Duran Duran Meets Phantasy Star

Song - Roadhog

Artist(s) - Trevor Bastow

Released - 1987

Primetime Usage - 1991-92

Contained on - MusicHouse MHI4 (Telefax)

Featured Highlight - Rams @ Giants, 1991


Just because the '80s were over doesn't mean their sound was dead.  In 1991, NFL Primetime began using perhaps the most heavily "eighties" sounding piece ever made.  This song, called "Roadhog," took punchy synth to a new level and often accompanied longer highlights on the show thanks to its full three-minute duration.  For those that are fans of either Duran Duran (especially their earlier, "Fab Five" era stuff) or Sega's Phantasy Star sci-fi RPG series, the style of Roadhog should be quite refreshing for you.

Roadhog was written by the late Trevor Bastow.  Trevor, along with his late brother Geoff, were two of the top stalwarts for both Bruton & MusicHouse from the 1970s-1990s.  Geoff, a disciple of the great Giorgio Moroder, was also known for being the producer behind the briefly popular synth-disco act known as K.I.D. in the early '80s.  Trevor was never a major figure in popular music, as far as I know, but I personally find his large library of production music to be even better than his brother's.  Unfortunately, Roadhog seems to be the only Primetime track composed by either of the two Bastow brothers.

The featured game highlight for Roadhog isn't the greatest, but it's still fairly entertaining.  The Rams, in John Robinson's final season, went up to the Meadowlands and handed defending Super Bowl champion Jeff Hostetler his first-ever loss as a starting QB.

NFL Primetime Music - Introduction

NFL Primetime, which aired in its weekly, classic form on ESPN from 1987-2005, put a unique imprint on the memories of NFL fans.  Chris Berman's wit and eventual use of corny nicknames cemented him as one of the stars of the network, while Tom Jackson's concise, accurate, & often blunt analysis made him the most refreshing football commentator on TV.  The first 11 years of NFL Primetime also featured an all-star team of co-hosts including John Saunders, Robin Roberts, Bill Pidto, & the late Stuart Scott.  Even legendary sports wordsmith Pete Axthelm, who died in early 1991, provided entertaining editorials and betting analysis in the show's early years.  All of these factors helped make NFL Primetime one of the best highlight shows ever made and vastly superior to anything that's come since the 2006 change to the NFL TV arrangement, but—come on—the #1 reason people loved the show was its awesome soundtrack.

NFL Primetime music has been highly sought on the internet for more than a decade now.  I'm sure, if you found this blog anyway, that you've seen a set of 16+ NFL Primetime songs either posted on youtube or for download elsewhere.  I don't quite know how all of these songs were obtained, though I believe some were ripped from the now forgotten NFL Primetime PS2 game that came out in 2002, but I have found actual documentation on some of them.  Also—in providing a more unique flavor to this blog—I have found a lot of songs not contained in this set, including most of the tracks utilized in the early days of the show.  The vast majority of what I've discovered can be located on the various production music label networks that populate the web.  Well known figures in the production music world created some of these compositions, such as Trevor Bastow, Zack Laurence, John Devereaux, & Alan Hawkshaw, and their quality stands far above the average you'd expect for library stuff.  I've still got a long way to go to find everything, though, given the mind-numbing amount of production music that's available to stream online.

Over the coming weeks and months, I will post information about the NFL Primetime music I have definitively identified.  After that, I will start detailing the songs that are less than fleshed out.  This will start with songs I've discovered without credits and then finish with the tracks I have yet to find at all.  Hopefully this blog will be popular enough by that point that you readers can then help me out with this process.  No song will be available for download on this blog.  However, links to production libraries where these songs can be legally streamed/obtained will be provided whenever possible.  I will also include one game highlight from NFL Primetime as an example of each song's use on the show.  I hope that, one day, this site can put together a complete list of every song used for highlights over the entire run of the show.  Enjoy, and thanks for reading!