Not Power Cutter

Song - Hit Drive

Artist(s) - Robin Gurin (composer credit only), Georgia Shapiro, Alec Williams (performer credit only)

Released - 1994

Primetime Usage - 1994-96

Contained on - FirstCom A29 (Power Net)

Featured Highlight - Falcons @ Panthers, 1995


If you've been following this blog or are otherwise familiar with NFL Primetime music, you've probably noticed there's another song from the mid-'90s that sounds a lot like Power Cutter but isn't Power Cutter.  Hit Drive is a little darker & edgier, but it still has the same repetitiveness and lack of real melody.  It's often difficult to tell them apart if the Primetime clip you're watching has weak sound quality, too.  It turns out this similarity is not a coincidence.  Not only is Hit Drive on the same album as Power Cutter, it's actually the very next track!

A couple months ago, around the time I was doing the New Day post, I stumbled upon a website called "musiqneed.com".  It seemed like it was at least partially foreign and also legally dubious, but it did have nearly every album from the FirstCom Action series available for streaming (along with a lot more music of all kinds).  Most importantly, though, it had the FirstCom A-series albums that are missing from the FirstCom website.  I was finally able to listen to these (except FC-A19, which was also missing on musiqneed) after searching for them for years.  Unfortunately, Hit Drive is the only NFL Primetime song contained on the missing albums that I hadn't already identified.  Double unfortunately, the musiqneed site has been down since early April.  So the rest of you are out of luck as to listening to Hit Drive yourselves, at least for now.

This track has a lot of mid-'90s highlights to choose from, most of them lame.  You could probably call Hit Drive "The Bill Pidto Special."  Anyway, here are the Falcons (temporarily) choking away a playoff spot against the expansion Panthers.

New Day

Song - New Day

Artist(s) - Geoff Levin, Chris Many, Ian Seeberg

Released - 1985

Primetime Usage - 1989

Contained on - FirstCom UT107 (Heavy), FirstCom A5 (Motivation)

Featured Highlight - Eagles @ Broncos, 1989


For the handful of you watching something other than college basketball right now, here's some NFL Primetime music!   "New Day" isn't the best or most memorable track from the show, but it was used quite frequently in 1989.  This high volume is especially odd because the song's awkward & relatively unusual structure just doesn't work for highlight clips or accompaniment in general.  It fits much better as a stand-alone piece.  Two of New Day's composers, Geoff Levin & Chris Many, showed up a lot on early FirstCom stuff.  They also wrote a lot of other compositions (e.g., "Big Gains," "Reel Action") that I've seen listed on the web alongside actual Primetime tracks, but were not used on the show themselves (they might've been used on other ESPN shows, I suppose).  Levin is probably the most well known of the three, having been a member of '60s one-hit-wonder group People!, but Many and Ian Seeberg are quite accomplished as well.  Seeberg also appears to be quite multitalented, as he's seen a bit of success in many other entertainment fields beyond music.

The highlight this time features two good teams playing a good, entertaining game in what appears to be the aftermath of a massive ticker-tape parade.  Enjoy!