Featured Clip - Steve Young Talks about Rex Grossman's Mistakes, Super Bowl XLI
The final unknown track from the Super Bowl XLI episode of NFL Primetime, "Unknown Song #62" accompanied Steve Young's roasting of Chicago QB Rex Grossman's "flippant" turnovers in his team's loss to the Indianapolis Colts. The song isn't as clear to hear as US #60 or US #61, but you can tell it has a bit of a bass-heavy blues rock motif going on. If you can identify this piece, don't hesitate to comment here or on YouTube.
Featured Clip - Inside the Numbers, Super Bowl XLI
Unknown Song #61, which is from a little bit later in the Super Bowl XLI Primetime episode than Unknown Song #60, is also clear and easy to recognize (please comment if you can ID it). It was used for the Inside the Numbers segment that highlighted Colts running back Joseph Addai's rookie exploits. Fun fact!: because Addai backed up Dominic Rhodes throughout the 2006 season, he became the first running back to ever rush for 1000 yards without starting a single game. Thanks Wikipedia!
Featured Clip - "Won Super Bowl in 1st. Appearance, QB Drafted 1st. Overall" Segment, Super Bowl XLI
It's back to the Purgatory Primetime era (2006-18) for another unknown non-highlight track! Unknown Song #60 has a simple & memorable repetitive hard-rock hook, so it should theoretically be easy to identify. It was used for the Super Bowl XLI episode of NFL Primetime where Chris Berman, Tom Jackson, and Steve Young highlighted Peyton Manning's first Super Bowl win. Also added as a bonus to the end of the video is the following return-from-commercial bump where US #60 is briefly used again. As usual: if you can identify this song, don't hesitate to comment here or on YouTube. Thanks!
Contained on - Musikos MS1 (Sports 1) Featured Highlight - Colts @ Vikings, 1988
*SONG IDENTIFIED* - 5/3/23
This isn't the best NFL Primetime track, but I do know the show used at it least twice. It's a classical-rock fusion piece—a popular genre in late-'80s/early-'90s production music—but it's too awkwardly repetitive to work well with football highlights. Oh well, at least the song wasn't as awkward as the Colts offense was in this highlight.
Contained on - Musikos MS1 (Sports 1) Featured Highlight - Colts @ Bills, 1988
*SONG IDENTIFIED* - 5/3/23
Unknown Song #9 is even more repetitive than #8. It sets a similar mood to Communique, but has more of an energetic, "cool rock" feel. This Colts/Bills highlight is the only one to use this track that I'm aware of.
*NOTE* - Unknown Song #9 is the first song on this highlight. The clip switches to Unknown Song #8 near the end.
Contained on - NFL 128 (LP) (Major Force) (track link)
Featured Highlight - Oilers @ Colts, 1988
*SONG IDENTIFIED* - 10/7/17
Unknown Song #4, the last song from NFL Primetime's first year (AFAIK) that I haven't posted, is a mixed bag. It has good energy, but some of the high-pitched instrument choices really don't fit football highlights. It's still a decent track, though, and I hope to find a good-quality cut of it at some point.
Unfortunately, the highlight choices I had all were from episodes that were uploaded with all the sound coming through only the left audio channel. I converted it to mono, but that means the volume isn't too high. The sound & video on this particular clip are also out of synch, but it's only noticeable on the part where you can see Chris Berman talking. Anyway, I think you'll still find this video enjoyable.
*EDIT* - The version of Showcase that NFL Primetime used is actually "Showcase (b)" as listed on the NFL album and not "Showcase (a)." The "b" version is sort-of an underscore the quiets the guitar a bit, but the difference isn't as obvious as it is with other underscores.
Artist(s) - Mary Therese Matthews, Sally Anne Griffith, John Bähler, Matthew Muhoberac
Released - 1985
Primetime Usage - 1987-96 (infrequent)
Contained on - FirstCom UT104 (Powersurge)
Featured Highlight - Bengals @ Colts, 1987
The next two weeks will feature a couple songs that were requested on my youtube discussion page. The first, "Empire Building," has a relatively strange usage history. The song played on NFL Primetime highlights during the first 10 years of the show's run, but it was quite rare to hear it. I've viewed quite a few episodes from that decade-long run, but Empire Building only shows up on three of them: one highlight in 1987 (the one below), one in 1992, and one in 1996 (EDIT - I've found it was used during at least a few episodes in 1991, too). Unlike sports cards, however, rarity doesn't make this track a gem. It's far too neutral and sleepy to be good football accompaniment. Empire Building is also the third and final (that I know of) track composed by the Matthews/Griffith/Bähler/Muhoberac quartet.
