June 25, 2002

11:58 PM

A few rather mundane numbers have turned into international chart toppers by being blessed as the 'official song' of the FIFA World Cup^TM or being on the 'official album' and getting airplay as the theme songs for local TV broadcasts. I think this trend started during Italia '90. Neither I, nor FIFA can remember any official songs from Mexico '86 or Spain '82. While Anastacia's Boom is this year's FIFA designated 'official song;' I like Tejano singer Jennifer Peña's upbeat Vamos al Mundial, the theme song for Univision's World Cup broadcast. What's the theme song of your local World Cup broadcast? Is it any good?
posted by tamim (11 comments total)

The Korean one, which I'm guessing is called "Pilsung Korea" because that's the refrain, is damn near a punk rock anthem. It kicks bum, particularly surprising in light of the predilection here for saccharine love songs and cutesy boy-bands.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 1:06 AM on June 26, 2002

The Portuguese anthem, formerly so sparky, has mysteriously turned into a melancholy dirge...
posted by MiguelCardoso at 1:34 AM on June 26, 2002

I don't know about this year, but in '98 it was Song 2 by Blur.
posted by riffola at 5:56 AM on June 26, 2002

Every four years, this gentleman provides a fresh variations of his "Belgium's team are the best, olé, olé, oléééé.

The musical echoes from our semi appearance in 1986 are still eating my grey matter, one cell at a time...

B.
posted by Baud at 6:15 AM on June 26, 2002

My only soccer enthused friend and I think Air Miami's "World Cup Fever" would be a fine one. And this looks tasty: Brasilian Futebol Music. It includes Jorge Ben's "Punta de Lanca Africano" (real audio)which was used in (I think) a Pentium III sock monkey commercial. Funky!
posted by dmo at 6:38 AM on June 26, 2002

I just got back from Ireland, where I was lucky enough to see the sad loss to the Spaniards... all we heard was the Ole Ole! song but with Irish pipes and a bodhran behind it.
posted by mimi at 7:03 AM on June 26, 2002

Johnny Hallyday, France's most prominant performer, sings (err... sang) a quite annoying song, "Tous Ensemble" ("All Together"). It was already ridiculous when the World Cup started, now I can't really say we're hearing it much on radio anymore...

Apart from that, another prominent French singer, Pascal Obispo, wrote "Live For Love United", which is an anti-AIDS song/project, sung by various top football players... As anoying, sure, but at least it serves a noble purpose...
posted by XiBe at 7:36 AM on June 26, 2002

"Punta de Lanca Africano" would be my favorite soccer song.
One of the worst has to be 1998's Vindaloo by Fat Les (Alex James of Blur, Damien Hirst, and Keith Allen).
posted by liam at 8:14 AM on June 26, 2002

Funny someone should mention this, I was just thinking yesterday, about how odd it was, that I found this song on Audiogalaxy, labeled "World Cup Samba" that I really enjoy, but I have no idea who actually is performing it, since it's mis-labeled as "Dario G".
posted by nomisxid at 8:52 AM on June 26, 2002

The '98 World Cup and Ricky Martin's "La Copa de la Vida" are intertwined in my mind. They played it during like every commercial break on Univision.
posted by vacapinta at 2:57 PM on June 26, 2002

Forgot to add that there was this Irish band that had a very nice football song, don't remember the name, but one of the songs on the CD was about Guinness pints. The football song went ".. Football, football..."
posted by riffola at 6:21 PM on June 28, 2002