Jock Jams, Volume 1: How does the Jock series hold up today?

To most, if not all, millennial sports-music junkies, the triple-ding of a boxing bell was not automatically synonymous with boxing. Ditto the voice and catchphrase of inimitable ring emcee Michael Buffer.

Together, those sound effects constituted, in this author’s father’s words, “proper music” for a drive en route to one’s AYSO soccer debut in late April 1998. That was true of everything we could get out of the car’s cassette player before arriving at the pitch. The 15-minute drive allowed for four full-length tracks of pump-up fodder.

That same school year, the same intro to Jock Jams, Volume 1 was used to kickstart a farewell ceremony for our greener-pastures-seeking, sports-loving principal. The gym hosting the gathering made ample use of the ESPN compilation at high-school athletic contests as well.

That was the best way to emulate a professional atmosphere at the time. Following up on Jock Rock, Volume 1 (revisited in this space here), the first Jock Jams appealed to younger, burgeoning sports fans with more up-to-speed (in multiple senses of the word) content than its sister anthology. Of particular note, it featured two singles that spent at least one week atop the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1991.

In so doing, it spawned a greater selection for stadium and arena DJs. And while it would inspire fast-growing company soon after its release on July 25, 1995, it enjoyed first-come, first-served familiarity. Comparatively speaking, its tracks sustained more frequent and prominent play while the Jock series was hot.

JJV1 was, as Buffer might say, “the main event” of the eight-part series. And intentionally or not, from Buffer’s overlap with another unmistakable refrain containing the word “ready” onward, it set an example of ideal beginning, middle, late-stage and ending tracks for a sporting event.

Minus the short cheerleader chants and Ray Castoldi organ taps, here is a look back at that very track order.

 

 

“Get Ready for This”

No later than a given sport’s first full season after Jock Jams hit the shelves did the Buffer/2 Unlimited mashup become a go-to tune at opening faceoffs, first pitches, kickoffs or tip-offs. Other facilities used it for starting lineup introductions, allowing for longer play, sometimes even the full song. Some teams from the scholastic to the major professional ranks sustained this practice through the mid-2000s.

A few NHL teams notably misused this as a goal song. Somehow it sounded out of place in that context. But even when the Toronto Maple Leafs scrapped “Get Ready for This” in favor of “Kernkraft 400,” they reassigned the former as part of their last TV timeout. Anyone who watched Hockey Night in Canada from 2000-01 to the 2004-05 lockout will remember that commercial break starting with the opening riff of “The Hockey Song” then coming back in the middle of 2 Unlimited’s breakout single.

Perhaps the twice-shouted “Y’all ready for this?” (which is actually a sample) single-handedly made this otherwise instrumental tune sound best as pregame fodder. Come what may, it quickly became an energizing attention-grabber for sports audiences. Before long, its power spilled over to cinema, as it played over trailers and promos for various movies.

“Whoomp! (There It Is)”

Leading up to this compilation, Tag Team’s magnum opus was already synonymous with sporting success. It was one of the rally tunes of the Philadelphia Phillies 1993 pennant run and the Houston Rockets 1994 NBA championship. In between, hockey fans got to know it from the schoolyard-puck scene in D2: The Mighty Ducks.

With or without athletic assistance, “Whoomp! (There It Is)” hit the summit of genre-specific and overall charts alike. Castoldi and his counterparts across the continent could not help making it a stadium staple for the rest of the decade. As a testament to its stature in those settings, it was among the recycled selections for 2001’s All Star Jock Jams.

“Strike It Up”

Another rhythm fit to precede a big block of game action, this sensibly comes in as the third full-length Jock Jams track. This author’s defining experience with the Black Box song came when the Providence Bruins used it as their skate-out music for the start of every period at every game. The Providence Civic Center was never ready for puck-drop until Martha Walsh told everyone she was waiting on her feelings.

In The Show, and at Castoldi’s workplace, “Strike It Up” remains synonymous with the Rangers. It was the second track on 1997’s New York Rangers Greatest Hits and still accompanies the live “Dancing Larry” videos. (For that piece of multimedia entertainment, it also gives way to a later Jock Jams track. Stay tuned for more on that.)

 

 

“Tootsee Roll”

In the years after the first Jock Jams came out, this author attended at least 350 professional, collegiate or junior sporting events. Yet in contrast to numerous instances of the album’s other tunes, I only remember hearing “Tootsee Roll” in public twice. One of those times was at a junior hockey game in 1998, the other at a school dance in 2002.

Less utilized in the mainstream and less popular than most of its compilation teammates, “Tootsee Roll” was released a mere 14 months before Jock Jams, Volume 1. It had attained top-10 Billboard rankings the year it was released, but perhaps its comparative youth was a disadvantage on the sports compilation.

Everything else on JJV1 had been around for at least two years. As such, they all had more time to cement themselves as tried and true in the overlapping sports-culture conscience.

“Come Baby Come”

Borrowing from their own album’s title, K7 includes the directive, “swing batta, batta, batta, swing!” in one of this song’s bridges. Odds are that helped it land in a TV promo for Mr. 3000 roughly a decade later.

Granted, that baseball metaphor comes fairly late in the track. Some advanced maneuvering would be required to play that part over a PA system in most scenarios. But the opening refrain of “Da ding de ding de ding de de de ding ding” has always been distinctive and catchy enough to fill a 30-second break in the action on its own.

