Saturday, December 18, 2021

Unknown Song #31 Identified (+ additional note)

US #31, the first segment of Oddball Week, has been identified as "Go For It" by Ray Russell.  This is weirdly the second Week 1, 1997, song to come from a late-'80s MusicHouse album.  It's also the third Ray Russell track to be identified as an NFL Primetime track.  Oddly, two of Russell's three pieces were one-offs used for Cardinals @ Bengals games in the first week of their respective seasons (N.Y. Giants was used in Week 1, 1988).  Special thanks to Noah S for discovering this one.

For some reason, Go For It doesn't show up on KPM's album listing for MHE7, so I added the KPM search link instead.  LINK


Also, one additional note:  "Hard Attack," whose Kosinus album was absent from streaming services for some reason, has now been posted on YouTube.  Thanks to Seth Campbell for noticing this.  YT LINK

Thursday, December 16, 2021

Unknown Song #45 Identified

Unknown Song #45, best known for its use on the second post-9/11 highlight, has been identified as "Survivors."  Survivors is contained on the Koka Media album called Double Drama, Volume 1 and was written by Daniel Darras & Christian Leroux.  I couldn't find much of anything on Darras beyond his presence on Koka albums, but Christian Leroux—also known as Basile Leroux—is apparently a well regarded French studio guitarist.  Special thanks to Craig-UK for finding this track.

A couple more non-highlight songs have also been identified recently, so look for my posts about those in the near future.

LINK

Saturday, December 4, 2021

Non-Highlight Track - Rock Me Pope

Song - Rock Me Pope
Artist(s) - Ruben Ayala
Released - 1998
Primetime Usage -
1998-2000 (Game Balls)
Contained on -
Access Music AM003 (Fashion Victims - Death Wish Sports)
Featured Highlight - Game Balls:  Week 17, 1999


The segment known as Game Balls, or officially "Primetime Players," began on NFL Primetime in 1994.  Well, to be technically accurate, there was a "Primetime Players" segment during the 1992 & 1993 seasons, but that one featured highlight clips with radio calls rather than players of the week.  Anyway, three songs were primarily used for Game Balls during the original run of the show (some other songs, such as Old School Radio Bed, were infrequently substituted).  Unknown Song #26 was used from 1994-97 after being used as a highlight track in 1992.  Asphyxia was used for the last five seasons of classic Primetime (2001-05).  And now, the one remaining Game Balls theme has been located.  "Rock Me Pope," by Ruben Ayala, was used for Game Balls from 1998-2000.  Ayala wrote songs for Access Music & FirstCom, but I couldn't find any other meaningful info about him.

Special thanks to Dopethrone (nirvanainstrumental on YouTube) for finding this one.




Wednesday, October 6, 2021

2001 Trilogy Identified

The missing tracks from 1989 were not the only ones identified on September 22nd.  The "2001 Trilogy," also known as Unknown Songs #48, #49, and #50, were also ID'd through some nice detective work by members of the Primetime Music Discord community.  This isn't quite as momentous as it sounds, however, because we still don't know how to access the original cuts of any of the three (the various mp3 sets (e.g., Polinsky) that have been floating around the past 10-15 years have unofficial, lower-quality versions).

It turns out the placeholder names (which came from at least one of those mp3 sets) were actually the correct names:  US #48 is "Highlights," US #49 is "Pro," and US #50 is "Legends."  All three were composed by Joel Beckerman, the founder of Made Music Studio (formerly Man Made Music), and Lloyd Landesman, the composer of the CBS College Football theme.  All three were made specifically for ESPN, so the official cuts don't exist on a public album or streaming service AFAIK.  Special thanks to Dopethrone, simtek34, RepoManFan4Lyfe, and Josh Ochs for piecing everything together for these three songs, especially Dopethrone because he found these by searching "NFL Primetime" on ASCAP (I really don't know why I didn't think of that).

LINK - Highlights
LINK - Pro
LINK - Legends

Thursday, September 23, 2021

Unknown Songs #18, #19, and #20 Identified

I'm lumping these three together because, as it turns out, they're all on the same album!  Or, at least, they were on the same album initially.  US #18 is "Team Purpose," US #19 is "Constructions," and US #20 is "Forcefields."  All three songs were composed by Sonoton regular John Fiddy and Sonoton founder Gerhard Narholz (under the familiar alias "Sammy Burdson"), and they were originally found together on Sonoton LP SON 246 (Industrial Themes & Underscores, Vol. 5).  I never encountered these tracks during my original Sonoton listening run several years ago, though, because they were not ported to CDs or streaming until much later.  Team Purpose & Constructions eventually transitioned to CD on SCD 442 (Corporate Classics) in 2000, while the original version of Forcefields has never—to my knowledge—made an official move to digital.  There is, however, a remix of Forcefields included on Sonoton Vanguards SCDV 510, which was released in 2015.  The remix isn't a whole lot different; the synth rythym ostinato (prominent at the beginning) is louder, and the tempo is a smidge slower.

