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News Music Search Archive

newsmusicsearcharchive.com

It took me a moment of squinting and tapping around to figure out what the heck this is. Once I grokked it, I think this is pretty cool.

It's a collection of background music from radio show broadcasts.

Amazing the ideas people latch onto, this is quite obscure but if it survives over time, it'll become a very neat historical resource and reference.

Actually, it's TV news openers, primarily. You can hear the actual opens as they were broadcast or the source tunes (for some image packages, they can be quite different).

I'm sure a lot of Australians are quite fond of the bulletin introduction theme used on ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) radio and TV since the 1950s. The original recording and history is available on the National Film and Sound Archive[0]. A modern version[1] was introduced in 1988 and is still used today.

But the remixed version used on triple j since 1991 is my personal favourite. Triple j is the ABC's "youth-oriented" radio station so the news theme was updated to match. An actually interesting short segment discussing the remix with its creators can be found on the wayback machine[2]. The recording is from 2005 and the archived page features an `htm` file extension and instructions for how to download MP3s.

[0] https://www.nfsa.gov.au/collection/curated/majestic-fanfare-...

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xT0BB98aIQM

[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20160401151624/http://www.abc.ne...

(edited: typos)

This is really cool. Listening to themes from different places and eras, I can place myself there in my mind. It's like a nostalgia for something I never actually experienced. Is there a word for that?

I actually looked it up a while back and there are several words... some seemingly invented recently (there is probably one true german one [1]) but couldn't find a definitive answer. I get the same feeling from the "vaporwave" [2] genre of music or any popular song but paired with the words "slowed and reverb" [3] on youtube.

[1] - https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/50144/is-there-a...

[2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQkPcPqTq4M

[3] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzCFU_kw3KU

It's apparently a very new word but "Anemoia" means "nostalgia" for something you haven't experienced. Nostalgia in quotes because by definition you can't be nostalgic for something you never experienced.

Maybe not exactly nostalgia, but there is a term that serves: déjà vu

"The meaning of DÉJÀ VU is the illusion of remembering scenes and events when experienced for the first time." [1]

[1]<https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/d%C3%A9j%C3%A0%20...>

ABC used a clip from the Cool Hand Luke soundtrack as its opener for Eyewitness News for many years.

Archive link: http://www.newsmusicsearcharchive.com/#2,2,5

KABC news intro with it: https://youtu.be/gmVIIfoassE?t=207

Is there a license these are generally released under that lets them be posted like this? Or is it just a quirk of the general workflow for these?

I remember stumbling onto a production music site a while ago and it seemed to have full clips posted online, which was very refreshing from the normal music industry standards.

Usually the companies writing/recording/publishing these songs make their money through commercial licenses rather than direct music sales, so they're more willing to let people listen to them for free (with the expectation that if you then use them commercially you pay the necessary license fees). Kinda the same idea as stock photos.

That makes total sense now. It's wild how different the user experience is when the industry is more amenable to open samples.

WTVR from the 1970s. I was always impressed that they were able to license a huge pop song for the local news in Richmond, VA.

Why does news (and hence this theme music) have to be breaking, urgent, perplexing and disruptive?

Because that's how you know the news is on/starting.

Anyone has the same feeling as me that the music in news hurts it's objectiveness?

There is definitely a problem with music being used throughout a bulletin / during actual reporting. I guess there's a sliver of potentially acceptable use cases in long-form investigative reporting.

News programs having an introduction theme is perfectly acceptable though. If they play the theme as an ad-bumper I think that's fair enough, but the fact that the news has ads in it is concerning.

This is so much fun. Amazing!

If it all sounds the same to you it's because it is.

USA only.

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