There are lots of locations around the world where singing in a particular language has historically been an act of defiance or protest as well as claiming an identity.
"The rhythm stuck in my head and I said, ‘Guys!’ So then, thematically we said, ‘We’ll let’s use that airport — so much a part of our lives in those days and after — let’s use that as a metaphor in a sense. Again, in a playful way. There was no sense of ‘Okay, this part is this part’ and all that. But there is a sense of bustling and coming and going and the grand emotion of that middle section of what airports can be. In our lives, airports were rich with symbolism. Departures and comings and goings; departures and arrivals. Separations and meetings. That was kind of woven into the song. The exotic nature of travel, too, and Alex’s guitar solo for sure too. He wove in that kind of eastern mode."
This is being shared more widely than it would previously have been using social media.
In the past, a visit in person would have been needed to hear these songs.
Here's an early example that was mentioned in the piece.
A new generation of musicians is wielding unprecedented cultural power, updating traditional patterns and reclaiming a sense of pride in symbolic spaces.
“Music always played a central role in retaining Maasai history,” says Meitamei Ole Dapash, a Maasai leader and activist. “Not only as expression, but as a living archive of identity, memory and social relations. In school, we are taught everything but our own culture. Thanks to the rise of our local artists, we now witness a true cultural renaissance.”
Others set out to convince estranged members of the community of the benefits of semi-nomadic rural life, like Kamurar Maasai in his song Osingolio Loongishu.If we don’t update our roots, our songs will be forgotten and the community will forget about their customsNg’otiek Nelson
“Since I started singing songs on modern beats concerning cows, a lot of Maasai are coming back to their culture. The song compels them to find their way home and get their own cows,” he says.
The spiritual meaning of cattle is rooted in the Maasai origin story, as the animals are said to have arrived on Earth from the heavens alongside the first humans.
This song talks about cows and urging the young generation - the person who takes his time to watch this song - to go and find and find for himself. The song belongs to ilmerishi age set and their chief is ole Naing'isa and another one called ole Leintoi.
And here's a final song mentioned in the piece: Ng'otiek Nelson.
The songs are not random. Hundreds — more than 750, in fact, according to soccer governing body FIFA — are chosen in advance. FIFA has a "Stadium Entertainment Team" that works with the participating national associations to create playlists that mix stadium classics with country-specific favourites.
Each team has a "signature" song played when the line-up is announced, a warm-up song, and a track that is played if they score a goal. And one set of fans after each game gets to sing along to the post-match winning-team tune.
The playlists give an interesting cultural snapshot of the World Cup, in which 48 teams participated for the first time in 2026.
Some tracks — such as The White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army," AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" and, yes, 1990s Eurodance hit "Freed from Desire" by Gala, which has been doing the rounds of sports stadiums for at least a decade — have global reach, appearing on more than one list.
The England fans have also adopted this song, which ends up being sung at the end of matches between the team and the fans...
I'll return to this theme in some later blog posts as we head for the Final, where I explore some of the choices of particular countries and go into more detail on the cultural significance of their choices....
Back in June 2019 my youngest daughter shocked me by informing she’d bought a ticket to see the BTS show at London’s Wembley Stadium, costing a little north of £100. She wasn’t asking for a contribution as her job at Waitrose covered the cost but even so, a hundred quid for a South Korean pop band!
BTS (Korean: 방탄소년단; RR: Bangtan sonyeondan; lit. 'Bulletproof Boy Scouts')
I was left scratching my head.
She went and she loved it.
I should have realised there was something more to this teenage fandom because now she has lived and worked in South Korea for almost two years. She is learning Korean and can negotiate her way through the social mores and culinary challenges of a society that is both familiar but intrinsically different from anything in Europe.
Earlier this year she was unable to get a ticket for BTS’s huge open air shows in front of at least 100,000 people outside Seoul’s Gyeongbokgung Palace in the heart of the megacity’s downtown area. The free tickets disappeared instantly they became available, with most of the rest of the crowd strung out along the linear Gwanghwamun Square connected by huge video screens that projected the highly choreographed hour-long show.
It was clearly the hottest ticket in town, or Asia for that matter, for that weekend probably the World.
When I visited Seoul in 2025 this square was the focal point of political demonstrations connected with the arrest of President Yoon Suk Yeol for insurrection as a result of his illegal attempt to impose martial law in December 2024. Highly amplified chanting was echoing around the high-rise offices that line its sides from both supporters of Yeol and his opponents.
The show’s backdrop was Gwanghwamun Gate built in 1396 in the reign of King Taejo, the first king of the Korean Joseon dynasty, although as is often the case with such culturally significant physical symbols of nationhood that monumental gate has been destroyed and rebuilt several times over the centuries, the last time as recently as 2010.
