Everyone loses their minds during the World Cup – musicians included. Be it on the official FIFA soundtrack albums or the countless unofficial anthems, every four years sees a proliferation of campy, vaguely football-themed music released in an attempt to capture the hearts of the billions that tune in for the biggest sporting event on earth (and pick up some sweet advertising revenue along the way).

Flicking through this 40-year-plus history of World Cup music feels like watching interdimensional TV, as increasingly strange pairs of A-list artists are thrown into a studio together and told to sing in as many languages as possible in order to maximise their chances of being picked up by fans. But, while there have been some stinkers over the years (*cough* IShowSpeed *cough*), it’s hard to deny that some of them slap – like this year’s mind-bogglingly star-studded “Goals”, featuring the unlikely trio of Blackpink’s Lisa, Afrobeats star Rema and Brazilian funk singer Anitta. If nothing else, you can’t say the World Cup doesn’t bring people together.

Below, we dive into the weird world of World Cup music. 

NEW ORDER – “WORLD IN MOTION (FEAT. JOHN BARNES)” (1990) 

By the time that 1990 rolled around, Manchester band New Order had already spent ten years moving on from their previous iteration Joy Division’s gloomy post-punk sound with upbeat clup bangers and effervescent new wave pop. England’s 1990 World Cup anthem “World In Motion” marked a culmination of this shift, seeing the formerly dour outfit team up with legendary England left winger John Barnes and actor-comedian Keith Allen (Lily Allen’s father – we’ll return to this later) for a markedly optimistic synth-pop track.It’s up there with some of the better World Cup music ever released, featuring an endearingly dated American-accent rap verse from Barnes. But it was also, as Bernard Sumner told NME at the time, the “last straw” for many Joy Division fans, who considered it too cheerful by half. 

JEAN-MICHEL JARRE – “TOGETHER NOW (FEAT. TK)” (1998)

I’m not sure what’s stranger here: the fact that FIFA commissioned a 30-minute-long dance track for France’s 1998 World Cup, or the subsequently-released two-minute-30 version, which condenses half an hour of shifting electronica into a fever-dream of DnB, operatic vocals and early big beat synths. “Together Now” actually pairs together two electronic music legends – France’s Jean-Michel Jarre, who holds the world record for most-attended outdoor concert of all time, and the most successful Japanese producer in history, Tetsuya Komuro. But, in today’s era of TikTok-ready, one-verse hits, it’s strange to think that a 30-minute dance track ever had a shot at being a World Cup anthem. 

FAT LES AND LILY ALLEN – “WHO INVENTED FISH AND CHIPS?” (2002)

Following his work with New Order, Keith Allen joined forces with Blur bassist Alex James and artist Damien Hirst to form the (terribly named) supergroup Fat Les, releasing the now-iconic English football anthem “Vindaloo” in 1998. Four years later, the group made another stab at arena success, this time enlisting Keith’s then-15-year-old daughter, Lily Allen, for her long-forgotten musical debut. 

“Who Invented Fish and Chips?” is a time capsule of dated British humour, featuring the chorus “You ponce, you slag / Pop it in the onion bag”; a balding man pirouetting in Y-fronted underwear, and a desperate attempt at finding national pride in God and fish and chips. Thank both God and fish and chips, then, that Lily Allen’s reputation managed to survive this track.

SHAKIRA – “WAKA WAKA (THIS TIME FOR AFRICA)” (2010)

Yes, “Waka Waka” is the most successful World Cup song of all time with over 4.5 billion views on YouTube – but, if you can look past its now-anthemic status, it marks a surreal turn in the history of World Cup music. 

Released in the run up to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, the track makes the strange decision to enlist Colombian superstar Shakira to deliver an ode to the entirety of African music – something which, even with the guest appearance from Cape Town band Freshlyground, caused controversy at the time. The decision is telling: this song is less about celebrating national identity than it is about marketing a watered down version of it to the biggest audience possible.