I don't know of an official source for the original version of Forcefields, though you could probably find an LP rip of SON 246 if you look hard enough.  The other album links (including the Forcefields remix) are included in the original song posts linked below.  Special thanks to Craig-UK for finding all of this.

A mini-milestone was also achieved with these three identifications:  the Sonoton Era of NFL Primetime music (1989-90) has been fully identified!  At least, I think it has.  I haven't seen every single episode of the show from those two seasons, but every song from every highlight I have seen is ID'd.


LINK - Team Purpose
LINK - Constructions
LINK - Forcefields

Saturday, September 11, 2021

Unknown Song #51 (New Primetime) - Amped

Song - Amped
Artist(s) - David Robidoux
Released - 2011
Primetime Usage - 2019
Contained on - NFL-0049 (Rush 3)
Featured Highlight - Giants @ Buccaneers, 2019
 
 
*SONG IDENTIFIED* - 10/13/22
 
As promised (a long time ago, admittedly), here's the first Unknown Song from the new, ESPN+ version of NFL Primetime.  This version of the show debuted in Week 2 of the 2019 NFL season, but that particular week only used classic Primetime tracks from the last several years of the original show (the same ones they used for pretty much every week in 2020).  Week 3 of 2019 added four new songs, however, and US #51 was the first of those.  It's kind-of an electronic-grunge sounding piece—very mid-to-late-'90s in its instrumentation.  I'm not sure US #51 was used more than once, but I wasn't subscribed to ESPN+ in 2019 so I didn't see a lot of the highlights from that season.

The featured clip for this track (the only clip I know of) is Daniel Jones's debut for the Giants in Tampa in 2019.  Unfortunately, my original post of the video was copyright blocked by Disney.  So, instead, I cut an audio-only version of the highlight.  It's not as interesting this way, of course, but it looks like this is what I'll have to do for anything I post from New Primetime.




Thursday, August 12, 2021

Unknown Song #47 Identified

Unknown Song #47, the third song to be identified within the past week, is "Touch & Go," by Colin Willsher.  Willsher's compositions have been used on a lot of TV shows (especially in the UK) and other videos.  You can read more about his work on his website.  Touch & Go is found on the Powermax album from the relatively obscure Stock Music (SMI) library, which is based in Belgium.  Special thanks to both Godzfire & Craig-UK for ID'ing this track, and to Craig-UK for nailing down the release date.

LINK

Tuesday, August 10, 2021

Unknown Song #41 Identified

As promised, here's another track identified through Godzfire's work.  US #41 is "Old School Radio Bed," also by Ron Burns, and it's on another BRg album.  I'm not sure how Burns came up with the name of the song since nothing about it seems "old school" by late-'90s standards, but whatever.  There's another piece on the same album by the name of "New School Radio Bed," but it just sounds like something out of a horror movie.

At the time I made the Gut Wrencher post, there was a third song that had been partially identified (title only).  That track has now been fully ID'd, and I'll write about that in a couple days.

LINK

Sunday, August 8, 2021

Unknown Song #38 Identified (w/ at least one more to follow)

Thanks to Godzfire's skill at audio editing, he was able to trip the YouTube copyright detectors on a couple NFL Primetime tracks that had previously gone through unnoticed.  The first of these is US #38, also known as the blues-rock song from 1997.  It's actual title is "Gut Wrencher," written by Ron Burns.  Unfortunately, I couldn't find much info on Burns beyond him being a member of a few bands I'd never heard of (they're listed on his Discogs page).  Gut Wrencher is found on the first BRg Extreme Cuts Album (BRg3001).  As with the other BRg songs I've previously posted about, the release date for Gut Wrencher is murky.  The track pages on the Manhattan website for this album list the release date as 2010, so that's obviously incorrect.  I suppose these BRg albums might be compilations, but—if so—I have no idea what the original source is.

Another track was identified by the same method, and I'll post about that one within the next couple days.  Again, special thanks to Godzfire for getting these two ID'd.

LINK

Tuesday, June 8, 2021

Non-Highlight Track - Strength

Song - Strength
Artist(s) - Paul Foss
Released - 1997
Primetime Usage - 2001-05? (infrequent non-highlight track)
Contained on - ATMOS 92 (Virtual Corporation) 
Featured Highlight - Game Balls - Week 2, 2001

 

The last of the four non-highlight tracks I've ID'd thus far, "Strength" is a somewhat somber & moody piece that wasn't used very often on NFL Primetime.  The clip included here, the Game Balls section from Week 2 of 2001 (the first post-9/11 week), is the first use of Strength I know of.  I think it was used periodically until the end of classic Primetime, but I'm not really sure; I don't really want to sift through five seasons worth of NFL Primetime episodes just to log uses of a rare non-highlight song.  If anyone does have better knowledge of Strength's exact usage, don't hesitate to comment.

Strength is the third NFL Primetime track I've found to be composed by Paul Foss.  It's actually contained on the same album as New Order, which was used for the second-&-final time on the show in the same episode as the clip below.  It's also the eighth song I've ID'd to come from the Atmosphere library, which I believe puts that library third behind FirstCom & Sonoton.




