Regardless, this blissful slice of '80s nostalgia will make you want to break out your neon-color windbreaker and leg warmers for an Olympic-size dance party. A Chance for Heaven, Christopher CrossĬross' synth-driven contribution to the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles is a bit of a puzzler: It's subtitled "Swimming Theme," and yet its whole chorus revolves around climbing mountains. While it's packed with enough fire-related phrases to last until the 2020 Games, its catchy, feel-good chorus will be burned into your brain all month long. It's this year's theme for the Winter Olympics Torch Relay. (Sample lyrics: "From the East / From the West / Each of us trying our best.") And yet, the 2010 Winter Olympics anthem is a refreshingly upbeat addition to the Games' often downtempo catalog, fueled by a peppy drum solo and unabashedly cheesy chorus about dreaming big. Bang the Drum, Bryan Adams and Nelly Furtadoīy no stretch of the imagination is Bang the Drum a lyrical masterpiece. But it's hardly workout playlist material, even if the video's briny, Neptune imagery fits right into Björk's unusual oeuvre. The Icelandic trailblazer blends rippling synths and whirring siren calls on this nautical ballad, written for the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. While her sublime soprano compliments his elastic vocals, it's doubtful that this classical love song lit a fire under any athletes' feet at the 1992 Summer Games. Barcelona, Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballéīarcelona is a passable duet, taken off the Queen frontman's 1988 joint album of the same name with the Spanish opera star. Like the parachute she drags around in the visually ambitious music video, she's similarly weighed down by Rise's plodding melody and faux-inspiring lyrics. A year before releasing the garbage fire that is her Witness album, Perry recorded this pedestrian number for the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games, which sounds like a retread of her past hits Wide Awake and Unconditionally. In retrospect, it's ironic how a song about rising from the bottom actually marked the fall of the once-reigning pop queen. Survival, MuseĪt the time of its release in 2012, BBC radio host Jon Holmes memorably compared this London Olympics theme to "an orchestra falling down some stairs" and the "noise of a rhino knocking a wall down." The English rockers' unbearable hodgepodge of crashing drums, dramatic strings and strained vocals may be the Games' worst official song. RELATED: 'Today' co-hosts Savannah Guthrie, Hoda Kotb talk Olympics trip 12. Every two years, an artist is called on to record a tune that will capture the mood of the Summer or Winter Olympic Games. Like competing on the balance beam or sprinting to the finish line, writing a song can be an Olympic-caliber feat. Corrections & clarifications: An earlier version of this report incorrectly credited the 1996 Summer Olympics performance of ‘The Power of the Dream.’ Celine Dion sang the theme at the opening ceremony the song was performed again at the closing ceremony by Rachel McMullin and a choir of other children.