![]() ![]() This serves as the backing music during the Lakers’ starting lineup introductions. Vaguely hip-hop instrumental that plays while the Nets’ starting lineup is announced that is so generic that Shazam can’t recognize it. It’s linked above, and it’s the only video he’s uploaded. I can’t find much about him online aside from the YouTube of him singing the national anthem at a Lakers vs. Mosby delivers an appropriately soulful and respectful rendition. It’s also the best song that Cheech & Chong smashed-up parodied with Bruce Springsteen’s “ Born in the U.S.A.” It’s also also the best song in the world. We don’t get to the song’s end, though, since the only thing worth breaking a 3 Stacks verse for is a mythologizing video package on the Lakers’ history projected on a circular screen that has descended from the scoreboard. The previous selections were only heard for a minute or two before they were curtly interrupted by an announcement or faded out into something else, but this Jeezy semi-hit makes it to the last verse. Young Jeezy featuring Jay-Z and Andre 3000, “I Do”Īll the rap songs played at Staples Center are radio edits, and tonight, after the warm-ups are over, it basically disappears from the soundtrack. ![]() Matt Barnes is jumping rope by the sidelines. While the previous selection featured an overdosed-on-confidence Drake crooning “they know, they know, they know,” this DMX up-from-the-gutter anthem is built on the recitation of all things that the abstractified doubters “don’t know”: The hurt, the pain, the dirt, the rain, the jerk, the fame, the work, the game it seems like an apt pairing of songs for a team of former champions looking to make it back on top, though I might be reading (listening?) too much into things. Is there actually someone in the upper reaches of Staples Center toggling between meticulously organized playlists? Or is there just a super computer running on algorithms and the gluten-free kettle corn that’s available at the concession stands? Still, I think I recognize the wink of a music fan when I hear this song come on. I don’t know how pre-programmed the music selections are during a Lakers game. It’s like Courtney Cox has just walked into the Coffee Bean where you’re killing time before a meeting, never mind the fact that you’re the world’s biggest Courtney Cox fan and you know that she lives a quarter mile from this particular Coffee Bean location and comes here every day at this particular moment (RIGHT NOW!). Still, the crowd acts like they’re a little in shock, fumbling for their camera phones despite the fact that being in the same building as the Lakers is exactly why they’re here. The atmosphere inside Staples Center immediately perks up. Then the piano-heavy intro to Van Halen’s attempt to connect with the Choose or Lose Generation heralds the entrance of your Los Angeles Lakers.īefore the now half-full capacity crowd can catch a magic moment from Sammy Hagar (you miss the beat, you lose the rhythm), the song fades into Drake’s “Headlines” and the Lakers take the floor. Purple and gold spotlights roam the still-totally-lit-up arena. Two minutes into Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart’s Motown tribute, the Nets hit the floor to polite boos and run loosey-goosey layup drills. It can be a long trip from Brentwood to downtown L.A. Rare Earth, “Get Ready (Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone)” Studio wizard (and true star) Todd Rundgren’s “ Bang the Drum All Day” plays any time the Green Bay Packers score a touchdown at Lambeau.Įarlier this week, I watched the Lakers play the Nets at Staples Center and tracked the game through what I heard.Īfter the code-of-conduct guidelines and emergency evacuation instructions are dutifully broadcast over the PA system, Calvin Harris’s call for smooching and back rubs in the club plays to a quarter-full arena. An Alan Parsons Project instrumental from 1982 is now tied to the legendary Chicago Bulls of the 1990s. It’s strange which songs become attached to certain teams. I loved it, even when I was 15 and all I wanted to listen to was antisocial rap music, Led Zeppelin, and alt-rock songs about how girls are confusing. My clearest musical memory of those games was that after a fourth-quarter Warriors scoring run, a crudely animated pair of anthropomorphized lips would lip-synch to Aretha Franklin’s “ Respect” on the arena’s aging scoreboard. It was an occasionally uplifting but ultimately demoralizing time. I grew up going to Warriors games during stages nine through 26 of their grief. With the Lakers, Clippers, and Kings hosting a whopping 28 home games in 28 days from March 11 through April 7 - all happening at Staples Center, which is only a wind-aided Andy Lee punt from Grantland’s headquarters - we couldn’t resist attending these 28 games and writing about as many of them as possible. ![]()
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