BY MIKEY MIGO
As a kid growing up in a Chicago sports house I was exposed to a lot of awesome memories of watching the big games. I was around two years old, but I still remember some of the 85 Bears Superbowl Shuffle Hoopla. I remember when the Blackhawks had Roenick and Chelios. I remember the Mark Grace/ Ryne Sandberg and Sammy Sosa eras for the Cubs. And really best of all, I got to grow up with Michael Jordan and The Chicago Bulls take the NBA Championship a half dozen times. Sure, I am a masochistic Cubs fan, but there have been plenty of memories to come from them over the past twenty or so years.The more I think about it, the more I realize that I was a spoiled sports fan.
Really, most major cities have had their time to shine and I'm sure just about everyone who is a sports fan has their reasons why they became a fan. There's one aspect to the emotion, entertainment, and experience of sports that is often just taken for granted. Sure we hear the basketball pounce on the hardwood floor. Of course the crowd lights up at the perfect smack of the ball off a bat. We all know those key sounds that will result in a memory making moment. But what I'm talking about is the music of sports. This is the music that someone is playing in the background of these great sounds and the roar of a crowd. In a deep way, it sorta directs the emotion of what the crowd should be expressing. It's a sitting march to show their support for their favorite team or athlete.
Music in athletic competitions goes back to Ancient Greece and their Olympics. Just about every time you watch a sporting even the national anthem of the respected country is played or performed before a game begins. Some of the bigger events will have a famous musician perform their half time show. Of course that would round together the Superbowl, NBA All Star game, and even some past WWE Wrestlemanias.
If you were alive in the 90's and were into sports, there's a good chance you owned or atleast made fun of someone who owned those "Jock Jams" CDS. If you have no idea what, think something like those "WOW" CDs except with bad PG 13 hip hop songs or the standard Queen tracks like "We Will Rock You" or "We Are the Champions". There one horrible techno-ish song, I specifically remember from the days of Napster and Bearshare was "I Like to Move It". The chorus was "I like to move it. Move it. I like to move it. Move it. MOVE IT!" Yeah. I'm not saying these sport songs are all lyrical gems, but they serve their purpose of getting the crowd into the game and getting them pumped.
In baseball there's one song that everyone knows in "Take Me Out to the Ball Game". I would think it's safe to say that song is America's top sports anthem of all time. I could be wrong, but it's gotta be up there with the tops. Up until the 70's, modern radio tunes began to share the field with the long used organ work. Like in Pro Wrestling, each player has their own theme song that plays as the player takes the plate.
Basketball had a lot of good ones from the Dream Team era. "Boom Shakka Laka", "Whoop! There It Is", "Whoomph! There It Is"(There IS a difference), and other heavily rotated songs at the time actually broke into the mainstream merely because basketball was so big at the time. At games you can expect to hear many different songs these days. The classics like the "charge song" are a staple, but now a day many modern songs are being used to get the crowd into it. I've been to one Chicago Bulls game despite being a fan since birth. I remember hearing "Beautiful People" over the PA. That was very weird, but it just shows how far NBA has come with their musical choices.
Football (American) is on the same page as the other sports. Each time enters to the field with their own signature theme song. The Seahawks use The Verve's "Bittersweet Symphony", the Patriots have Ozzy's "Crazy Train", and other teams use the likes of "Welcome to the Jungle" and other hype songs. Most football teams on any level higher than Junior Varsity will have a cheerleader or dance squad. Highschool and College football teams are also more known to have a marching band.
That's the Blue Lion Marching Band rocking out to NIN's "Hand That Feeds". Don't tell me that wasn't cool! (No, really. Don't)
It's in other spots as well. I could write an entire column about the use of music in professional wrestling and I probably will someday. There's much more to it that just the entrance music for a wrestling show to really take in. It's subtle, but it's there. I know soccer/football uses music, but I don't know anything about that sport. But we didn't even touch on all the aspects of music in sports. We can't forget about the cheerleading and dance squads, collegiate pride songs, the television commercials, and the championship music videos. And that's really just a few.
What sport songs are you a fan of?
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