Showing posts with label Action Scene. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Action Scene. Show all posts

Friday, July 19, 2024

Underscores & Nicknames

Song - Solar Winds (underscore)
Artist(s) - Larry Lee Cansler
Released - 1985
Primetime Usage - 1987
Contained on - FirstCom UT103 (Lightning)
Featured Highlight - Chiefs @ Raiders, 1987 (Replacement-Game Week 1)


John Colby apparently loved playing underscores throughout the first year of NFL Primetime.  By my count, there were 7 underscores/submixes/rhythm-only versions of songs used at least once throughout the show's 1987 season.  In fact, the underscore of Powerhouse was used most every week of 1987 while the regular version was seemingly used just once.  The Solar Winds underscore, the only one of those seven that I hadn't posted about yet, was used a couple times during the strike.  It's a pretty standard underscore in that it just removes the solo melody parts from the original and leaves the rhythm and bass stuff intact.  It's not like the bizarro Action Scene submix that sounds like some sort of abstract experiment in minimalism.  The Solar Winds underscore doesn't work with highlights as well as the regular version, but it's passable and not off-putting.

Throughout the 1987 players' strike, NFL fans had a lot of fun coming up with mocking nicknames for the replacement squads.  For example, there were the San Francisco "Phoney-Niners," the Miami "Dol-Finks," and—as you'll see at the end of the highlight below—the Los Angeles "Masque-raiders." (credit to this article for giving me the first two).  The game itself wasn't that interesting, but at least it had some humor attached.




Friday, May 24, 2024

Most Bizarre Highlight Track?

Song - Action Scene (Submix)
Artist(s) - Mary Therese Matthews, Sally Anne Griffith, John Bähler, Matthew Muhoberac
Released - 1985
Primetime Usage - 1987
Contained on - FirstCom A2 (Intense), FirstCom UT105 (New Beginning)
Featured Highlight - Oilers @ Browns, 1987 (Replacement-Game Week 2)

 

There have been some odd choices for NFL Primetime highlight songs over the years.  Mortal Combat immediately springs to mind, though that was only used once.  A few of the songs from Oddball Week (Week 1, 1997) were also rather awkward.  I'm not sure any accompaniment choice was more bizarre than the Submix (i.e., underscore) for Action Scene, however.  Underscores are supposed to remove things like the melody and/or the high-pitched instruments, but the Submix for Action Scene sounds like someone pointed a full-blast flamethrower at the heart of the song.  To call it minimalistic is an understatement, and I'm surprised ESPN actually put it on a football video.  I guess it's appropriate that a "replacement" piece like the Action Scene Submix was only used for two 1987 replacement games.  The clip below, of the replacement Oilers edging out the replacement Browns in front of the Dawg Pound, was its last use.

As an aside, the Nichion quasi-legal(?) streaming service has been down for a while.  I'm still linking it above in case the site comes back, but I'm not sure that's likely.




Tuesday, December 1, 2015

Appropriate Titling

Song - Action Scene
Artist(s) - Mary Therese Matthews, Sally Anne Griffith, John Bähler, Matthew Muhoberac
Released - 1985
Primetime Usage - 1987
Contained on - FirstCom A2 (Intense), FirstCom UT105 (New Beginning)
Featured Highlight - Rams @ Oilers, 1987


Sometimes a song title fits the music perfectly.  "Action Scene," though it doesn't have the most original name, is a track that instantly brings to mind imagery of a hard-hitting & breakneck nature.  It fits so well with sports highlights, in fact, that it's really a shame NFL Primetime only used this in its initial year.  Action Scene was composed by the same quartet that brought us Strategy, and is the third & final NFL Primetime song from FC-A2 to be profiled here.

In the opening week of 1987, the L.A. Rams (still with Eric Dickerson for a few more games) went to Houston as a solid favorite to start 1-0.  Instead, the Oilers came back from a 16-3 deficit to pull the upset and begin their first decent season since Bud Adams stupidly fired Bum Phillips several years earlier.  Gayle Gardner, who left ESPN partway through the 1987 season, presents the highlights here: