Korea keeps in tune for World Cup

The 2002 Official album. Courtesy of Stone Music Entertainment.

• Published Jun 18, 2018 3:59 PM KST
• Updated Jun 19, 2018 10:15 AM KST

By Dong Sun-hwa

Whenever World Cup time comes around, it is time for World Cup songs.

The popularity of these songs peaked in 2002 when Korea reached the final four, a record that has yet to be broken. The albums for the quadrennial games have grabbed less attention ever since, but they have become part of the World Cup ritual.

“Red Devils,” a supporter club of Korea' national football team, has put together these albums since 1998.

Included in the 2018 Russia World Cup album “We, the Reds,” released on June 7,” are singer Jung Joon-young's “Hifive Korea” and “Shouts of Victory 2018” by OH MY GIRL and TransFixion.

Most popular is, no doubt, is the 2002 album “Dream Come True,” which produced such hits as “Oh! Pil Seung KOREA” by rock band YB or the Yoon Do-hyun band. “Pil Seung” means “victory assured.”

Also on the album is “Into the Arena” sung by Shin Hae-chul and “Arirang,” a traditional folk song that gained great popularity as well.

The album for the 2006 German World Cup contained the songs, “Reds, Go Together” by Korean band Buzz and “We are the one” by singer PSY as well as “For Victory” by rock group TransFixion.

“For Victory,” in particular, has been newly arranged and covered for World Cup albums since then.

For the 2010 South Africa World Cup, the album was “The Shouts of Reds, United Korea.”

It featured “We Are One” sung together by girl band HAM, Red Devils and the national women's football team, as well as songs by a multitude of musicians including Crying Nut and Leessang.

K-pop boy band BIGHBANG sang “The Shouts of Reds Part 2” with Olympic gold medal skater Kim Yun-a and TransFixion.

The popularity of World Cup songs is often in proportion to the team's performance, meaning that they it has not produced any hits in recent times. Many songs were released for the 2014 Brazil World Cup, but without success.