Unknown Song #1 Identified

Josh Ochs came up big again, as he found the lone unidentified song I've posted thus far.  It's called "Powergate," by Steve Martin, and you can check out the revised post here.

Total News

Song - Total News

Artist(s) - Tom Blades

Released - 1996

Primetime Usage - 1997-05

Contained on - ATMOS 81 (Current Affairs)

Featured Highlight - Rams @ Eagles, 2002


I finally found one of the missing staples from the later years of NFL Primetime.  "Total News" created a good balance of laid-back fun & energetic tension that saved a lot of otherwise unimpressive game highlights—it's no wonder they used it a lot over the final 9 seasons of the show.  Following Leading Edge, Total News is both the second Primetime track discovered in the Atmosphere library and the second one composed by Tom Blades.  I am currently searching this library to hear if there's more.

Oh, and special thanks to Josh Ochs on youtube.  There's a 1998 Washington Capitals broadcast video posted by Dan Conroy that periodically uses this song.  I asked if anyone knew the song in the comments, and Josh Ochs ID'd it for me.

As for Total News's highlight, here's one of the worst played games of all time…

*SIDE NOTE* - Universal Production Music revamped their whole website a few days ago and all of the album URLs have changed.  It's now universalproductionmusic.com instead of unippm.com and I have fixed all the links on this website to reflect the change.  The "UNIPPM" blog label has also been replaced by "Universal."

Marathon

Song - Marathon

Artist(s) - Hal Brown, Donald Bradley Kelley (Brad Kelley) (?)

Released - 1985

Primetime Usage - 1987-88

Contained on - FirstCom UT103 (Lightning)

Featured Highlight - Packers @ Saints, 1987


Perhaps the most used song in the the first two years of NFL Primetime, "Marathon"—though enjoyable—is an unusual one.  It's a track that doesn't seem to fit football highlights at first, but works surprisingly well after a few listens.  I guess Marathon would be classified as fusion, though it's a bit more driving-rockish and edgy than a stereotypical fusion piece like Solar Winds.  Speaking of Solar Winds, Marathon is contained on the same hard-to-find FirstCom Up Tempo album.

As with Communique, I'm not certain I have the artist credits correct.  There is a song named "Marathon" credited to Hal Brown & Donald Bradley Kelley in the ASCAP database, though, and they were frequent FirstCom composers during this era.  They also composed Drive Away, which is similar in many ways to Marathon.

The highlight this time shows the New Orleans Saints coronating their first-ever playoff appearance against the Green Bay Packers.  As you'll see in the video, the Saints would be far more jubilant at the end of this one than they would be a week later after a humiliating loss to the 8-7 Vikings.  This was also Forrest Gregg's final game as an NFL head coach.

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.

Sonoton Finale

Song - Never Give Up

Artist(s) - "John Epping" (Gerhard Narholz)

Released - 1988

Primetime Usage - 1989

Contained on - SON 295/Sonoton SCD 17 (Robot Couture)

Featured Highlight - Dolphins @ Chiefs, 1989

I'm gonna make this one brief, but "Never Give Up" is—to my knowledge—the only NFL Primetime track from Sonoton I haven't yet posted.  The song, by Sonoton founder Gerhard Narholz (under one of his more common aliases), sounds like a lighter & happier version of Xenon.  It has similar instrumentation, anyway.  It's accompanying highlight features Dan Marino's Dolphins getting run over by "The Nigerian Nightmare,"  so it should be quite enjoyable if you're a Chiefs fan.

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!

The Original Epic… Sort of

Song - Raw Energy

Artist(s) - John Devereaux, David Reilly

Released - 1985

Primetime Usage - 1987-88

Contained on - KPMLP 1348 (Achievers), KPM 12 (Achievers)

Featured Highlight - Bills @ Seahawks, 1988


I've already covered the previous epic-sounding songs from NFL Primetime—Olympic Action (1989-90), Crush (1991-95), and International Statement (1997-05)—as well as the "epic track that wasn't"—Performance (1990).  Now comes the original.  "Raw Energy," composed by the supergroup-esque combination of John Devereaux & David Reilly, sounds exactly like how one would expect a dramatic rock/orchestral fusion piece from the late '80s to sound.  That means it's a perfect accompaniment to high-profile football highlights.  Unfortunately, despite this truth, ESPN didn't really use the song that way.  It was played frequently in 1987 and especially in 1988, but it often accented games that just weren't that interesting or important.  In other words:  Raw Energy could've been a true "epic track," but its questionable implementation prevented it from quite getting to that level.

This week's highlight doesn't need much setup.  It's just the 1988 Bills winning one of many low-scoring games on their way to a surprisingly easy division title.  You will get to see the long-dead Seattle Kingdome, though.

Since this is the final week of the NFL season, my Primetime Music posts will get less frequent for a while.  One interesting note, however, is that I only have a handful of fully documented tracks left to post.  That means that, sometime during the offseason, I will begin posting unidentified songs (starting with the songs that have some sort of partial identification or unofficial names).  Keep an eye out for that, and feel free to let me and/or the public know a song's ID if you happen to know it.  Thanks for reading!