Music, a medium that once set wrestlers apart, is now causing many of them to get lost in the shuffle instead. According to former WWE composer Jim Johnston, the problem is so bad that becoming a mainstream name seems virtually impossible nowadays, especially for talents in WWE."It just sounds like noise to me, and all the themes just sound generic," Johnston told "The False Face". "Whether it was my music, or a Jimmy Hart theme, or an outside band thing, you used to be able to be making dinner in the kitchen with the TV in the other room and you'd know who was coming out. You could almost follow the program from the other room. Now I just don't think it's like that at all. And for some reason, the powers that be have forgotten their roots of how powerful music is in creating stars. I further believe that's why they're not creating, either WWE or AEW, big stars anymore. There are no new Steve Austins. There are no Rocks around now. It's because everyone's sort of in this layer of generic. I don't understand it."Johnston isn't alone in this viewpoint as a number of current and former WWE stars have taken issue with the overall generic natureand corresponding lack of recognizabilityamong the company's current theme songs lineup, with Def Rebel being pinpointed as the responsible party.Following Johnston's firing in 2017, CFO$ officially took over as the lead music creators for WWE; Def Rebel then later replaced them.Johnston worked with WWE for over 30 years, composing memorable theme songs such as The Rock's "If You Smell," DX's "Are You Ready?" and The Undertaker's "Rest in Peace."If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit "The False Face" with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
