Marathon (Higher Quality!)

Song - Marathon

Artist(s) - Hal Brown, Donald Bradley Kelley (Brad Kelley)

Released - 1985

Primetime Usage - 1987-88

Contained on - FirstCom UT103 (Lightning)

Featured Highlight - Steelers @ Oilers, 1987

Here's another higher quality clip of a late '80s NFL Primetime track.  "Marathon," by Hal Brown & Brad Kelley, was used seemingly every week in 1987 (I haven't seen Week 2) and most every week in 1988.  Finding a clean cut of this song is difficult.  The original album was released on LP, and Marathon was never put on FirstCom's later CD releases like some of the other Primetime tracks from the Up Tempo series were (e.g., Powersurge).  The Up Tempo albums have never been made streamable online AFAIK, either.  The only way I know of to get a clean cut of Marathon is to find an album rip on a site like Library Music Themes or something.

The new & improved highlight for Marathon is one of the entries in the Chuck Noll/Jerry Glanville rivalry from the late '80s. Noll & especially Glanville were outspoken about their contempt for each other, which is something you'll see a bit of at the end of this Primetime clip.  As for the game itself, the Houston Oilers would clinch their first-ever sweep over the Pittsburgh Steelers in the penultimate week of the season.  This would allow the Oilers to finish the year 9-6 and make the playoffs for the first time since owner Bud Adams fired Bum Phillips following the 1980 season.  The Steelers, meanwhile, would finish 8-7 and miss the playoffs for the 3rd. straight season.

 

Unknown Song #19 - Constructions

Song - Constructions

Artist(s) - John Fiddy & "Sammy Burdson" (Gerhard Narholz)

Released - 1986

Primetime Usage - 1989

Contained on - SON 246 (Industrial Themes & Underscores, Vol. 5), Sonoton SCD 42 (Corporate Classics)  

Featured Highlight - Browns @ Steelers, 1989

 *SONG IDENTIFIED* - 9/22/21

Here's the other unidentified one-off song from Week 1 of '89.  It's a classical-rock fusion piece, much like Unknown Song #18, but leans a little more toward the edgy rock side.  To accompany Unknown Song #19, I'm posting another Cleveland beatdown of the Steelers.  It's really remarkable the Steelers ended up making the playoffs after this humiliation.  Chuck Noll definitely earned his Coach of the Year award with this team.

As always:  if you can ID this song (or any other Unknown Songs on this blog), don't hesitate to contact me.

What Used to Be

Song - Spearhead

Artist(s) - "Zoë de Souza" (Zoë Kronberger)

Released - 1984

Primetime Usage - 1988

Contained on - Bruton BRH 20 (Good Morning America!), Archive.org Link

Featured Highlight - Cowboys @ Steelers, 1988


The second NFL Primetime track from Good Morning America! (that I know of) is also one that I have just one clip of.  "Spearhead," by Zoë Kronberger under the alias Zoë de Souza, provides a well-balanced mix of synth, trumpet, and electric guitar.  It actually sounds like it could be the battle music for some sort of sci-fi RPG, and that genre's standard of energetic determination also fits well for sports highlights.  Kronberger's career has been a bit back & forth.  According to her website (linked above): she trained as a graphic artist, then switched to music during the '70s & '80s, then gradually focused more on visual art from the '90s on.  Good Morning America! also contains several more solid tracks by de Souza/Kronberger, including the rather trippy "Steel Breeze."  Unfortunately, as I mentioned on my previous post, finding anything beyond a bootleg vinyl rip of this album is a difficult proposition.

The aforementioned clip with Spearhead features the Cowboys & Steelers long past their 1970s prime.  In fact, 1988 was the last ever meeting between hall-of-fame coaches Tom Landry & Chuck Noll.  From watching Primetime episodes from the late '80s, I gather the football media was often asking whether the game of football had passed both Landry & Noll by.  Noll would prove that false just one year later when he won his only NFL Coach of the Year award by taking a bunch of raw rookies & unheralded veterans to the Divisional Round.  Unfortunately for Landry, he never got the same chance as he was unceremoniously & infamously fired by new Cowboys owner Jerry Jones following the 1988 season.  He never coached again.  Anyway, here's the last go 'round between these Super Bowl arch-nemeses.