This year's official Germany 2006 soundtrack from Sony/Columbia is no different. Ever since Pavarotti composed the anthem for Italia '90, the target demographic increasingly has been more Wimbledon than World Cup. A lot more Tchaikovsky than Chumbawumba.
Fortunately, there's hope on the digital black market this summer. In an age of cross and multiple platform branding, horizontal and vertical marketing, there are interesting jams popping up all over the place. In terms of english-languaged tunes, the U.K. is coming through big. Those Brits seem to have a decent musical pedigree. You heard it here first.
While the official song selected by the England FA is a pretentious tune from Embrace, some of the runners-up in the competition like Sham 69 have been out-gunning them nicely. Kasabian will be releasing something, and the bores at Coldplay mentioned something last weekend. Even some country sheep are getting in on the action. Just take a listen to Virgin Radio online for a few hours leading up to Thursday's England matchup with T&T to get a sample of current and past singalong anthems.
Now that it's not uncool, and probably even encouraged, for musicians to license away their catalog of songs for any and every commercial possibility, Adidas and Nike have plucked a couple of decent up-and-comers. A song from Manchester-based solo artist Jim Noir is making a splash for his contribution to adidas' spot featuring the two muchachito fantasizers. Meanwhile Nike commissioned the decent track "Caroline" from Brooklyn-based Radio 4 for their 30 seconds of fame.
Click for sample
