Can anyone really dispute the importance of music in wrestling? What was Sandman without the Metallica tune “Enter Sandman”, basically Hardcore Hak. If you happen to stumble across the Jimi Hendrix song “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)” on the radio do you immediately think of Hulk Hogan? And I defy anyone to listen to “The Game” by Motorhead and not think of Triple H. And it’s a sure bet that when Vince gambled everything on Wrestlemania 1, without the participation of MTV and Cyndi Lauper, he would have lost out on quite a bit of mainstream media attention, and just maybe Wrestlemania would not have become the yearly highlight of WWE programming.

Before I look at individual album releases, I want to note that there are really two key figures when it comes to music in the WWE.

Jimmy Hart – Yes, the “Mouth of the South” manager who annoyed endless wrestling fans, and drew fantastic heat by using his megaphone both inside and outside the ring. While on TV Hart was manager to Greg “The Hammer” Valentine, The Missing Link, and The Hart Foundation, behind the scene Jimmy was the main composer for quite a few of the wrestlers entrance themes. Jimmy Hart composed themes for The Mountie, Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake, Dusty Rhodes, Jimmy Snuka, Shawn Michaels and The Honky Tonk Man. His contribution to the Hulkamania years soundtrack cannot be understated.

Jim Johnston – He began working behind the scenes of the WWF back in the mid 80’s. Johnston was composing incidental music for the Federation, (he was responsible for the “No Holds Barred” soundtrack), but began to focus more and more on the wrestlers’ entrance themes. Moving into the 1990’s Johnston began composing almost all of the theme music. Johnston not only plays all of the instruments for his songs, but writes, produces, and records them as well. Almost all of the albums listed below have Johnston’s thumbprint on them. If you enjoy WWE music, you have to appreciate what Jim Johnston has done for the past 2 decades. If you hate the WWE entrance themes , well, you still have to appreciate what Johnston has done. For every “Sexual Chocolate” –type dud, there has been an “Ultimate Warrior” or “Oh Hell Yeah” –type success.

Let’s move onto the albums themselves –

1985 – The Wrestling Album
Style – Pop/Rock/Comedy
Tracks:
Land of a Thousand Dances – The WWF Superstars
Grab Them Cakes – Junkyard Dog
Real American – Hulk Hogan (written by Rick Derringer)
Eat Your Heart Out Rick Springfield – Jimmy Hart
Captain Lou’s History of Music – Lou Albano & George “The Animal” Steele
Hulk Hogan’s Theme – The WWF All-Stars
For Everybody – Rowdy Roddy Piper
Tutti Frutti – “Mean” Gene Okerlund
Don’t Go Messin’ With a Country Boy – Hillbilly Jim
Cara Mia – Nikolai Volkoff

Basically this is a comedy/novelty record. Vince McMahon, Jesse Ventura & Mean Gene provide running commentary between tracks. It’s fun to listen to Vince from the era, and Jesse Ventura is truly funny as usual. There were actually 3 “singles” released from “The Wrestling Album”, “Land of a Thousand Dances”, “Grab Them Cakes” & “ Don’t Go Messin’ with a Country Boy”.

Availability: This album is available on CD at Amazon.com. You can buy it new for about $11.98 or used for $4.99

1987 – Piledriver: The Wrestling Album 2
Style – Pop/Rock/Comedy
Tracks:
Girls in Cars – Robbie Dupree & Strike Force
Piledriver – Koko B. Ware
Honky Tonk Man – Honky Tonk Man
Demolition – Rick Derringer
Jive Soul Bro – Slick
Crank it Up – Jimmy Hart
Waking Up Alone – Hillbilly Jim & Gertrude
Stand Back – Vince McMahon
Rock n’ Roll Hootchie Koo – Rick Derringer & Mean Gene Okerlund
If You Only Knew – The WWF Superstars

This album focused less on the comedy aspect, and began the long tradition of featuring wrestler’s entrance music. DX used the footage of Vince’s performance of “Stand Back” at the “Slammy” awards in a recent skit, and I really think Vince’s performance on this album is the reason it hasn’t seen the upgrade to CD like “The Wrestling Album” has.

Availability: This album has never been released on CD. There are still copies of the original LP available, but at a pretty hefty price.

1993 – Wrestlemania: The Album
Style – Rock/Pop/Comedy
Tracks:
Wrestlemania – WWF All-Stars
SummerSlam Jam – WWF All-Stars
USA – Hacksaw Jim Duggan
Nasty Boy Stomp – The Nasty Boys
Never Been a Right Time to Say Goodbye – Bret “The Hitman” Hart
The Man in Black – The Undertaker
Speaking From the Heart – “Macho Man” Randy Savage
Tatanka Native American – Tatanka
I’m Perfect – Mr. Perfect
Hard Times – The Big Bossman

This album features a mix of original tunes sung by the wrestlers themselves, as well as more theme songs. The album failed to chart on the Billboard to 200. The song “Wrestlemania” can be heard on the title screen of the “Wrestlemania Anthology” DVD. An interesting note on this album is that it was produced by Simon Cowell, the judge from “American Idol”. I would love for someone auditioning for that show to bring this with them and try to get it autographed.