“It Takes Two”

After sampling some of their influences, Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock had their creation sampled and covered many times in turn. Everyone from Jason Nevins to Ciara to the Black Eyed Peas to Carly Rae Jepsen craved a solo or collaborative take.

Whether it is fitting or ironic, the joint sampled parts of the original “It Takes Two” are most memorable in a sporting context. “Yeah! Woo!” can randomly run on a loop to fill the time between plays or specialize in signifying a pair. Maybe a freshly hit double, double play or back-to-back home runs in baseball or an upcoming two-player advantage in hockey.

 

“Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)”

Just like its Jock Rock counterpart, the first cassette of Jock Jams issued a straightforward directive via side one’s penultimate track. On the album, Walsh’s voice reappears and overlaps with the “Gridiron Groove” interstitial before the music kicks in.

Even among non-sports enthusiasts who remember ’90s culture, that riff ought to be familiar. It plays twice in a peak-year Simpsons episode, and was parodied in a Pringles ad.

In popular media, some critics have come to malign C+C Music Factory’s old hit as “redundant.” In the eyes of AllMusic’s James Christopher Monger, it was trite by its 2007 usage in Evan Almighty.

But back at the arena or stadium, this is obligatory any time a team has a nostalgia-themed promotion. At its overall peak, “Gonna Make You Sweat” was one of the definitive tracks between plays or innings.

“Hip Hop Hooray”

In this decade, you can still find at dance studios what you saw at arenas in the second half of the ’90s. One can hardly separate the alternating “Hey! Ho!” hook from back-and-forth left-to-right arm-swaying. That is unless you are a Seattle Mariners fan, in which case you associate it, first and foremost, with Ken Griffey Jr.

Elsewhere in baseball, the Naughty by Nature tune lives on as a New York Yankees home-run song. Its legacy also got a strong 21st-century start when it joined “Whoomp! There It Is” and “Get Ready for This” on the All Star Jock Jams.

“Pump Up the Volume”

The leadoff to side two on the cassette, this M/A/R/R/S single was well-suited for halftime for an intermission. It is not as pulsating as most of its fellow Jock Jams, Volume 1 tracks, but it is not too languid either. It therefore flows nicely with a restful recharge before everyone returns to their seats and the competitors re-emerge.

Back in the song and series’ heyday, this was exactly how the Providence Civic Center was known to use it. Unfortunately for the sake of M/A/R/R/S’ legacy, that was before the Jumbotron age hit every venue with a five-figure seating capacity. These days, the song’s old time to shine is filled by TV commercials on the big board.

 

“The Power”

Whenever someone gets tired of “Bad Boys” (and who doesn’t eventually?), this remains a solid selection when a home hockey team goes on the power play. Through that and other popular arena usage, SNAP! saw its song come back for ESPN’s Stadium Anthems in 2003.

“Unbelievable”

The hook to this EMF gem cements its designation for punctuating highlight-reel plays. With the subsequent “Oh!” giving way to the riff, it is a pulsating gift that keeps on giving.

And if you set it up to start with the hook’s second rendition, you usually buy yourself enough time to hear James Atkin follow up with “You’re so unbelievable!”

This was also another song that could catch the attention of novice spectators, especially young Generation Xers of the time. Besides Jock Jams, a then-five-year-old “Unbelievable” had aged well enough to appear on Livin’ in the 90’s in 1995. There it joined “Strike it Up,” “The Power” and one other JJV1 teammate yet to be named here.

“YMCA”

The second-oldest Jock Jams, Volume 1 track dates back nearly a decade before the third-oldest (“Pump Up the Volume” from 1987). Yet it somehow fits better here than it would on the oldies-oriented Jock Rock.

No matter what place of assembly is playing it, “YMCA” is a self-explanatory participatory dance number. Like almost all of its Jock series brethren, it does not have the same decisive regal position it enjoyed in the latter half of the ’90s. But its long-established reputation makes it an easy choice when sound crews decide to go old school for a minute.

 

“Pump Up the Jam”

From Technotronic, you get yet another unmistakable opening riff. Within a year of its inclusion on Jock Jams, this 1989 house tune was sampled sans vocals for the pregame locker-room scene in Space Jam. (That scene transitions to player introductions, which culminate in a brief “Gonna Make You Sweat” riff for Michael Jordan.)

Even before the movie and the album, “Pump Up the Jam” got the commentators’ acknowledgment when Nancy Kerrigan and the late Chris Farley skated to it on Saturday Night Live. That usage alone all but made it a crime against logic to leave it off game-day playlists going forward.

And to further its association with its first full calendar decade of existence, it too made Livin’ in the 90’s.

“Twilight Zone”

While Walsh appears as a vocalist for both Black Box and C&C Music Factory, only 2 Unlimited gets double credit on any single Jock Jams track list.

How much the album’s lineup influenced common DJ practices or vice versa is tough to gauge. What is clear is that “Get Ready for This” became the logical game-starter while “Twilight Zone” suited the late phases of regulation when everyone could use a booster.

Like the band’s other contribution to the first Jock Jams, this is a less vocal version of the song. Sometimes a different mix still sees action in high-profile settings.

 

Nonetheless, its distinctive instrumental pattern has the same seat-clearing, hand-raising, rally rag-waving effect. And it is still fresh enough in the ears of Castoldi to join “Strike It Up” on the aforementioned “Dancing Larry” routine.

“Rock and Roll Part 2”

This one-time go-to scoring-play or victory tune was a rerun from the preceding Jock Rock album. See our review of that album for an assessment of this song’s legacy.