SAO PAULO // Regardless of whether you are in Brasilia or Belo Horizonte, Cuiaba or Curitiba, the sight of Pitbull, Jennifer Lopez and Claudia Leitte on the big screens inside the World Cup stadiums is unavoidable.
They are as omnipresent at half-time as long queues to the toilets.
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It is fair to say the tournament's official song, We Are One, has not proved as popular as Shakira's 2010 hit Waka Waka, but it has not flopped as badly as many expected when it was first released.
Much of the credit must go to Leitte, who is the only Brazilian involved in the song and whose verse in Portuguese tends to get the locals singing – for the entire 16 seconds it lasts.
Yet across Brazil there are more popular songs being associated with the World Cup.
In Sao Paulo, there is little escaping tattooed rapper MC Guime's Pais do Futebol, a Brazilian hip-hop track that translates as The Country of Football and includes a lyric referencing Neymar.
On the north-east coast, Psirico's Lepo Lepo is attracting fresh, foreign fans.
Released in March, the song has little to do with football, but is catchy and, although having grown overexposed in some parts of the country, is new to the ears of visitors.
As a result, locals of Recife last week took great delight in singing it while banging on their drums on the beach.
There is one song, however, that seems to have been overplayed in all 32 qualified countries and more.
Pharrell Williams's latest ditty has been the prelude to every 45 minutes of football played this summer and never fails to produce a few groans. Most people are only Happy when the song ends.
gmeenaghan@thenational.ae
Follow us on Twitter @SprtNationalUAE
World Cup Diary Day 20: Fans are always happy with ‘anthems’
Despite the popular criticism of Pitbull and Jennifer Lopez's 'We Are One', Gary Meenaghan finds fans in Brazil are liking the World Cup anthem well enough.
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