Hi team,
I had a fun article planned for today. Thinking I was going to have a rich world music experience, I planned to listen to a bunch of national anthems and share some of my favorites. This is obviously in the spirit of the Olympics.
With a Spotify playlist featuring a collection of national anthems queued up, I sat down with my coffee and turned on my listening ears. I didn’t get too far into the list before realizing I would need to change plans. They all sounded like Sousian (I think I made that word up but you know what I mean) western military marches. Unsurprisingly, this is related to colonialism, and the idea of a national anthem probably began with God Save the Queen.
This isn’t going to turn into a history lesson because, frankly, I don’t want to research this. Instead, I found today’s most popular song in the countries leading the medal counts. Still probably not a super-rich world music experience, at least in a more traditional sense, but it is interesting to think that the athletes could be training and partying to these songs. Note: I’m looking at pop charts. Maybe I’ll do rock charts another time.
Here we go!
United States
Medal count as of this writing: 98
Top Song: Butter by BTS. That’s right – KPOP is dominating.
China
Medal count as of this writing: 79
Top Song: Night Clown by Ado
Russian Olympic Committee
Medal count as of this writing: 62
Top Song: Yagoda Malinka by Habib
Great Britain
Medal count as of this writing: 57
Top Song: Bad Habits by Ed Sheeran
Japan
Medal count as of this writing: 51
Top Song: Koi by Gen Hoshino (is that an ad in the middle of the video?? oh well)
What’s the moral of this story? Dancing is much better than the war march. May you listen to all these and dance down the sidewalk, in your office, in your living room, with your pets, your kids, other people’s kids…as the ineffable Lady Gaga said: “Just Dance.”
Have a great weekend,
Matt
PS If you’re wondering which is my favorite, it’s definitely the one from ROC.
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