Thursday, May 20, 2021

Non-Highlight Track - Mayhem

Song - Mayhem
Artist(s) - David Rogers, Paul Shaw
Released - 1997
Primetime Usage - 1998-03 (primary Inside the Numbers theme)
Contained on - ATMOS 95 (Shockwaves 2)
Featured Highlight - Inside the Numbers - Week 1, 1999


You'll be forgiven if you have trouble distinguishing "Mayhem" from Asphyxia.  They both have a similarly heavy '90s techno-rock sound, they were both used for non-highlight music on NFL Primetime, and they were both composed by David Rogers & Paul Shaw.  Even I've occasionally second-guessed which one I was listening to when sifting through Primetime clips.  My advice for distinguishing them:  Asphyxia was mainly used for Game Balls, while Mayhem was mainly used for Inside the Numbers.  To help illustrate, here's the ItN segment from the first week of the 1999 season.




Monday, May 10, 2021

Non-Highlight Track - Asphyxia

Song - Asphyxia
Artist(s) - David Rogers, Paul Shaw
Released - 1998
Primetime Usage - 2001-05 (regular Game Balls, secondary Inside the Numbers)
Contained on - ATMOS 111 (Impact)
Featured Highlight - Game Balls - Week 10, 2001


In addition to Industrial News, I've found three more non-highlight tracks that were used on NFL Primetime.  The first, "Asphyxia," was the primary Game Balls theme for the final five seasons of classic NFL Primetime.  It was also occasionally used for Inside the Numbers during this period.  The track is found on Atmosphere's Impact album and is available on the web at the Universal site (linked above).  Unfortunately, info about Asphyxia's composers is scarce.  David Rogers & Paul Shaw both wrote a bit for the Atmosphere & Carlin libraries, but I wasn't able to find anything else about them.

I will post the remaining two discovered non-highlight tracks in the near future.




Friday, March 26, 2021

Unknown Song #46 Identified

The one-off horror-esque song from the 2001 Bucs/Cowboys highlight is now known.  It's called "Mortal Combat" (note the lack of a "K"), and it was composed by Atmosphere Library regular Murray Munro.  Special thanks to rwinger24 on youtube for ID'ing this track.

LINK - Original Post (has album link)
LINK - Decent Audio Quality Post

Wednesday, February 10, 2021

Unknown Song #11 Identified

I know I promised that the next posts on this blog would be the Unknown Songs from New Primetime, but there's been a new development.  Literally minutes after I made the NFL Primetime Title Song post last night, I was told on the Primetime Music discord that some of the albums from the elusive Musikos music library had been procured.  We've only managed to find Album 3 from the Sports set (there are 4 albums in that set total), but there is one NFL Primetime song on there:  "Spring Training."  No artist credits came with the album downloads, unfortunately, and info on the Musikos library is scarce.  As a result, I don't know who composed Spring Training.  I do know that William Soden & Neal Davenport (founder of Davenport Music) were heavily involved in Musikos's compositions, but Spring Training doesn't really sound like Soden and I don't believe those two were the only composers.  Anyway, special thanks to Josh Ochs for locating these Musikos albums.

Thanks to a Musikos promotional album (with a bunch of short clips) I received in October, I know there are at least 3 other Primetime songs on the other 3 Musikos Sports albums.  If anyone has any info on the whereabouts of other Musikos albums, don't hesitate to comment or email or post on the discord or whatever.  Also, since Musikos started in 1990 and these songs were used on NFL Primetime in 1988, these songs must've been composed well before they ended up on Musikos albums.  So don't hesitate to contact me if you might know about other libraries where these tracks may have been released first.

LINK

Tuesday, February 9, 2021

Info About NFL Primetime Title Song (1998-04, 2006-Present)

This NFL Primetime title theme isn't the first—it's actually the fifth—but it's the one most associated in people's minds as "The NFL Primetime Theme."  ESPN started using this theme for NFL Primetime in 1998, and it's been used every year since with the lone exception of the final year of classic Primetime in 2005.  It was also used for just about every other ESPN NFL show from the late-'90s to the early 2010s (thanks to simtek34 for reminding me of that).  The song isn't an ESPN original, though.  It's basically just a re-recording of Edd Kalehoff's "Monday Night Football MIKE Theme" that debuted, I believe, in the 1980s.  The Primetime version sounds less bright than the MNF one, and I think it's in a lower key.

I have no idea where to get an official clean cut of this NFL Primetime theme, but a youtube poster by the name of nirvanainstrumental has made an admirable attempt.  Not all of the talk-over dialogue has been removed, but this post of the song is much cleaner than just listening to a raw episode of the show.  Here's the post:  LINK

Here's the link to Kalehoff's MIKE theme:  LINK


As for what's coming up on this blog…  The next project will to be to post the new Unknown Songs from the current ESPN+ version of NFL Primetime.  Most of those tracks aren't up to par with the classic Primetime stuff, but they're still part of the pantheon.  Stay tuned!