ESPN edited this song a little in the '90s by removing the bridge section and adding in some "creative" looping. I'm not gonna post a second video for the edit because the edit isn't that meaningful & the song isn't that great, but it's a worthwhile footnote at least. If you really want to hear it, try to find the Bills/Rams game from week 1 of 1992 or the Vikings/Lions game from week 1 of 1996 (special thanks to Kyle Caughlin on youtube for catching this difference).
The featured game highlight isn't real memorable, but it has a few nice plays. The Bengals went into the Hoosier Dome and topped the Colts in the 1987 season opener. It was an ironic result in retrospect since Indianapolis actually ended up winning the AFC East (their only playoff appearance in a 17-year span) while Cincy went 4-11.
In 1989, the behind-the-scenes staff at ESPN apparently decided to throw out all of the music used during the first two seasons of NFL Primetime and bring in a clean slate (a couple songs from 1987 would eventually return). The vast majority of these new tracks came from a German production music library called Sonoton, which was founded by Gerhard Narholz (a.k.a. "Norman Candler") and his wife, Rotheide, in 1965. Their eldest son, Christoph, composed a Primetime song that I haven't yet displayed while the middle child, Gregor, is also a prominent composer. Anyway, Sonoton started putting their stuff on CDs in 1988 and ESPN took full advantage a year later. The Sonoton-heavy period on NFL Primetime only lasted 2-3 years, but it was a wonderful era of the show if you love synth.
As I mentioned last week, one of these albums—Automotion 3—actually contains a full five tracks that were used on NFL Primetime. "Mission to Future," by Jeff Newmann, is the first of these tracks to be featured here, and it's a nice & energetic-yet-laid-back composition that fits football well. You'll also notice a rather "Final Countdown"-ish segment in the middle of the song. Accompanying Mission to Future is a quirky highlight featuring two 1989 also-rans. It's also the second highlight I've posted on this blog to show Doug Flutie. Have fun, and there's still a lot more to come this week.
On NFL Primetime, Chris Berman's Buffalo Bills fandom was not exactly a well-kept secret. His love for those Niagara NFLers was best displayed in the coining of his famous line, "No-One Circles the Wagons Like the Buffalo Bills!," in the 1990s. This catchprase became nearly as synonymous with Berman as his prodigious use of player nicknames throughout highlights and he still uses it often on ESPN to this day. Another theme that became synonymous with Buffalo Bills highlights was the background song, "Powersurge." Powersurge, composed by FirstCom founder (and then owner) Jim Long and current FirstCom executive Ken Nelson, provides an entertaining balance of '80s guitar rock and tight brass that works perfectly for football highlights. Beginning early in Buffalo's Doug Flutie love-affair era in the late-'90s/early-2000s, virtually every highlight involving the Bills on NFL Primetime utilized this track. In fact, aside from maybe "San Diego Super Chargers," I'm not sure there's another song that is more identified with an NFL team than this one.
One other unique note about Powersurge: it's the only music track in the history of NFL Primetime that was used in both its first season (1987), and its last (regular) season (2005).
I don't know of a completely legal source to cleanly stream this song on the web at present. If you're still interested in obtaining it, however, there's a decent chance you can find one of the above albums on eBay (that's how I got FC-A1 Sports). I believe FC-UT104 is an LP and not a CD, though, so keep that in mind. There also exists a remix of this song, entitled "Halftime Highlights Remix," that is streamable on FirstCom here.
The NFL Primetime highlight featured below was one of Doug Flutie's first starts for the Bills in 1998. This was also Flutie's first year back in the U.S. after a moderate stint in the CFL. Here he's up against a long-forgotten rookie by the name of Peyton Manning…
