Where does theme music come from?

November 5, 2002

I'm bored, I'm a themer, let's talk.

You may have wondered how the heck many WWF theme songs have gotten onto the internet in full form. I'm here to demystify the myths and tell some stories.

Typical question #1:

"What's an MSB theme?"

MSB = Michael S. Boland

Michael Boland was a member of the WWF ring/equipment crew up until 1998 when he was fired. Out of spite, he took a box of arena-use WWF cassete tapes containing theme songs of many, if not all the WWF Superstars there had ever been. He then proceeded to sell copies of half the tapes to Jason Karpin...

Typical question #2:

"Who is Jason Karpin?"

Jason Karpin, after buying the dupes of the tapes, posted many of the themes online in Real Media format. Most of them were in crappy quality, but several (LOD, Shawn Michaels' theme with Sherri singing) were ripped high quality and released.

Typical question #3:

"What about those old WWF fan club tapes?"

They typically contained themes that were under 2 minutes long, all of which have been released online (6 volumes in all)

Typical question #4:

"What is stock music?" "What is production music?"

Stock/Production music is songs that are contributed by artists to a production library. By doing this, the artists receive royalties through the production company rather than directly. The music is generally used by television commercials, radio ads - but in recent years (1997 on) the WWF has been using it for their wrestlers' theme music, and as themes for their shows and TV ads. The libraries are split onto thousands of CD's, and to buy a CD costs upwards of $100. Examples of stock songs include Jeff Hardy's "Loaded", and Spike Dudley's "Ollie Starfish" (their current themes). Theme collectors use streaming web previews to identify which songs current wrestlers are using, and buy the CD's through the company.

Typical question #5

"What is an Attitude Beta theme?"

The video game "WWF: Attitude" for Playstation was released as a beta before the final game came out. The beta had 2:00 themes while the final game had 1:35 themes. It also had Faarooq's face theme, which wasn't in the final game.

Hope this clears some things up

Any questions? shoot...

November 5, 2002

Umm......i never asked those questions in the first place.

November 5, 2002

Me either.