Oddball Week Completed

Unknown Song #33, the only (previously) unidentified song from Oddball Week (Week 1, 1997), has now been nailed down.  US #33 is "Android Freeway," by the late Robert J. Walsh.  The track is housed within Walsh's hard-to-find Hollywood Film Music library (specifically HFML 15.02).  Special thanks to Craig-UK for getting his hands on this album, and to Godzfire for providing the track/album info.

LINK

Unknown Song #35 Identified

Unknown Song #35, another Oddball Week entry, is now ID'd as "Mega Scape," by John Andrew Hancock.  I couldn't find any information at all about Hancock, but the song is contained within the Moments Music library housed on the Spirit Production Music site.  Special thanks to Godzfire for cleaning up the Primetime clip audio and triggering YouTube's copyright sensors.

Only one of the seven Oddball Week tracks remains unidentified…

LINK

Unknown Song #31 Identified (+ additional note)

US #31, the first segment of Oddball Week, has been identified as "Go For It" by Ray Russell.  This is weirdly the second Week 1, 1997, song to come from a late-'80s MusicHouse album.  It's also the third Ray Russell track to be identified as an NFL Primetime track.  Oddly, two of Russell's three pieces were one-offs used for Cardinals @ Bengals games in the first week of their respective seasons (N.Y. Giants was used in Week 1, 1988).  Special thanks to Noah S for discovering this one.

For some reason, Go For It doesn't show up on KPM's album listing for MHE7, so I added the KPM search link instead.  LINK

Also, one additional note:  "Hard Attack," whose Kosinus album was absent from streaming services for some reason, has now been posted on YouTube.  Thanks to Seth Campbell for noticing this.  YT LINK

Unknown Song #36 Identified

Most of Oddball Week is now identified.  US #36 is "Classical Interface" by Darryl Way, and it's contained in the Rouge library (RMCD 2012).  Darryl Way is probably best known for being a member of the 1970s British rock band Curved Air and for writing their #4 UK hit "Back Street Luv" (Thanks Wikipedia!).  Curved Air also featured prolific Bruton & KPM composer Francis Monkman.  Special thanks to José Teixeira for finding this one.

LINK

Neo Dream Song Link Posted

I still haven't found an official publisher-source stream for Neo Dream, but Dave Volsky recently posted the song on his youtube account.

*EDIT* - Dave Volsky was recently forced to nuke his channel because of some silly copyright thing, but Benjamin Lane stepped in with a repost.

LINK

Unknown Song #34 Identified

Three down, four to go as far as Oddball Week is concerned.  Unknown Song #34 (Oddball Week, part 4) is "Power Drive" by Michael Tauben & Simon Benson.  It's contained on Musichouse I26, Prestige Presentation.  Thanks to both Retromatic on librarymusicthemes for ID'ing it and to Dave Volsky for posting the track on youtube.

LINK

Unknown Song #32 Identified

Two down, five to go as far as Oddball Week is concerned.  The oboe-rich US #32 has been identified as Neo Dream (b), or as Neo Dream (Partie Rhyhmique) to be more precise.  It's contained on Kosinus 34 (Virtual Nature).  That album is streamable on both APM & Universal's production-music sites, but this particular song has been removed from the streamable version.  It seems that everything involving Christian Poulet has been scrubbed from the online edition of the Kosinus library, and perhaps other libraries.  Special thanks to Retronator on librarymusicthemes.net for identifying this track, and additional thanks to GodzFire for starting the thread on there that got this track ID'd.  Hopefully this won't be the last song to be ID'd there.

LINK

Unknown Song #37 Identified

I kinda figured this one would be found quickly, and—thanks to José Teixera/José Muñoz—it was!  I was also right that I'd heard this song—"Pacemaker"—before.  It sounded like a '90s tune, though, so I didn't go back to those early MusicHouse albums.  Anyway… Pacemaker was composed by production-music legend Alan Hawkshaw, so it turns out he does have an NFL Primetime track other than Neck and Neck.


Here's the revised link, or I guess you could just scroll down a little…

Unknown Song #37 (Oddball Week, Part 7) - Pacemaker

Song - Pacemaker

Artist(s) - Alan Hawkshaw

Released - 1987

Primetime Usage - 1997
Contained on - MusicHouse E1 (Hi-Band)

Featured Highlight - Chiefs @ Broncos, 1997


*SONG IDENTIFIED* - 9/17/18

The Oddball Week finale is thankfully here.  Unknown Song #37 is a song I swear I've heard before when browsing production-music albums a few years ago.  When I went back through some stuff after first seeing this NFL Primetime episode, however, I couldn't find it.  Hopefully one of you readers (or youtube viewers) will recognize it and can identify it.  Anyway… US #37's accompanying clip has the Chiefs heading to Marty Schottenheimer's "House of Horrors," Mile High Stadium.  Kansas City would lose this one, but they would at least get the second laugh by winning the division anyway.  Denver, of course, would get the third & final laugh by upsetting KC in the Divisionals and winning their first Super Bowl title a few weeks later.

