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.

Communique

Song - Communique

Artist(s) - Mary Therese Matthews, Sally Anne Griffith (?)

Released - 1985

Primetime Usage - 1987

Contained on - FirstCom UT104 (Powersurge)

Featured Highlight - Eagles @ Redskins, 1987


The John Colby saga may be over, but that doesn't mean I'm done posting NFL Primetime music.  "Communique" is a perfect track for any football game that seems "frozen," either from excessive cold or from exhausting heat.  The song doesn't really go anywhere, per se, but it's a perfect mood setter.  The only Primetime use of Communique that I'm aware of was for a rather warm contest between the Redskins & Eagles at RFK Stadium in the 1987 opener.  That game served as the coming out party for Doug Williams in what would be his best NFL season, though he would give way to incumbent starter Jay Schroeder for much of the regular season after this.

I'm actually not 100% certain if Mary Therese Matthews & Sally Anne Griffith were the composers of Communique.  I haven't been able to check the UT104 album cover for the credits, and this song doesn't seem to exist anywhere else (there's also virtually no info on Griffith or Matthews, either).  There is a song with the name "Communique" attached to them in the ASCAP database, though, and these two were frequently credited on FirstCom stuff around this time.

Empire Building

Song - Empire Building

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.

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:

Crush You

Song - Crush

Artist(s) - Mark Matthews, James Griffith

Released - 1990

Primetime Usage - 1991-95

Contained on - FirstCom A2 (Intense)

Featured Highlight - 49ers @ Cowboys, 1995


"Crush" could probably count as NFL Primetime's "epic" theme for the first half of the '90s.  I like it, though, because it has more synth and is therefore less over-the-top than International Statement.  It was composed by Mark Matthews and James Griffith.  I couldn't figure out if Mark is any relation to Mary Therese Matthews or if James is related to Sally Anne Griffith, but—since they were all FirstCom composers—I wouldn't be surprised.  Unlike with the female Matthews/Griffith set, however, I have not found more than one Primetime song written by Mark or James.

Crush is contained on FirstCom A2 - Intense.  Unlike a lot of the Primetime themes on early FirstCom CDs, I don't think this track is on any of the earlier FirstCom Up Tempo LPs.  Crush isn't legally streamable or downloadable, as far as I know, but the single-digit FirstCom "A" discs are the most common ones to show up on eBay (that's how I got FC-A2).  Fast Drive is also on this album, plus one other Primetime song I haven't yet covered.

Accompanying Crush is an interesting footnote from the 1995 season.  The defending champion 49ers, despite being without Steve Young, rolled into Texas Stadium and thumped the eventual champion Dallas Cowboys.  Also included in this highlight is Merton Hanks's famous (infamous?) "Pigeon Dance," which was certainly one of the most unique celebration moves in NFL history.  Have fun!

Strategery

Song - Strategy

Artist(s) - Mary Therese Matthews, Sally Anne Griffith, John Bähler, Matthew Muhoberac

Released - 1985

Primetime Usage - 1987

Contained on - FirstCom UT105 (New Beginning)

Featured Highlight - Lions @ Vikings, 1987


It doesn't get much more obscure than this.  "Strategy," composed by same three artists as "Fast Drive" plus Matthew Muhoberac, was used on the very last highlight of the very first episode of NFL Primetime and I haven't seen any other clips use it.  The availability of 1987 Primetimes is rather limited, however, so it definitely could've been used more than that.  Still…  it's probably one of the least remembered songs used on the show.  That doesn't mean it's bad, though.  Strategy's combination of '70s style and '80s instrumentation is unique, and it's relatively large amount of starts & stops—though not ideal for sports highlights—makes it an interesting song to listen to.

Finding the hard copy of FirstCom UT105 is the only way to get this track legally, I'm pretty sure.  Good luck with that…

As indicated above, Strategy's only known highlight usage was the Lions/Vikings game that ended the first-ever NFL Primetime.  Minnesota pulls out a somewhat comfortable, albeit sloppy, win that kicked off one of the most schizophrenic seasons for a team in NFL history.

Back to the Starting Line

Song - Fast Drive

Artist(s) - Mary Therese Matthews, Sally Anne Griffith, John Bähler

Released - 1985

Primetime Usage - 1987-88

Contained on - FirstCom UT103 (Lightning), FirstCom A2 (Intense)

Featured Highlight - Raiders @ Packers, 1987

To shift the focus from this blog's first couple posts, here's an NFL Primetime song you may not remember.  "Fast Drive" was only used during the first two years of the show and, as such, has become long forgotten compared with the songs I featured earlier.  That doesn't mean it's bad, though.  Fast Drive's '80s hair-metal sound fits the time well and works adequately for sports highlights, too.  I wouldn't say it's one of the best Primetime tracks, by any stretch (in part because I've only seen it used for dud games), but it's still pretty enjoyable.  It was composed by Mary Therese Matthews, Sally Anne Griffith, and John Bähler.  I couldn't find any bio info on Matthews or Griffith (they did contribute to other Primetime songs that will be featured here later, though), but John Bähler was apparently one of the singing voices for The Partridge Family back in the early '70s.

Fast Drive may be obscure for NFL Primetime fans, but you might recognize it if you're a fan of pro wrestling.  It was the theme song for the tag-team duo Stars and Stripes (The Patriot & Buff Bagwell) that competed for WCW in the mid-'90s.

The difficulty in finding this song is similar to Powersurge.  There isn't anywhere to stream it in full, official legality (that I know of), but there's a good chance you could pick up FC-A2 Intense on eBay if you're willing to go that far.  FC-UT103 is harder to find, though, and I'm pretty sure all the FirstCom Up Tempo albums are LPs.

As I mentioned above, the only games I've seen with Fast Drive were relatively uninteresting ones.  Here's a clip from the very first episode of NFL Primetime where John Saunders highlights the final Tom Flores Raiders team going to Lambeau and giving the Packers their first shutout loss in 9 years.