Suggestion: USA Needs Crowd Songs September 4, 2007
Posted by TheHype in International Ball , trackback |
While watching a bit of the Italy vs. Slovenia match last night (well, only the closing quarter… which was very exciting, down the wire type ish!) of the EuroBasket Championships, I realize just how into it the crowds are over there. They bullborn every minute of every play like someone’s going to rape them — fantastique!
They also have crowd songs which makes the whole thing seems so much more fun. I wouldn’t be surprised if a riot broke out, but that adds to the crazy coolness of it all. I wish the USA would adopt something like this.
Seriously, what does the NBA have? “DE-FENCE! DE-FENCE!” Okaaaaay… that and those stupid thundersticks and I guess… cowbells (YOU GOTTA HAVE MORE COWBELL!) So you see, there’s a huge lack in imagination and audience participation besides just screaming obscenities at Vince Carter’s manhood.
What’s worse is whenever Team USA plays, you know, the age old… “U-S-A! U-S-A!” from the crowd. Yaaaaaaawn. Geez, yes yes, you are dominant, but how 80s is that chant? It’s not so much that it sounds arrogant (it does) but it’s so unbelievably mundane and inconsequential. You wouldn’t do that in unison if the team was losing right? Cause it would sound stupid. Whereas Euro teams do their crazy songs all. game. long. just to hype up their brethren through the collective siren of their nation’s folk music. You’re made to be a part of a larger community — Karl Marx would’ve chanted.
Maybe the problem is that USA is “the melting pot” and you don’t really have one unifying song note. I wouldn’t see a crowd sing Party Like a Rockstar together… nor do I expect them to render a tribute to Toby Keith. There are just so many damn different styles in the big American country.
I guess Canada suffers from this as well, but eh, we suck, so eff that.
Man, North America is so boring.
Comments»
I agree. I get jealous when I watch World Cup and EPL matches and the whole crowd is going for the whole game, while NBA and NFL fans only stand up when the scoreboard tells them to.
I dont think its sto much the melting pot, i think its that in europe you grow up with those kind of chants. We have many different cultures as well but we have a strong spirit for national play. The most important tournaments over here are international ones. And it just kinda got adapted by club sports, look at liverpool or other european soccer teams, its a whole lot of fun. Our chants are not a music style they are folklores.
You’re going to end up dead to Stephen Colbert with your anti- pro-USA-chant bias.
And I recently married a bear… OH NO!!
I think that halfway through every quarter of USA basketball we should have Appollo Creed and James Brown do the “Living in America” performance from Rocky 4. How dope would that be?
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