The Music of Sports

One of the hardest things to do is to write a piece of instrumental music about a particular sport that musically approximates its dynamism, competitiveness and specific cultural locus, which is why there are few truly great sports themes. One of the other hardest things to do is write an introductory paragraph to an article about sports theme music, so fuck it.

BASEBALL
ESPN's baseball theme is more or less an extension of their pavlovian Baseball Tonight jingle and benefits greatly from its familiarity, brevity as well as its Close-Encounters-of-the-Third-Kind simplicity. It's only a few notes long but you'll unconsciously wander into a room whenever you hear it if you're hungry for baseball. Fox's baseball theme, however, is a disaster. It may be catchy, but its strangely militant kettledrumming and intimidating horn blasts make for a theme horribly incongruent with the pastoral languor of a midsummer day game. Besides it sounds like the B-side to fox's equally grating minor-key football theme.

OLYMPICS
NBC’s coverage of the Olympics is awful for many reasons, the stifling Americo-centrism, the refusal to spotlight interesting or unusual sports and the melodramatic pre-packaged narrative (this annoying trend reached its apotheosis in Sydney when NBC had a full 24 hours to manipulate its footage). One thing that does not detract from their coverage, however, is the rousing majesty of John Williams’ scores, from the regal fanfare of ""The Call of the Champions"" to his more serene but equally stirring ""Atlanta Theme"" (If you listen close enough, you can almost hear Richard Jewell crying in the background). The songs are almost too grand, impossible for any sporting event to live up to, and especially mismatched when accompanying Bob Costas’ dorky visage. Although its theme may not rapturously herald the Second Coming as John Williams' NBC score seems to do, CBS does a perfectly competent job on the odd year they captain olympic coverage. It's been 13 years since CBS last carried the winter olympics but when I close my eyes and listen to this noble score I can still see Dan Jansen doing his best pinball impression on the speed skating circuit.

BASKETBALL
CBS' NCAA basketball theme, like the Baseball Tonight jingle, actually elicits a warm, almost pheromonal response, at least in me. It evokes a very specific part of the year and announces its arrival with all the lively enthusiasm of Dick Vitale while channeling none of his more unbearable, overwhelming qualities. The only other basketball theme of any consequence is John Tesh's synthesized masterpiece ""Roundball Rock"". In the past 5 years since NBC lost the rights to the NBA, ABC has fumbled through 4 different themes for NBA coverage, all equally unmemorable and uninspired. Why they haven't adopted Tesh's angular and aggressive "Rock", the defacto anthem for the league, is a mystery, and to sentimentalists like myself for whom it wistfully evokes images of Dan Majerle and Cedric Ceballos, a tragedy.

FOOTBALL
NBC's Football Night in America premiered this year with a theme that is pretty much the unremarkable orchestrated blitzkrieg you would expect for a football program with such a stupid and knowingly bombastic name (to say nothing of Pink’s unspeakable intro that precedes it). Football is a violent game and it lends itself to the scary military music that CBS, NBC and ESPN have adopted, and that Fox probably first popularized. However it is interesting to note that this de rigueur Wagner-esque bravado, wasn’t always so in football theme music. One recent example is NBC’s bizarrely plaintive football theme from the early 90s as well as Monday Night Football’s popular and downright ebullient anthem. I’ve never really liked Fox’s football theme although by now it has become almost a cultural meme and I would be disappointed if it were changed if only out of conservative reluctance. Also I’ve never been able to take it seriously because you can easily sing “giddy-up giddy-up giddy-up let’s go” to it, which kinds of takes the sting out of its self-conscious austerity.

Aside: While looking into sports themes perhaps the most unusual discovery was ABC's retired golf theme, which sounds lifted from an obscure Blaxpoitation film. You half expect Barry White to interject some soulful crooning about the shaft length of his driver. Boo-yah.