SHOUT FOR ENGLAND – “SHOUT FEAT. DIZZEE RASCAL AND JAMES CORDEN” (2010) 

What do you get when you put Dizzee Rascal, James Corden and Tears for Fears in the same room? Well, a number one UK single, apparently. To be fair, Corden doesn’t actually do much here aside from shouting “Oi!” every now and then, and Tears For Fears are entirely absent apart from an interpolation of their 1984 hit “Shout” in the chorus, but Dizzee is in tip-top shape here, naming every member of that years’ England squad in his verses. This track harks back to a time in which getting a TV comedian on a track would actually help its commercial performance and, honestly, we’re glad we’ve all moved on.  

SANTANA – “DAR UM JEITO FEAT. WYCLEF JEAN AND AVICII” (2014)

This is exactly what World Cup music is all about. 

Step One: Lump three totally unrelated artists together (this time: Mexican-American rock icon Santana, Haitian-American rapper Wyclef Jean and Swedish producer Avicii)

Step Two: Make them celebrate a totally different country (this time: Brazil)

Step Three: Get them to sing a chorus so generic and meaningless that anyone in the world can learn it (this time: “Here we go! That’s all we know!”)

It’s a Mr. Potato Head of culture, and it’s low-key beautiful. 

LIL BABY – “THE WORLD IS YOURS TO TAKE FEAT. TEARS FOR FEARS” (2022) 

When there’s an alcohol brand shoehorned into a song’s title, you just know it comes from the heart. Another hip-hop-Tears for Fears mashup, this World Cup 2022 anthem sees Atlanta rap star du jour Lil Baby deliver a half-assed rap verse about getting “turnt up” alongside interpolations of Tears For Fears’ 1984 hit “Everybody Wants to Rule the World”. Our favourite part is when Lil Baby raps: “Somebody grab me a budweiser.” <3 

JUNGKOOK – “DREAMERS (ARABIC VERSION)” (2022)

When we said World Cup music was like interdimensional TV, this is what we meant. 2022 saw the unlikely pairing of BTS K-Pop superstar Jungkook with Khaliji (Gulf pop) artist Fahad Al Kubaisi – one known for smashing records in the K-Pop world, and the other for continuing the traditions of Islamic music. Now, it kind of makes sense, given that Qatar hosted the World Cup that year, and, of course, there’s nothing wrong with either artist in a vacuum. But the resulting song, which sort of sounds like what would happen if you AI’d BTS onto an Arabic-language dub of The Lion King, begs the question: who is this actually for?

IRN BRU – “WE’RE MADE IN SCOTLAND FROM GIRDERS” (2026)

Now, of course this is a drink advert which has a clear incentive to be as unhinged and memorable as possible. But, at the risk of falling for Big Bru’s trap, this ‘song’ is a shining example of the collective madness that grips the globe in the run up to the World Cup. This is particularly apparent when, in the ad’s closing moments, operatic X Factor star Susan Boyle appears on top of Edinburgh’s Forth Bridge to belt the line “We’ll deepfry a hotdog / We’re the Tartan Army”, before appearing to breakdance to an electric guitar solo from Franz Ferdinand frontman Alex Kapranos. Where do we begin?  

SHAKIRA AND BURNA BOI – “DAI DAI” (2026) 

This year’s FIFA World Cup album is about as random as can be expected, but at least it has a vague theme, namely: bringing together the likes of Tennessee country singer Jelly Roll, Musica Mexicana star Natanael Cano, and Canadian rapper Jessie Reyez to showcase music from all three host countries. So, it is particularly bizarre, then, that in the midst of all this North American unity, Shakira is… wheeled off back to Africa to sing in as many languages as possible.

“Dai Dai” is literally “Waka Waka” 2.0 – and, honestly, it’s kind of hard to hate. Featuring a title borrowed from the Italian phrase “come on!”, a hook that also incorporates Japanese, Spanish and French, stuttering amapiano bass flourishes, and a verse from Nigerian star Burna Boy, it represents World Cup music as an over-produced, culturally Frankenstein’d meme of itself, and, regrettably, it slaps.