Football needs a theme song everyone can enjoy

Plus, CHVRCHES' Lauren Mayberry goes solo, Mark Ronson talks Barbie and more.

View this email online September 9, 2023 by Stephen Thompson This week, we contemplate the intersection of sports and music; plus, CHVRCHES’ Lauren Mayberry goes solo, Mark Ronson talks Barbie and more. Herb Maximo In an effort to expand my sports-watching horizons and avoid the outdoors, I’ve spent a fair bit of time this summer watching the Women’s World Cup and the U.S. Open. That’s more soccer and tennis in the last month or two than I’d watched in my entire life up to that point. I’ve enjoyed both quite a bit, and to swing things around to the subject of this email, the experience has rekindled an ongoing fascination with how different sports find themselves represented musically. The Women’s World Cup, for example, spawned a series of “unofficial halftime shows” — sponsored by that sportiest of fast-food titans, Taco Bell — featuring MUNA, Claire Rosinkranz and Scowl. And the U.S. Open has punctuated its telecasts with constant recurrences of Conan Gray’s “Never Ending Song” (which, it turns out, is from this past May and not 1983) and Rita Ora’s “Praising You” (which, due to its interpolation of Fatboy Slim’s “Praise You,” is from this past April and 1998). The music has provided a helpful bit of shorthand for what marketers and advertisers view as the target audience for the sports in question. Like women’s soccer? Taco Bell suspects you’ll be interested in some combination of MUNA’s queer joy, Claire Rosinkranz’s spikily playful pop and Scowl’s slickly heavy punk. (In my case, they were correct about this.) Looking to get acquainted with the new young guns of tennis — Coco Gauff, Ben Shelton, Carlos Alcaraz — but only know about the legends of the past? Perhaps you’d like some contemporary pop music that’s also deeply versed in the sounds of the ’80s and ’90s! Which, finally, brings us to a sport in which my opinions have deeper roots: the National Football League, which officially kicked off its new season Thursday night. Back in 2014, when I was writing an advice column called The Good Listener for NPR Music, someone wrote in to ask a question that has haunted me ever since: “I can think of good, or at least decent, songs about basketball and baseball. Why not football?” I spent a good chunk of that column dwelling on Hank Williams Jr.’s 1984 hit “All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight,” which got repurposed into an on-again/off-again theme for Monday Night Football. But, because Williams keeps getting removed from the rotation — first in 2011, then again in 2020 — we’ve never felt further away from my dream of a football anthem everyone can agree on. I love Explosions in the Sky’s Friday Night Lights music at least as much as the next guy, and I’ll go to my grave praising Fountains of Wayne’s “All Kinds of Time” (which the NFL itself used to use in commercials), but both feel a little too … contemplative, vibes-wise, to unite all of football fandom behind a single song. It doesn’t help that, in 2023, NFL games are scattered across so many networks and streaming services: Beyond Monday Night Football on ESPN, you’ve got Sunday’s Football Night in America on NBC, plus Sunday’s NFL Red Zone lineup, weekly games on CBS and Fox, Thursday-night games on Amazon Prime, occasional games on the NFL Network and more. Each outlet has its own musical branding and its own vision of how football should sound. You might get Carrie Underwood defiantly standing still while trying to shoehorn in a lyric about “the Jaguars and the Texans in a nasty showdown,” or you might get an electro-pop remix courtesy of Marshmello, but are you getting a song for everyone? The solution, it turns out, remains entirely unchanged from what it was when I wrote that Good Listener column back in 2014: We need Andrew W.K. to rework his 2001 masterpiece “It’s Time to Party” into a new masterpiece called “It’s Time for Football,” to be aired on all networks prior to every NFL game in lieu of insipid pregame commentary. The words to this song write themselves, but they don’t even have to, because I wrote them myself and they are incredible: "IT’S TIME FOR FOOTBALL! FOOTBALL! NA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA NAAAA-NA FOOTBALL! HEY YOU! WATCH FOOTBALL! NA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA FOOOOOOOTBALLLLLLL!" And with that, an entire sports nation is successfully united in song. [Punches out early, heads home.]  Newsletter continues after sponsor message More to read, watch and hear All Things Considered host Ari Shapiro is bullish on the career of CHVRCHES’ Lauren Mayberry, especially after seeing her perform her first live concert as a solo artist this past Monday. Ari sat down with Mayberry before that show, capturing the singer on the brink of a fruitful new chapter. (For those of us who love CHVRCHES, rest assured that the band will eventually return with Mayberry in the fold.) When it comes to Barbie’s phenomenal success in theaters this past summer, there’s plenty of credit to go around. Some of it belongs to the film’s star-packed soundtrack, which set up countless jokes, moved the plot along, inserted Billie Eilish into the Oscars conversation yet again and even placed Ryan Gosling on the pop charts. Fresh Air’s Tonya Mosley spoke to the soundtrack’s decorated producer, Mark Ronson, about the film’s many musical highlights. Bruce Springsteen has been on a full-fledged tour for the first time since 2017, but the superstar just had to cancel a bunch of arena concerts due to peptic ulcer disease. NPR’s Bill Chappell has the story. Romy Madley Croft is the last of the three members of The xx to release a solo album — Mid Air came out Friday — and it’s an auspicious debut that occupies a middle ground between dance music and singer-songwriterly reflections. Croft, who records under the name Romy, performs songs from Mid Air on a recent episode of World Cafe. All Songs Considered’s New Music Friday rounds up an especially strong week of fresh album releases. Headlined by Olivia Rodrigo’s GUTS, the show also features new records from Jalen Ngonda, Anjimile, James Blake and Yussef Dayes. Morning Edition recently turned to the great and good Kiana Fitzgerald for an analysis of some of the game-changing moments in the history of hip-hop. Here she is, talking about the rise of Nicki Minaj. We lost two big musical names over Labor Day weekend: Jimmy Buffett, whose laid-back soft rock made him an icon — not to mention an extraordinarily successful entrepreneur — and Steve Harwell, whose long-running stint as lead singer of Smash Mouth produced massive hits with “All Star,” “Walking on the Sun” and its Shrek-adjacent cover of The Monkees’ “I’m a Believer.” Tiny Desk Elizabeth Gillis/NPR I’ve brought the occasional valuable item to NPR headquarters; that’s my talking Master P doll on the top shelf behind the Tiny Desk, to name but one example. But Anne Akiko Meyers set a new standard, as she showed up with a violin that’s worth more than everything I’ve ever owned, combined, many times over. Her Guarneri del Gesù "Vieuxtemps" violin, built in 1741, is worth at least $16 million, and it’s a testament to my colleagues’ classiness that no one spilled barbecue sauce on it or dropped it in a fish tank or something. Joined by pianist Max Levinson, Meyers and her moneymaker performed pieces by Philip Glass, Camille Saint-Saëns and Morten Lauridsen. Also at the Desk this week: Chlöe, a.k.a. the non-Mermaid half of Chlöe x Halle, crushed songs from her recent solo debut, In Pieces. And the Japanese composer and pianist Hiromi performed a fun and energetic set. One More Thing I’m a full year late to this one, but Deanna Petcoff’s “Devastatingly Mediocre” is one of the best kiss-off songs I’ve heard in ages. Listen to your local NPR station. Visit NPR.org to hear live radio from WUFT 89.1 (edit station). Need a new playlist? Follow NPR Music on Spotify and Apple Music What do you think of today's email? We'd love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: nprmusic@npr.org Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can sign up here. Looking for more great content? Check out all of our newsletter offerings — including Books, Pop Culture, Health and more! 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