Honorable mentions:
- "The Score"- Madden 2001, Playstation: this might have been the first year that Madden started using real songs in their game, even though all the songs were about Madden football. Later they would graduate to using actual songs in the game. Anyway, this song would be higher, but it has managed to do the impossible and completely disappear from the internet. I've been trying to get this song on my ipod for years, but it's nowhere to be found. If it wasn't for Bergman occasionally quoting this song in our emails or texties, I'd be fairly convinced I just imagined the song and that it never existed. If this song were a spy, it would be Jason Bourne.
- The song from Sonic the Hedgehog when you're invincible...it used to be one of my favs, but it is currently my alarm clock music on my phone, so now I just associate it with waking up in the morning and it's killing it for me. My bad, Sonic.
#5. NBA Jam, Sega Genesis, team select screen: similar to how listening to 'Circle of Life' gets me fired up to watch Lion King, this song gets me fired up to play NBA Jam. The church my family and I went to for a few years in the mid-90's was in the South Forks Plaza, directly across the hall from the arcade. And every time the congregation got quiet before we were about to pray, you could hear the siren calls of various games (the ones that caught my ear the most were NBA Jam and the Daytona machine...."Daytoooooooonnnnaaaaaaa!" you know what I'm talking about.) Within 20 seconds of the end of the sermon, every dude between the ages of 8-14 were already across the hall, throwing coins around like it was our first time in a Canadian strip club. What the church should've done is sneak offering plates into the arcade machine coin slots, collections would have went up tenfold. So I guess in a roundabout way, you could say that NBA Jam is like a religion for me.
#4. NHL '94, Sega Genesis, in between periods screen:
Some of my fondest childhood memories come from playing this game. And when I say "childhood" I really mean "my senior year of high school." I was cleaning out my old bedroom closet at my parents' house over Christmas break, and found an old piece of paper entitled "ROAD to 5,000" and a bunch of scores listed. Apparently Paul and I were attempting to play 5,000 games of NHL '94, and documenting the score and star of the game for each one. Seniors in high school, mind you. According to the paper I found, we quit after like 27 games (probably because I was kicking his ass. In his defense, you give me the Detroit Red Wings and Steve Yzerman, and you're probably not going to come out on top. I don't care how shitty the goalie combo of Tim Cheveldae and Chris Osgood is.)
OK, this one's really from childhood. One of my best friends in elementary school was a kid named Marcus. We played video games together all the time, this game being our favorite. Marcus had an older brother Chad, who was probably my biggest idol growing up, because a) the whole younger kid/older kid dynamic; and b) he was fucking hilarious. He used to play against Marcus and I and talk mad shit the whole time, stuff like scoring with Steve Larmer and then yelling "Sound the Alarmer!" or else secretly turning the penalties off and then cross-checking and injuring all our players while exclaiming "Goon it up! Goon it up!" I would be in giggling hysterics, but Marcus hated it, and one time he threw his Sega controller THROUGH the TV screen and caused a controlled explosion-- an amazing feat for a 10-year-old. Soon afterwards, he moved to Arizona. We said we would always stay friends, then tried talking once on the phone afterwards but it was awkward (the only people I could talk to on the phone for an extended period of time in 5th grade were girls that I wanted to "date"....which really meant "refusing to eliminate them in foursquare, and maybe accidentally grazing what counted as a boob while watching Aladdin in her parents' basement") and so we never talked again. I've tried searching for him and his brother on Facebook to no avail-- and if Facebook isn't for stalking people you haven't talked to in sixteen years, then what is it for? I would trade like 75 of my worthless Facebook friends and their crappy Farmville or Ninja requests just to know what state Marcus lives in these days.
Three more thoughts about NHL '94 since we're here (why, I thought you'd never ask!)
1. The zamboni driver periodically waving to you as he drives by? Classic.
2. Did anyone else have such a gambling problem at a young age that when the game would show highlights from other games in between periods, you would bet your allowance money on which team would score in the highlight? No? Just me?
3. The legendary Ron Barr previews each game, like he does in so many other EA sports games from the early 90's. We were a wee bit obsessed with him, so freshman year of college, during his call-in radio show, we called in and invited Mr. Barr to my parents' house for Thanksgiving. He laughed and accepted the request (but I think he was just being a good sport, since I think he was genuinely impressed that an 18-year-old had just held his own during a 5-minute on-air conversation about the Cleveland Indians farm system.) A few weeks later, after he no-showed (shocker!) we called back in and started chewing him out on-air, and we quickly and unceremoniously got the plug pulled on us. Still love you, Ron Barr.
#3. Madden '93, Super Nintendo, main theme. I've got no stories for this one, other than to say that this little tune spent a considerable amount of time as my cell phone ringer back in 2007. Which is just as well, since I just put up like 700 words on NHL '94. That paragraph about Marcus was probably the furthest off-topic I've ever gone before. And that's saying something.
#2. NBA Hangtime, Nintendo 64, halftime music: The only one on the list that's an actual "song" with lyrics and whatnot. DVJS, Lane, Haley and I used to have mandatory dancing to this song during halftime of games in Haley's basement. No matter how badly you were getting killed in the first half, or how badly you were currently getting screwed (Jon Fucking Koncak has 31 in the first half? Really?) you had to put a smile on your face and break it down as soon as halftime started. Usually you didn't have to twist anyone's arm too hard; this song is money. And Angie, bring us down another tray of bagel bites!
#1. Super Mario Brothers, Nintendo, main theme: I've made the argument before that, from a certain point of view, this song has to be at least included in the discussion for greatest musical compositions of all time. How many people have owned this video game, multiplied by how many times they've played these particular levels (we're not counting the castles or underwater levels here, obvs) and throwing in all the times they've watched their friends play, or other random times they've heard it? The amount of man hours spent listening to this tune over the years is staggering. You would think that people would be tearing their hair out at the mere mention of this song. But you never do, do you? On the contrary, people always say how awesome this song is, after all these years. And that's astounding to me.
Astounding enough to warrant doing a list as dumb as this? Probably not. But still.
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