Ilona Maher of Team United States runs with the ball against Team Great Britain during the Women’s Rugby Sevens Olympics quarterfinal match at Stade de France in Paris on July 29, 2024 Photo by Michael Steele/Getty Images.

The Olympics are happening again and, while you may be expecting snark from me, you will find none. I love the Olympics. There are world-class athletes doing amazing things—which is cool—but even more exciting is that I get to watch sports I’ve never heard of, never watched before and don’t know the rules of. Watching sports I don’t understand is one of my favorite things.

Like, did you see the last play of the U.S. women’s rugby sevens bronze medal match? That was amazing! Or the seemingly bored Turkish pistol shooter who won silver despite not bothering with, like, all the special equipment his competitors were using? I’ve watched more archery in the past week than I think I ever have in my life. It’s utterly compelling.

But this is a music column, so I can’t talk about that the whole time. What I can talk about is that apparently every Olympic Games has a special Olympics Song. I had no idea, so I decided to go through the last five and see what sort of musical taste the International Olympic Committee has. May God have mercy on our souls.

Paris 2024: Gwen Stefani and Anderson .Paak — “Hello World”

It’s kinda catchy, and it’s bland and generic enough that I can see it being chosen for a large audience. But I have questions.

First, the Games are in Paris, right? Which is in France? Anderson .Paak is from Southern California and Gwen Stefani thinks she’s Japanese because her dad went on business trips there. The planning committee clearly knows Gojira exists because it let the rockers do the most metal thing ever during the opening ceremony!

Second, why does Stefani get first billing on this song? She’s a featured artist at best, and yet the guy who does most of the singing is credited second. Is this reality TV’s fault? I think we need to stop NBC from making new reality shows until they get a handle on this.

Tokyo 2020: Various Artists — “Colorful”

I credited this to “various artists” because there are 14 of them. According to Wikipedia: Ai, Motohiro Hata, Little Glee Monster, Daichi Miura, Perfume, Kpop’s Taemin, J-rock’s Miyavi, Nasty C, Sabrina Carpenter, Ayumu Imazu, Blue Vintage, Mizki, Sanari and Chikuzen Sato.

Yeah, Sabrina Carpenter is in there, years before she became as famous as she is now. Good ear, 2020 IOC.

There are non-Japanese artists on here, but they did focus on musicians from the host country, which is good. Olympics hosts have to bribe a lot of people to get to the games. They should get their money’s worth by spotlighting as much local culture as they can!

Anyway, this song is pretty good as an Olympic theme. It’s inoffensive but has a soaring, inspirational quality that conveys what the competition is going for. Props to 2020. I never thought I’d say that.

Rio 2016: Thiaguinho and Projota — “Alma e Coração”

We’ve already gotten to the point that the Olympics’ YouTube channel isn’t hosting the videos anymore. How are they so bad at the Internet?

This song is good! I dig it! It feels Brazilian, it features Brazilian musicians and it gets me hyped. I’m a little surprised they green-lit something legitimately good rather than something blandly inoffensive.

Maybe that’s why they scrubbed it from their official channels. They don’t want to be too closely associated with a catchy song; it may make Gwen Stefani feel bad.

London 2012: Muse — “Survival”

There’s not a music video for this one. Muse performed it during the closing ceremony, but I guess it’s the official song nonetheless. I’ll take it.

Muse is an interesting choice for the Olympics in London. There are a lot of British musicians, many of whom are all-time famous, and they went with someone not quite on the legend level. I like it! The guitar solos are really good, and the riff is super heavy. Also, there are towering jets of fire. It’s great; no notes.

Beijing 2008: Liu Huan and Sarah Brightman — “You and Me”

We’re back to songs the Olympics have essentially disavowed. There doesn’t seem to be an official YouTube source for this, so if that video above is broken, it probably got DMCA’d since I wrote this.

This is a beautiful song, but, man… compared to what comes after it, it’s slow. Brightman is a classical soprano, and Liu is a musical pioneer, and this is the sort of ballad that goes with a prestigious international competition, but it’s the exact opposite of, say, Gwen Stefani big-timing Anderson .Paak. I guess Olympic music has come a long way in 16 years.

Follow publisher Daniel J. Willis and send column ideas to him at @bayareadata.press on BlueSky.