Roadtrip Music: Celtic Invasion by CFO$ (Becky Lynch)

I’ve recently decided to give the modern WWE product a go after last dropping it in 2018, based on a combination of the children that run the other show and that recent farce, Ariel Helwani and Jim Cornette both giving the current product favourable reviews, and realising I have access to the weekly shows included with Kayo.

One of the things that I noticed is that a lot of the music has changed. This makes sense, it’s been several years and you expect a product to evolve. As someone who is more used to the Japanese way of doing things – I’m used to music remaining a bit more static. Tetsuya Naito being a perfect example – having the same music since 2008 despite his character doing a 180 in 2015. Genichiro Tenryu used the same music from the early 80s until his 2015 retirement. And this is also something I noticed while watching the recent NJPWxStardom Historic X-Over event. A lot of the Stardom music has changed in the 9 months or so since I last watched. That got me thinking about the music changes and how it works with the audience.

For years Stardom kept music relatively static and their fanbase was a hardcore minority. The hardcore minority tends to acclimatise to things staying relatively steady and there is something of an identity in it. They’re there for what they like and changing things too frequently is changing what they like. It’s not a great growth strategy but it can be (especially in Stardom’s case) very profitable. The promotion started to grow once they shifted focus away from the minority and now they are aiming for a more casual audience. And the music is changing. To the point that a lot of things felt unfamiliar to me and I had no hope picking entrants in a rumble. After only 9 months.

What’s my point? Well I started watching WWE again and realised a lot of the musics have changed. But when Becky Lynch returned after pretending to be Cyndi Lauper or wherever she was – her music was immediately identifiable. Because it stayed the same. A lot of change in WWE music happened when they pensioned off Jim Johnston for CFO$ and then again upon their release. Becky’s track “Celtic Invasion” is a CFO$ creation and in this land of new things that I’m only vaguely familiar with – it was nice to hear something I recognised.

Also the track is a banger and back when NXT was at it’s peak – crowds would go off for it. It was a strong component in Becky gaining that initial traction that led her to be one of the top wrestlers in the company.

Yeah it felt strange doing something this mainstream. I’ll have to balance it out with some obscure Japanese indy track next week.