Availability: It doesn’t look like there are any new disks available at Amazon, but several folks are selling their used copies starting at 47 cents.

1996 – Full Metal: The Album
Style – Rock/Metal/Pop
Tracks:
We’re All Together Now – The WWF Superstars
Thorn in Your Eye – The WWF Superstars
Diesel Blues – Diesel
The Lyin’ King – Mabel
1-2-3 – The 1-2-3 Kid
Goldust – Goldust
Smokin’ – The Smokin’ Gunns
Psycho Dance – Psycho Sid
Bad Boy – Razor Ramon
Hart Attack – Bret Hart
Angel – Hakushi
Graveyard Symphony – The Undertaker
Sexy Boy – Shawn Michaels
With My Baby Tonight – Jeff Jarrett

This album really focused on the entrance music. What’s amazing is that the backup band, listed here as “Slam Jam”, consisted of some pretty solid metal musicians:
Vocals: Jon Oliva – Lead singer from “Savatage” & “The Trans-Siberian Orchestra”
Guitar: Scott Ian, lead guitarist from Anthrax
Guitar: Kenny Hickey lead guitarist from Type O Negative
Drums: Tim Mallare from Overkill
Full metal reached number 184 on the Billboard top 200.

Availability: No new disks available, but there are some used copies available from Amazon starting at $3.

1997 – WWF the Music, Volume 2
Style –Rock/Pop
Tracks:
Darkside – The Undertaker
Hell Frozen Over – Stone Cold Steve Austin
Pearl River Rip – Ahmed Johnson
Wild Cat – Marc Mero & Sable
You Start the Fire – Bret Hart
Mastodon – Vader
Ode to Freud – Mankind
Dude Love – Dude Love
Nation of Domination – Faarooq
Destiny – Rocky Maivia
Snap – Sycho Sid
Dangerous – Ken Shamrock
Can’t Get Enough – Flash Funk
I Know You Want Me – Sunny
Sexy Boy – Shawn Michaels

WWF the Music Volume 2 spent over 16 weeks on the Billboard charts, selling half a million copies. This album featured only wrestler’s theme music, or would-be theme music. One note is that these are not the “original” themes. Basically they are re-workings of the themes, with some dialog bits thrown into the mix. So if you are looking for the original entrance music you may be disappointed.

Availability: No new disks are currently available on Amazon, there are however used copies available starting under $2.

1997 – WWF We Gotta Wrestle
Style – Rock/Pop
Tracks:
Darkside – The Undertaker
Hell Frozen Over – Stone Cold Steve Austin
Pearl River Rip – Ahmed Johnson
Wild Cat – Marc Mero & Sable
Snake – Jake “The Snake” Roberts
You Start the Fire – Bret Hart
Mastodon – Vader
Ode to Freud – Mankind
Nation of Domination – Faarooq
Snap – Sycho Sid
Destiny – Rocky Maivia
Can’t Get Enough – Flash Funk
I Know You Want Me – Sunny
Bad Attitude – Shawn Michaels

“We Gotta Wrestle” was released overseas, and quite a few people were confused that it wasn’t the exact same album as “The Music Volume 2”.There are some similarities between track listings on the albums, but there are some major differences. Notably, the Ken Shamrock & Dude Love themes are gone, replaced by the Jake Roberts tune. HBK’s Sexy Boy is also missing, replaced by another Shawn Michaels song, “Bad Attitude”. Also, even though several song titles appear on both albums, some versions are drastically different. Specifically, “Nation of Domination” is featured with lyrics on “Gotta Wrestle” as opposed to the instrumental version found on “Volume 2”. “Destiny” is a completely different song on both albums, (I guess both songs just share the same title?) Plus several songs vary in length between the two disks, some with bits of dialog or intros missing.

Availability: The CD has still never been officially released in the US, but the Import is readily available on Amazon starting around $11.

1998 – WWF the Music Volume 3
Style – Hard Rock
Tracks:
The Undertaker
Edge
X-Pac
Dude Love
Kane
The Rock – Do you Smell It
Gangrel/The Brood
Ken Shamrock
Oddities – Insane Clown Posse
D-Generation X
Sable
New Age Outlaws
Val Venis
Stone Cold Steve Austin

Well, they’ve dumped the titles of songs in favor of just listing the wrestler’s name. This is also the first WWF album to feature the “Attitude Era” scratch logo. “Volume 3” reached number 10 on the Billboard top 200, and spent over 30 weeks on the charts, selling 1.21 million copies. This volume seems to be one of the more popular releases, with an average rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars on Amazon, and over 200 hundred reviews posted.

Well, that is it for PART 1 of WWE music. I will post part 2 & 3 next week. Drop me a line and let me know what you think so far, or if you have a copy of Piledriver that you could somehow magically put on CD for me as that is the only release I don’t have.