Tuesday, April 8, 2025

New Primetime - The Equalizer (Sam Spence)

Song - The Equalizer
Artist(s) - Sam Spence
Debut - No later than 1996
Primetime Usage - 2021, 2023-24
Contained on - Classic NFL Orchestral (as well as some other NFL Films albums like The Power and the Glory)
Featured Highlight -
Packers @ 49ers, 2021 (SNF)


One of the songs most synonymous with famed NFL Films composer Sam Spence nowadays is "The Equalizer."  When getting ready to make this post, I started to wonder "Why is it so comparatively popular?"  It has nothing to do with the quality of the song.  It's a good song, though I wouldn't say it's my favorite Spence composition or anything.  It's more because I can't figure out when The Equalizer originated or what video it was first used with.  It's not on Autumn Thunder, and it doesn't seem to be on any of the 1970's-'80s NFL Music Library LPs either.  The earliest album I could find with The Equalizer was NFL CD 004 (On to Victory) from 1996, and I have no idea when it debuted on NFL Films' stuff.  Could its modern popularity come from games remembering it from Madden '06?  I don't know…

Anyway, the accompanying highlight is the Packers/49ers Sunday Night Football game from Week 3 of 2021.  Green Bay blew a 17-0 lead only to pull out a 2-point win with a last-second field goal.  This would be a Pyrrhic victory for the Packers, however, as we all remember what happened between these two teams in the Divisional Round later that season.

I linked an official source for the song above (the current NFL Music site), but they only allow 30 second previews if you're not signed up or whatever.  If you want to hear the full version, though, it's easy to find by searching Google or YouTube or whatever.

 


 

Tuesday, January 14, 2025

Purgatory Primetime - Shrails

Song - Shrails
Artist(s) - Daniel Holter, Rex Carroll
Released - 2001
Primetime Usage - 2006
Contained on -
Velocity VL017Q (Metal v2)
Featured Highlight - "Saints magical season" Segment, 2006 Divisional Round

 

The same sequence celebrating the 2006 Saints' rebound that featured Crash and Burn had a second clip with a unique NFL Primetime track.  Accompanying the "Saints magical season" segment was the song "Shrails." The portion of the clip with music is short, but Shrails tells you all you really need to know about it right away—you're not missing anything crucial by listening to an abbreviated portion.  Shrails was written/performed by the familiar duo of Daniel Holter & Rex Carroll.  If you don't recall those names, they were the same pair responsible for the New Primetime non-highlight track Tracking Heat.  The heavy-metal instrumentation between both songs is quite similar, although Shrails is less melodic and features more shredding.  Both Shrails and Tracking Heat are actually on the same album!  It's a little weird that ESPN would use two different songs from the same album 15 years apart, but whatever…

Special thanks to GodzFire for identifying this one, too.