Various Artists - WWE: The Music, Vol. 3

It's a stroke of marketing genius: Just before any of the World Wrestling Federation's stars enters an arena, his theme music blares over the speakers. It's an amazing dramatic device for the story-line- fueled "sports entertainment experience," and it drives the fans wild. It doesn't make for good songs, but that's not really the point--after all, the idea here is to get a distinctive 10 to 15 seconds that sounds good at stadium sound levels; after about 30 seconds it's easy to see that these "songs" are really nothing more than pumped-up jingles. As a series of commercials for the WWF's stars, 14 of which are represented here, or as a memento for fans, this disc is made to order. If you're looking for a CD that you'll actually put on the stereo for fun, you're better off with either Steve Austin's Stone Cold Metal or ECW: Extreme Music. --Randy Silver Amazon.com

You know what I allow you to know.

This was the third volume of WWF Superstars "original arena enterance theme songs". Yes, the music that plays while wrestlers enter the ring. The music was written by Jimmy Johnston, with the exception of the "Oddities" theme, which is by The Insane Clown Posse. Most of this music is pretty repetitive, with the same riff being repeated over and over for three to four minutes. Which is not to say it's not enjoyable, if you were a wrestling fan in the late 1990s. Jimmy Johnston is the best composer of wrestler entrance themes of all time, for what it's worth. October 19, 2006

WWE disappointment

I used to be obsessed when it came to downloading WWE entrance theme music back in the late 90's (before WWE sent out warnings to wrestling websites threatening to sue them if they didn't remove those music files immediately). There's no denying that the WWE used to have a fair share of amazing theme songs used exclusively for the wrestlers back in the mid 90's; songs that were memorable, distinct, and suitable for the character that walked out from behind the curtains and stood before a large, cheering audience before heading to the ring for a match.

Unfortunately, as the years went by, WWE gradually began to throw all those distinctive musical ideas away, and instead gave their wrestlers nothing but generic heavy metal guitar riffs or generic hip-hop beats, which are quite popular in the WWE today (in the year 2006). All this added up to many of the wrestlers having the same predictable and uninteresting theme songs by the time 2002 rolled around. It's been almost five years now and the WWE doesn't seem ready to go back to the days of musical variety any time soon.

This collection of songs, released around the time of Wrestlemania 15 in the late 90's, caught the WWE at a time when they began to show signs of losing that musical creativity but still holding on and coming through with some interesting theme songs (but barely). Some of those themes made it on to this Volume 3 collection.

A few years after this albums release the WWE REALLY began to slip when it came to musical diversity (they also started slipping in other areas such as in the popularity and creativity department, thanks to a weak creative team that kept going back to the well and using the same storylines over and over until viewers finally got sick of seeing the same wrestlers on TV all the time and the same predictable backstage segments, which of course led to much lower ratings and lower attendance on a permanent weekly basis that's still a problem to this day- but that's another story).

Now, the collection of music on this Volume 3 CD isn't perfect by any means, and it's not music that's meant to be taken seriously- in other words, don't even think about comparing the music on this disc to that of classical or jazz or anything. Even comparing most of this album to rock and roll would be laughable since none of the music here is really THAT interesting. It's merely fun, catchy music meant to make you feel good, and allow you to look back and think about the world of wrestling in the late 90's, and probably bring back other, non-wrestling related memories as well. What were YOU doing in 1999?

Let's talk about the songs. Dude Love's music is some disco-like tune that really reminds me of the middle section of Razor Ramon's old mid 90's entrance theme. In fact, Stone Cold's theme featured on this disc is very much like the MAIN melody to Razor's old theme. Sure, the SOUND of Stone Cold's music is more like hard rock, but the notes are the same. Maybe it's not a coincidence. Maybe the people in the WWE who created many of the wrestling theme songs at the time were trying desperately to come up with new melodies, but they couldn't do it so they just took out a couple sections of Razor's old theme and split it into two separate melodies and gave it to Stone Cold and Dude Love figuring no one would notice. I did! Hey, the WWE likes to repeat ideas all the time and pretend it's something new and fresh in an attempt to fool the viewers, so it's very well possible they did it again with the entrance themes.

I had a friend who somehow managed to convince my entire 12th grade classmates to use Stone Cold's theme for the graduation song. I think in that respect the music worked, and everyone seemed to enjoy it. But to be honest, I'm not crazy about the song. Sure, it fits the "take no crap from anyone" character of Stone Cold, but the notes I'm hearing really aren't very interesting to me. Typical commercial hard rock/heavy metal, that's what it is.