There is no doubt that BTS are a global phenomenon.
Since their inception in 2010, and first album, Dark & Wild in 2014, the seven clean cut boys of BTS have danced and sung their way across the world to 140 million album sales and billions of streams. BTS’s clean-cut projection is often carefully curated against a more transgressive vibe with song titles such as ‘Hooligan’, and the track Normal with its lyrics.
“Kerosene, dopamine, chemical induced
fantasy and fame, yeah, the things we choose
Show me hate, show me love, make me bulletproof
Yeah we call this shit normal”
In a high trust, and still socially conservative society such as South Korea this is verging on fighting talk and is a long way from the more traditional folk sounds, although I suspect singing mostly in English rather dilutes its impact in a society where English is still not that widely spoken amongst older generations - even after more than half a century of partial occupation by US military forces.
Singing in English does however enable the global reach that has turned BTS into a multi-billion dollar economic phenomenon that can support a 70 date global tour crossing North and South America, Asia, Australia and Europe.
Their latest album Arirang, their first since they had a military-service enforced hiatus, sold just shy of four million copies on the day of its release. Arirang is the name of a Korean folk song that is so ingrained in Korean culture, north and south, that it has obtained UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage status. It is song of departure, longing and regret.
It is a melancholy music, a lyrical style that appears perennially popular across the world whether Portuguese Fado or the blues of America’s deep south.
As the lyrics of Arirang state:
“The trees and the flowers will bloom for aye
But the glories of youth will soon fade away”
In the wake of BTS a host of other K-Pop acts have followed with BlackPink, Stray Kids and Seventeen leading the charge. This is a global dynamic that isn’t going anywhere other than upwards.
Critically you might be drawn towards arguing that K-Pop is derivative and formulaic and if you watched the BBC series “Made in Korea: The K-Pop Experience”you’d probably have such a perception confirmed, although it is worth watching if only for the scary record company bosses who cast their dismissive eyes over the five likely lads from Britain and their attempts to ply their melodies under the name ‘Dear Alice’. It borrows heavily from US hip-hop and rap, and European electro-pop.
Yet what is undoubtedly true is that the enthusiasm of these five British lads to emulate a band likes BTS is confirmation that K-Pop is an integral part of Hallyu, as the ‘Korean cultural wave’ is called, that has found has a sound foot-hold in the UK and elsewhere with food, cosmetics, fashion and film all playing their part. This is a textbook example of the concept of ‘soft-power’.
However, I think my daughter will prefer the authentic South Korea for some time more. She said to me recently “Dad, I love the place, it is so liveable”. I guess another visit out east is on the cards sometime soon.
P.S:
The most accessible book on the history of South Korea is ‘Shrimp to Whale' by Ramon Pacheco Pardo who is a Professor of International Relations at Kings College London.
Looks like a book worth reading...
Carl Lee is retired but was a lecturer at The University of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam University, taught A level Geography for 20 years at Sheffield College, is the author of five books about geography and has a PhD in economic geography. He has been nuts about music since buying his first single in 1973: 10cc’s 'Rubber Bullets' if you were wondering.
There was also recent success at the Oscar's for K-Pop Demon Hunters, and the song that features in the film also won an Oscar.
There was an exhibition of her connections to Siouxsie and the Banshees.
One of the parts of the exhibition which worked particularly well was a group of leather jackets which had been painted with details of concerts that she had attended and other bands that were contemporaries.
Their drummer was called Budgie, and they released some decent albums of their own. Budgie also worked with other musicians, including the late Hector Zazou.
Budgie married Siouxsie in May 1991.
In 2007, the pair publicly announced their divorce.
Here's a few of my images showing the leather jackets hanging from the roof of the gallery.
To finish, here's one of Siouxsie's famous songs: 'Spellbound'.
It also has a list of other less tangible assets which deserve some sort of protection because of their connection with a particular place or region. These run into the hundreds and include a huge range of events and activities which are 'unique' to a place or group, and need protection to avoid dilution - much like the PGI status awarded to some foods which could otherwise be copied.
As you can see from the screen grab above - the 'objects' on the list include costumes, handicrafts, family traditions and rituals as well as dance and poetry.
Music is very well represented on the list.
Have you experienced some of these less well known musical styles or events on your travels? Perhaps you've come across a festival that you weren't expecting and that wasn't promoted particularly, or spent the night in a club when a startling act plays music of a kind that you've never heard before.
Here's a few examples:
- Oud
- Irish harping and the Uillean pipes
- the Hardanger fiddle in Norway
- the Chinese zither (guqin)
- Fado in Portugal
Some of these may well get their moment on the blog as the year progresses.
