It turned up in the introductions of other ’90s NBA teams, including the Utah Jazz and the San Antonio Spurs, who may have been hoping some of the Bulls’ title-winning mojo would rub off. In ’95, “Sirius” appeared on the second volume of Tommy Boy Records’ Jock Rock series (sibling to the label’s Jock Jams compilations). Among the Bulls faithful, no introduction custom was more sacred than the goosebump-inducing announcement of their basketball god: “From North Carolina, at guard, 6-6, Michael Jordan!” With His Airness’s star in perpetual Jumpman-like ascent and national TV broadcasting the intro as the Bulls hoarded six championships in the ’90s, “Sirius” became a bona fide cultural phenomenon-not simply the soundtrack to one of the NBA’s most dominant dynasties, but a kind of sonic surrogate for sports triumph writ large. What began as a desperate marketing stunt to fill seats at Chicago Stadium took on near-religious significance. It laid a foundation that eventually allowed 48 minutes of basketball to evolve into the two-hour-plus, wall-to-wall multimedia entertainment experience fans now enjoy at every arena. At a time when most NBA clubs didn’t so much as play contemporary pop music in their stadiums, the Bulls’ pioneering game-operations crew managed, using little more than a spotlight in a loud, darkened arena, to create what would become the most potent and iconic pregame ritual in all of sports. Plucked out of relative obscurity by the team’s public address announcer, Tommy Edwards-originator of the famed call, “Aaaand now, the starting lineup for your Chicago Bulls!”-“Sirius” proved to be an inspired selection, transforming a ho-hum intro routine into a can’t-miss spectacle. “Sirius,” the spacey prelude to the Alan Parsons Project’s 1982 LP Eye in the Sky, first reached the ears of the basketball-viewing public in the late ’80s, as the unlikely musical linchpin of the Chicago Bulls’ starting-lineup introduction. In the annals of the Great American Sports Songbook, a singular tune has reigned for more than three decades as the undisputed heavyweight champion of outré jock jams.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |