The Official Song of the 2014 FIFA World Cup, ‘We Are One (Ole Ola)’, debuted last week, and thus far, the reception has not been great. The song, performed by feisty Latina firecracker Jennifer Lopez and guy who has way more albums than you would ever think Pitbull, has gone down like a lead-plated turd in host country Brazil.
The LA Times reports that locals are unhappy about the song’s aping of Brazilian percussion, and “generic” pop-rap sound. They have also taken issue with the video, which is packed with shots of samba dancers, Carnival costumes and smiling, barefoot children, and glosses over the poverty and political unrest facing the country.
Brazil has been hit with a wave of strikes and demonstrations in the lead-up to the event, with protesters claiming that the $11 billion their government spent on the cup could have been better spent in areas such as transport, education and health. Brazil’s federal police have threatened a strike during the World Cup, and bus drivers in Rio recently destroyed 708 buses in protest.
Political ramifications aside, though, ‘We Are One (Ole Ola)’ is just the latest in a long line of shitty World Cup tunes. Each year for the past decade or so, the World Cup has had both an Official Anthem and an Official Song (just fucking pick one or the other, guys), and with the exception of Shakira‘s ‘Waka Waka’, they’ve all been pretty fucking dire.
For example, does anyone remember this 2006 clusterfuck by Il Divo featuring Toni Braxton?
What about the time Anastacia, lord love her, let this atrocity loose on the world in 2002?
How quickly we all forget.
via LA Times
Photo: Ethan Miller via Getty Images
