Football and Music

With the last what… four or five World Cup tournaments there’s been a number of official songs released in relation to the tournament.

(There’s also a plethora of individual singles released for each national team, which I’ll get to in another post.)

The majority… sorry ALL of these songs are released to help promote the tournament (as if that’s needed), but mostly to make even more money for those who run everything. And the sponsors, obviously.

You know which big organisations are behind these. There’s no need for me to name them.

Before I begin - a side mention for another "official" song which still to be released:

There was maximum publicity for the “official” song which involved Jennifer Lopez and Pitbull (who is a rapper).
A puzzling choice since as far as I can tell, there isn’t a shred of evidence linking these two to football. Or Brazil for that fact. But when has that stopped them.

The Daily Heil has lots of pics of the shooting of the video. But as mentioned this still hasn’t seen the light of day yet. This is the lead single from the album of the tournament, brought to you by the major partner-sponsor record company, to be cashed in released very soon I’m sure.

So here’s a weird thing though – The mass promotion of a coming soon “official” song, and then a few days ago – the release of an “official” song:

Now I don’t mind with this one because it is Shakira.

No it’s not because I fancy her (I do), but it is because there are actual links to football with this: 1) Shakira has done World Cup songs before. 2) Because she’s Latin American. 3) Gerard Piqué.

But what I do mind is the song. By her standards it is very average.
Look at the previous tunes. This from the 2006 World Cup:

Then a slightly simplistic title for the World Cup song in South Africa:

And now we get La La La…

⇒ Next up we have the main fizzy drink sponsor. They have a history of releasing their own tunes for the World Cup and yet again they’ve got something which I think is better than than the main organisation’s effort:

David Correy was a runner up in season 2 of the X Factor (USA). His link with Basil is that he was born there, but his mother gave him up for adoption. He was adopted by an American couple. Good news though, he managed to reconnect with his birth mother.

As I said they’ve bettered the main organisation’s theme song before.
This is from the 2010 World Cup and the singer was Somali born K’naan:

2010: Wavin’ Flag (Celebration Mix)

I am aware that that there were a few more well known artists who did official songs, but for me these featured were the best ones from the last few tournaments.