Admit it. You watch. You like to watch.<\/p>\n
Professional wrestling has moved out into the spotlight. Shows
\nsell out, pay-per-view events get millions, TV shows own the nights
\nthey appear. It no longer is the spectacle of choice of just the
\nrednecks, the blue-collar workers and the gullible. Now, doctors,
\ncollege students and movie stars are all tuning in on Monday nights
\nto watch their favorite shows and wrestlers shout, scream and
\n“fight.” This resurgence has perhaps not been seen before – not
\neven in the 80s heyday of Andre the Giant and Hulk Hogan.<\/p>\n
Why is it that wrestling is so popular? I think that it is
\nbecause their dirty secret is out. For decades, it was known by all
\nthat pro wrestling wasn’t exactly a sport. Matches were fixed,
\nwrestlers faked their moves and their effect, titles changed hands
\nmore quickly than the flavor-of-the-week teen sensation. We all
\nknew it, but they tried to keep it hidden. Now, that is no longer
\nthe case, but it doesn’t matter because the fighting has taken a
\nback seat. It is no longer a “sport,” it’s a show. And as such, for
\ntwo hours a week – or more depending on how much you watch – these
\nactor\/athletes pretend to hurt each other, call each other names
\nand try to give their audience the best time possible.<\/p>\n
Now, I know what you’re thinking. “Hey, isn’t this supposed to
\nbe an album review? What does all the diatribe above have to do
\nwith it?” Well, if, for example, WWF’s
\nMonday Night Raw<\/i> is a show, then this album is its
\nsoundtrack. And that’s exactly the way to think of this album.
\nThemes for characters in a show that’s one-third soap opera,
\none-third
\nFriday Night Fights<\/i> and one-third rock concert.<\/p>\n
As a show, the theme music helps introduce the various wrestlers
\nto the audience. That’s its basic job. However, the themes also
\ngive the listener the basic idea on who it is, what the wrestler’s
\nattitude is like and his “allegiance” to any particular group. Now,
\nif you’ve never seen a wrestling show, those previous statements
\nmade no sense. If you’ve seen one, you know what I’m talking about.
\nBut I’ll explain.<\/p>\n
The album starts with the ominous theme for “The Undertaker.”
\nThe chorus behind it and the mean riff should immediately tell you
\nthat this wrestler isn’t the nicest of guys. He’s not the bright
\nand cheerful fella that is out there for the fans. (Please note:
\nall of this is about the wrestler, not the person okay?) Neither is
\nKane and his theme follows along similar lines. Ominous chanting,
\ndeep rock riffs and a sense of darkness. I prefer the Undertaker’s
\ntheme to Kane’s, simply because it’s more rock-oriented.<\/p>\n
Speaking of rock oriented, you also have “Stone Cold Steve
\nAustin,” “D-Generation X” and “New Age Outlaws.” Stone Cold’s theme
\nis well-known just simply by the opening sound of glass shattering.
\nBeyond that is a mean-heavy riff, reminiscent of early heavy metal.
\nOn the other hand, D-X’s theme is more modern. It sounds like it
\nwas laid down by Rage Against the Machine. Though the lyrics are
\ntrite, the music more than makes up for it. And, once again, the
\nthemes serve the fans by telling you who it is and what they stand
\nfor. These aren’t mommies’ darlings. (Or so we are led to believe).
\nLikewise is the theme for “Gangrel-The Brood.” It is as ominous as
\nthe Undertaker’s, but with a clear gothic feel. Like you’re in the
\nchurch from hell.<\/p>\n
On the amusing side, you have themes for “The Rock” – which is
\nnothing more than the Rock’s various catch phrases repeated over
\nvarious beats – and “Val Venis” – which sounds like it came from a
\nbad 70s porn film. (No! I’m not insinuating that I’ve ever watched
\nbad 70s porn!) Yet again, these themes play into the wrestlers’
\npersonas. The Rock is a very conceited and self-assured wrestler.
\nHe acts like a jerk and it is this reason why he is a fan favorite.
\nMeanwhile, Val Venis is always attracting attention to the “Big
\nValbowski” (guess what it is) and bedding a number of the
\ninflatable dolls that strut down the ramp. Both tracks capture
\ntheir attitudes rather well and you find yourself listening to them
\n– even though they aren’t that musically inclined.<\/p>\n
Yet there are quite a few problems with this album though. First
\nof all, if you know anything about wrestling it is that the
\n“athletes” change names, allegiances, songs and even companies the
\nway that pro athletes change teams. Therefore, some of the
\nwrestlers who appear on this album – which is over a year old – may
\nnot call themselves the names that appear or may not even be with
\nthe WWF anymore. For example, the New Age Outlaws were a tag team
\nthat broke up. Now, their theme music is used by one of the two
\nwrestlers – if you’re a fan, you know who. At the same time, some
\nof the newer themes don’t appear here. Like Mankind’s, Triple H’s
\nor the Godfather’s.<\/p>\n
The second problem is that a few of the tracks fall flat.
\n“Sable” tries to be both a rock song and dance theme for the former
\nwrestler\/manager\/Playboy pin-up. I don’t buy it. Too many kittens
\npulling at the strings. Another one that I didn’t favor was the
\n“Oddities.” While it is true that the Insane Clown Posse bequeathed
\nthis group with the song, I don’t know why. It sounds like, at
\nbest, a B-side and, at worst, something that didn’t work in the
\nstudios, but they had to use anyhow. By the way, both Sable and the
\nOddities are examples of how wrestlers dissapear from the map in a
\nflash. Check out any of the WWF’s shows and you won’t find either
\none.<\/p>\n
The biggest problem in this album though is one word:
\nrepetitiveness. I don’t mean the same themes reappearing or the
\nsame music. I mean the same sequences. Listen to any of these
\ntracks and, after they hit the 1:30 mark, they will repeat
\nthemselves on and on until fadeout. Why is that? Well, most
\nwrestlers’ music is designed to be played for a minute or so and
\nnothing more, which is no problem while the show is going on. But
\nhow do you stretch one minute plus sequences into three minutes of
\nmusic? For this album, they simply repeat the music. That means
\nthat you are not listening to true songs, but what I call
\n“songlets.” They’re snipplets of songs. What the WWF should have
\ndone is ask whoever created these themes to flesh them out and
\nwrite full songs. Most of the songs, you will find, get repetitive
\nafter a while and you tune them out. That is not good.<\/p>\n
If you’re not a wrestling fan, then more than likely you will
\nnot pick up this album. Honestly that is no great loss. For
\nwrestling fans, this album might be a novelty pick up. Most
\ndiehards already have this album and that’s great. Nevertheless,
\ndon’t judge most shows just by their music. Watch one of them.
\nBecause if you don’t know, then – ah, fans know the rest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":28038,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5827],"rating":[11204],"class_list":["post-39432","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-various-artists","rating-rating-c-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39432"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}