in the Unknown Song run in 2017, I tried to post the first NFL Primetime highlight of 1988 because it used a then-new track that I hadn't identified.  The game featured San Francisco and New Orleans, the two best regular-season teams from 1987 (both were upset by the 8-7 Vikings in the playoffs), in a tight and entertaining contest.  Unfortunately, the NFL copyright blocked the entire video when I had no other clips with the song.  As a result, the song from this video was unofficially known among the Primetime Music community as either "Unknown Song #0" or "Unknown Song A."  Thanks to Godzfire's use of an Audio Fingerprinting program, we now know the song is "Supercharged" by Derek Austin.  It's housed on an Amphonic library album that is hosted by Nichion in the above link.

The NFL is still blocking the video, so I had to go audio-only with this one.  I guess I could've done that back then, but I was holding out hope the copyright block would expire or something.  Anyway, special thanks also goes to Godzfire for cleaning up the sound and making it louder.

Oddball Week Completed

Unknown Song #33, the only (previously) unidentified song from Oddball Week (Week 1, 1997), has now been nailed down.  US #33 is "Android Freeway," by the late Robert J. Walsh.  The track is housed within Walsh's hard-to-find Hollywood Film Music library (specifically HFML 15.02).  Special thanks to Craig-UK for getting his hands on this album, and to Godzfire for providing the track/album info.

LINK

Six More 1988 Tracks Identified

Shortly after Musikos Sports 2 was put up online, a hard copy of Musikos Sports 1 was located.  Sports 1 contains all six of the remaining 1988 Unknown Songs that I've previously posted about (there's another still-unidentified one that I wasn't able to post because of a copyright block).  That sets a new record for number of NFL Primetime songs from the same album, surpassing the five tracks housed on Sonoton SCD 16 (Automotion 3).  Here's the list:

US #8 - At the Buzzer
US #9 - Peak Performance
US #10 - Break Away
US #13 - Grand Prix
US #14 - Going for the Gold
US #17 - Power Play

As mentioned on my previous posts about Musikos, the artists for these songs aren't exactly known.  It's probably safe to say that Power Play was written by William Soden since it's so similar to his NFL Music Library track titled "Pedal to the Metal."  The other five could be Soden, they could be Neal Davenport, or they could be someone else.

Special to thanks to Godzfire for discovering that Sports 1 was housed at the library of Slippery Rock University, and to Josh Ochs for actually picking it up.

Unknown Songs #7 and #16 Identified

The Musikos Sports 2 CD has finally surfaced, and—thanks to Retromatic posting it on librarymusicthemes—two more NFL Primetime tracks from 1988 have been identified.  Unknown Song #7 is "Play Ball!" and Unknown Song #16 is "Grid Iron Great."  Oddly enough, neither of these were among the samples on the Musikos promo disc I mentioned a while back.  Musikos's albums do not have artist credits for any of their songs, so it's not presently clear which composer is responsible for either piece.  According to info posted by Godzfire, there are four known composers attached to Musikos: Neal Davenport, William Soden, Steve Diamond (Dimond?), and Jamie Hoover.  Play Ball! could probably be any of those four, but Grid Iron Great really doesn't sound like Soden's work.

The question as to how ESPN acquired these Musikos songs hasn't been solved yet, either.  NFL Primetime was using them in 1988, but these Musikos CDs weren't released until the early '90s.  Either John Colby directly licensed them from their composer(s), or there's some mystery music library out there that's even more obscure than Musikos.

Special thanks to Retromatic for acquiring & posting Sports 2, and to Godzfire for informing me that Retromatic had obtained it.

LINK - Play Ball!
LINK - Grid Iron Great

Unknown Song #57 Identified

Jwasc92Wrestling is now 7/7 on identifying New Primetime tracks.  US #57 is "Combat," by Devin Bronson.  Bronson is a guitar player who toured with acts like Kelly Osbourne and The Goo Goo Dolls a while back.  His website doesn't look like it's been updated in several years, though.  Combat is found on the album Throttled from the Slam! label.  I couldn't find info on the Slam! label, unfortunately.  Universal's website houses it, but it's not listed on Discogs as far as I can find.  Again, thanks to Jwasc92Wrestling for ID'ing this one.

LINK