Unknown Song #36 (Oddball Week, Part 6) - Classical Interface

Song - Classical Interface

Artist(s) - Darryl Way

Released - 1991

Primetime Usage - 1997
Contained on - Rouge RMCD 2012 (Classical Rock)

Featured Highlight - Jaguars @ Ravens, 1997

*SONG IDENTIFIED* - 3/25/20

It's now time for the penultimate edition of Oddball Week.  Unknown Song #36, though not great, is still a big improvement over the last two.  As Kyle Caughlin pointed out on youtube, it's got a bit of a salsa flare to it.  That, plus the piano, makes it sound like Latin-infused early-'90s dance-club stuff.  The accompanying game highlight features the Jacksonville Jaguars, fresh off a surprising AFC Championship appearance, playing at the Baltimore Ravens and their "Flying B" helmets.

Unknown Song #35 (Oddball Week, Part 5) - Mega Scape

Song - Mega Scape

Artist(s) - John Andrew Hancock
Released - No later than 1997

Primetime Usage - 1997

Contained on - Moments Music MML014 (Ultimate Dance Moments)
Featured Highlight - Jets @ Seahawks, 1997

*SONG IDENTIFIED* - 2/3/22

One of the youtube commenters on my last post opined that this track—Unknown Song #35—is even more unmemorable than US #34.  I wouldn't go that far, since—if nothing else—US #35 is a bit louder than US #34, but it's still quite clear why this tune didn't last on NFL Primetime.  Anyway, here's Bill Parcells's first game as head coach of the Jets.  They immediately turned around an awful 1-15 year by humiliating the Seahawks in the Kingdome.  You may not like the accompanying song, but you should at least enjoy Chris, Tom, and Stu's constant reference to Keyshawn Johnson's 1997 book, Just Give Me the Damn Ball.

Unknown Song #34 (Oddball Week, Part 4) - Power Drive

Song - Power Drive

Artist(s) - Michael Tauben & Simon Benson

Released - 1996

Primetime Usage - 1997
Contained on - Musichouse I26 (Prestige Presentation)

Featured Highlight - Chargers @ Patriots, 1997

*SONG IDENTIFIED* - 3/13/20

It's quiet, it's moody, and it's barely a song.  Unknown Song #34 is probably the most forgettable track in NFL Primetime history.  Speaking of forgettable, there was Kevin Gilbride's head-coaching stint with the San Diego Chargers.  He went 6-16 and didn't even last 1.5 seasons.  Here Gilbride coaches his first game against Pete Carroll, who was making his own debut with the Patriots.

Unknown Song #33 (Oddball Week, Part 3) - Android Highway

Song - Android Freeway

Artist(s) - Robert J. Walsh

Released - 1996

Primetime Usage - 1997

Contained on - Hollywood Film Music HFML 15.02 (Wild City)
Featured Highlight - Eagles @ Giants, 1997

*SONG IDENTIFIED* - 5/6/23

Now we're getting into the Oddball Week dregs.  Unknown Song #33 could probably be labeled the "Jaws Song" because its Jaws-like riff is its only distinguishing feature.  The rest of it is just generic, amelodic '90s-'00s electronica stuff.  The game isn't all that interesting, either, but it's still better than the song.

Unknown Song #32 (Oddball Week, Part 2) - Neo Dream (b)

Song - Neo Dream (b)

Artist(s) - Christian Poulet

Released - 1997

Primetime Usage - 1997
Contained on - KOS 34 (Virtual Nature) (Benjamin Lane Song Post)

Featured Highlight - Falcons @ Lions, 1997


*SONG IDENTIFIED* - 3/20/19

It doesn't quite fit, but the second Oddball Week track is the best one.  I mean, I guess it does fit if you associate football with the oboe, but that proclivity probably isn't common.  This song would fit well in a JRPG, though.  It sounds especially like some of Noriyuki Iwadare's stuff from the Lunar & Growlanser series. I really doubt Iwadare wrote this particular piece, however, since all the Primetime tracks I've ID'd to this point have been by American or European composers.

US #32's highlight is quite appropriate for Oddball Week.  A full minute is spent showing the same punt over & over again.

Unknown Song #31 (Oddball Week, Part 1) - Go For It

Song - Go For It

Artist(s) - Ray Russell

Released - 1988

Primetime Usage - 1997

Contained on - MusicHouse MHE7 - Jingles, Bumpers and Donuts (KPM search link)
Featured Highlight - Cardinals @ Bengals, 1997

*SONG IDENTIFIED* - 12/17/21

1997 was the last year where the NFL Primetime producers attempted to do a large-scale overhaul of the show's music.  I say "attempted," though, because most of these new tracks didn't stick.  Week 1 of '97 was particularly bizarre.  There were 13 highlights that week (not counting the SNF recap on the non-live broadcasts); more than half of them used songs that were, to my knowledge, never used any other time on the show.  Most of these tracks just didn't work, so kudos to the producers for both realizing that early and for replacing them with better new songs later (like Total News).

The very first Primetime highlight of 1997, featuring two teams that would not end up winning a lot of games, sadly includes one of the better oddball songs of Week 1.  I apologize for the video quality of these Oddball Week clips in advance.  Fortunately, the audio quality does not suffer nearly as much.