The Undertaker's theme is really not that great either because it's just your typical gothic heavy metal tune with an orchestrated sound. There's an expression here: you can cover up poop with ketchup but in the end, it's still poop. In this case, you can cover up the weak notes with orchestration in an attempt to make it seem bigger and better, but you can't ignore what it REALLY is, and that's cliched goth rock. About as predictable as you can imagine. To be fair, the orchestration does give the tune more of a cold and empty feeling which of course is perfect for someone going by the name "the Undertaker", and when you consider the Undertaker has one of the coolest and longest entrances in WWE history (it takes him three minutes to walk down the ramp and enter the ring!) the tune shouldn't be criticized that much. But if you forget about all that and just listen to the notes, it's not that great. So if you met someone who doesn't watch wrestling and doesn't like this song, it shouldn't come as a surprise.

I guess X-Pac's entrance theme is just your ordinary rap song, but I'm no expert in rap so I can't judge it, really. The Oddities theme is basically the same thing, but even more annoying (I wasn't a fan of their wrestling gimmick, either). Edge's song is the kind of music that you probably thought was cool in the late 90's, but today it's just severely dated-sounding, sluggish crap. I have to give the people who put together this collection SOME credit; Kane has good music. It's just a shame the main guitar melody repeats a million times. Sable's tune indicates the disastrous direction the WWE would soon take with their entrance music. The song is lame, and pretty much just a pile of slow-moving hip-hop beats (with whips and cat sounds included!) That's basically all the song is. It also drags for two minutes too long. Gosh, these songs aren't even that long and in some cases they repeat the same melodies and beats WAY too often.

So let me stop whining and mention the songs I think are really decent (calling them "good" would be a stretch, though!) The Rock, Gangrel, and the D-Generation X theme are all decent tunes that are perfectly nice to play MAYBE once a year. Val Venis's music features respectable jazz jamming throughout the song, but again, please don't compare this stuff to REAL jazz. Jazz experts would laugh.

Giving this album a 2 rating is just about right. I am SO happy my teenage years are over with. If I STILL thought music like this was really good -in the year 2006- I'd have to shoot myself in the head. Albums like this really show how far back 1999 was. I'm still a wrestling fan and probably will be for life, but I can't bring myself to support the direction the WWE decided to take with their entrance music. You need variety.
April 21, 2006

A poor WWE CD release

Volume 3 is lack lustre, the only theme songs worth listening to is Edge, Kane, Ken Shamrock and Stone Cold's theme songs. The rest are a miss. Volume 4 and 5 were much better. This CD is only for WWE fans. I doubt that non wrestling fans would like this CD at all.

In short, this CD could of been compiled better. September 26, 2004

WWF Music 3: This CD rules!

I actually don't have my own CD, I borrowed it from my friend. This is definitely the best CD yet. I gave it 5 stars. The songs:

The Undertaker: This was a really sweet metal song. Sweet guitar solos and reccurring bell tolls. Perfectly suits the Taker. Best on the disc. *****
Edge: A cool theme. It's kinda slow at the beginning with a cool beat, but it speeds up through the song maintaining that cool beat. A good dance song. ***
X-Pac: A cool remix of the original DX theme. ***1/2
Dude Love: Play this one for your gramps or your dad...this is basically just a flat-out 70's disco song. Pretty lame. *
Kane: This is a cool song. Creepy organ music at the start blends greatly with the electric guitar. ****
The Rock: "The Rock says, the Rock, the Rock Says, Know Your Role" That's all it says. Simply put, it wasn't too good. **
Gangrel: This was a very cool theme. I loved it. This song is something you could blare out your windows on Halloween to scare the little kids. Cool guitar, too. ****1/2
Ken Shamrock: Pretty good. It sounds like the theme from an old western movie. Good, though. ***
Oddities: This one is funny. It's got a cool beat and hilarious lyrics, and the Insane Clown posse is singing it, so it can't get better. ****
D-Generation X: This is a basic original version of X-Pac's theme. It is very catchy and enjoyable. ****
Sable: MEOW! z...z...z... *
New Age Outlaws: It gets kind of boring, but is still good. ***
Val Venis: No drum beats, stupid lyrics. *
Stone Cold Steve Austin: This one RULES! Sweet guitar music blares as glass breaks in the background. ****1/2 July 2, 2003

this rules!!!!!!!!!!

This cd is the best.My favorite one is the undertaker. April 6, 2003

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