Football fever is going to hit the world soon. The biggest event of the football world – the FIFA World Cup 2018 will kick off in June and fans of the beautiful game can hardly wait! Over the years, the official songs and anthems (two different things BTW) for each edition of the world cup have served as a rousing leitmotif running through the entire competition. We look back at some of the best songs over the years and check out the latest one as well:
The songs could be multilingual; using English, Spanish as well as the official language of the host country and other world languages. Sometimes the songs are cover versions of older songs or original compositions by the artistes. In either case, being chosen as the official song or anthem of the FIFA world cup serves to make the artiste and their song wildly famous globally.
This one dates back to the heady early days of MTV in India when the beauteous Ricky Martin became an instant heartthrob of the country. The Cup of Life / La Copa de la Vida, official song for the 1998 FIFA World Cup became the must have floor-filler for every party. The song became a world chart-topper and sold 563,000 copies in France which hosted the event.
For the 2002 world cup hosted jointly by Japan and South Korea, the official song was Boom by Anastacia; not a personal favourite it has to be said. The video of people being transported or rather beamed to the party is kind of cool though.
Unlike many other official FIFA songs this one is not about a big, thumping, danceable beat. Rather the official song for the 2006 event hosted by Germany features some glorious vocals by the men of the hugely talented classical crossover group, Il Divo and American R&B vocalist Toni Braxton. It seemed an unlikely artiste collaboration for the American-Spanish song; but it really worked. The video features some memorable former football world cup moments and the lyrics are nice too, especially if you like those uplifting, make-your-dreams-come-true sort of songs.
Though this 2010 World Cup song went on to become hugely popular as a Shakira song (one of the bestselling singles of all time), it is actually an adaptation from the Cameroonian band Golden Sounds 1986 song Zangaléwa. There were protests against the song from those who felt that official song should have been by a native South African (the host country).
This is the sort of song that makes your feet itch to dance from the first beat. The extraordinary energy of the song and the video, the dancing, the colour – all rather fitting for an event hosted by Brazil; the most football mad country perhaps in the world! Such an addictive song!
According to Rolling Stones, this song by Jason Derulo, Maluma is the official World Cup Anthem. However the FIFA website does not seem to endorse this yet. There is no video as yet, but you can listen in and make up your own mind about the song – whether you really like it, or remain somewhat unimpressed it (like me).
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