Week 17

Song - Automotive Industry

Artist(s) - Warren Bennett

Released - 1989

Primetime Usage - 1990

Contained on - Bruton BR 61/BRL 22 (Industrial Forum)

Featured Highlight - Dolphins @ Patriots, 1990


Ah, Week 17… the most awkward time of the NFL season.  It's a week where 2/3 to 3/4 of the teams have nothing concrete to play for, either because they're out of the playoff hunt or because their playoff seeding is already secure, while the rest often have convoluted tiebreaker scenarios to worry about.  The radical difference in motivation makes for some intriguing matchups, like mediocre teams being favored against dominant teams because the better ones might be resting their starters.  There are some interesting contests in this year's edition of Week 17, too, but the recent intradivision-only mandate has honestly taken a lot of the fun out of this annual holiday event.  I mean, who can forget the famous Packers/Panthers "points war" from 1999?  There's almost no chance something like that would happen today.

I figure the best way to commemorate the weirdness of Week 17 would be to post one of the most obscure songs in the NFL Primetime arsenal.  "Automotive Industry" was only used on the show one time that I'm aware of.  That time wasn't Week 17, unfortunately, but it was in 1990—the first year to have a Week 17.  1990 was also the worst year in the history of the New England Patriots, their only season under head coach Rod Rust.  For all of you familiar with classic video games, this season is why the Patriots are the most laughable team in the original NES version of Tecmo Super Bowl.  Also video-game related is that Automotive Industry contains a similar feel & instrumentation to many of the songs from the Growlanser strategy-RPG series.

Automotive Industry's composer, Warren Bennett, is—like many of the artists featured on this blog—a highly prolific production-music writer.  He's also associated with longtime British rock stalwarts Cliff Richard and the Shadows, the band that made his father, Brian Bennett, famous.  Sadly, Automotive Industry is the only known Primetime track composed by either Bennett, and it was only used one time at that.