Friday, November 20, 2015

The Greatest Show on Turf

Song - The Event
Artist(s) - Robin Gurin (composer credit only), Georgia Shapiro, Alec Williams (performer credit only)
Released - 1994
Primetime Usage - 1994-05
Contained on - FirstCom A29 (Power Net)
Featured Highlight - Ravens @ Rams, 1999


Late in the 1999 preseason, total unknown Kurt Warner replaced the injured Trent Green as the starting quarterback for the St. Louis Rams.  What happened was one of the most remarkable stories in NFL history.  Warner not only led the Rams to their first Super Bowl title, but—partially thanks to weapons like Marshall Faulk, Torry Holt, Isaac Bruce, and Az-Zahir Hakim—also had one of the league's all-time best passing seasons.  During this run, Chris Berman coined the phrase "The Greatest Show on Turf" to describe St. Louis's "circus-like" offense that lasted through the 2001 season.

"The Event," in addition to being a Primetime song, is also a good descriptor of watching the Warner-led Rams.  Composed by Robin Gurin & Georgia Shapiro, and performed by Shapiro & Alec Williams, the song provides a nice mix of laid-back tempo and energetic entertainment.  I couldn't really find any info on the three, though, other than noticing that Shapiro & Williams are credited as writers on "Anxiety" by The Black Eyed Peas.

Going back to the first paragraph, this post's featured highlight is Kurt Warner's first ever start against the Ravens in what was then called the Trans World Dome.  His stats weren't as spectacular as what was to come, but he was playing a good defense and it was just the beginning of his run of success.  Enjoy!



Wednesday, November 11, 2015

FirstCom CD Update

I received a full refund for the undelivered FirstCom disc today (FC-A43 Action), but oddly no explanation as to why it wasn't delivered.  There were, again, no new Primetime gems on the other two I ordered, so it should just be regular updates on this site for a while longer.

Sunday, November 8, 2015

Annoying Delays

Song - The Race is On
Artist(s) - David Reilly
Released - 1988
Primetime Usage - 1989-90
Featured Highlight - Bills @ Falcons, 1989


I apologize for the three week delay in posts here.  I ordered three FirstCom "A" discs that are not streamable on their website off eBay and my plan was to wait until I had listened to them before posting again (in case they had Primetime songs on them).  I received two of them a week+ ago (FC-A35 Hip-Hop Pop and FC-A38 House Jams), but neither had any relevant tracks.  Despite the fact that I ordered it from the same seller, the other (FC-A43 Action) has yet to arrive for some reason.  If that has a Primetime track, I'll post it ASAP, but—for now—here's something else…

"The Race is On" is a pretty generic '80s rocker, but it's still catchy and fits football highlights well.  It was composed by David Reilly, the son of famous harmonica player Tommy Reilly, and is contained on the Reilly-only Bruton album Success.  I don't have much else to say about the song, but the album is a top-notch production music entry and two of its other songs were used on NFL Primetime around the same time.  To explain the album numbers listed above, the "BR 67" code is for the CD version while "BRN 19" is for the vinyl version.

I don't have a particularly important highlight with this song, but at least I found one entertaining one.  In 1989, the 6-2 Buffalo Bills visited Fulton County Stadium and the 2-6 perennial doormat Falcons in a potential snoozefest.  Instead, what viewers got was a back-and-forth fist-clencher with a Paul McFadden 50-yard field goal sealing the upset.  Unfortunately for the still-red-helmeted Falcons, though, that would be their final win of the season and Marion Campbell would lose his job 3 weeks later.