The 5 British bands who should have created the 2012 London Olympics official song

In the most predictable news of the day, the 2012 London Olympic Games have selected a new Muse track as the official song to annoy you with all summer long.  Well that was boring and predictable.  I know the Summer Games are a big smash ratings wise for NBC who needs to appeal to all demographics here, and I’m sure they had no say in this whatsoever, but picking Muse to compose the official song is like wearing a leather biker jacket and riding one of these– it looks cool to grandparents and that’s about it.  Sure, they compile huge and grandiose songs, in fact it seems like every song they write is aiming to be the Official Song of the World, but there are a lot more bands out there that would have really spoken to the rich musical history and talent in the UK.  We offer our Top 5 picks for bands who should have been chosen to write and perform the 2012 London Olympic Games official song.

Just to be clear, I haven’t heard the new Muse song.  I could listen to it right now, but I don’t need to.  It’s called “Survival”, and so it goes something like this…

(sliding guitar scale) WHOOOOOOOOOAAAA, wooooooooooo, AHHHHHHHHH, SUUUUURRRVIVAL! (sliding guitar scale) WHOOOOOAAAAAA, wooooooooo, AHHHHHHH, SUUUURRRRVIVAL! (double sliding guitar scale!)

So now that you have heard the song,  let’s get on to some of the bands that should have been selected for this honor.

5) Iron Maiden

The legends of British metal make this list for a few reasons.  First, how awesome would it be to see a huge Eddie storming through the Olympic Stadium during the Opening Ceremony.  Remember how cool those 3D projections of whales where in Vancouver during the Opening Ceremony?  Ya, that’s what we thought.  A huge giant Eddie running around the infield waving a giant British flag would take the world by storm!  The Chinese thought they could impress the world with their acrobatics and high flying stunts, well they were wrong!  Nothing is more impressive than raising a 100 year old and 200 feet tall metal-head mummy from the dead!  Second, the people in Brazil love Iron Maiden more than the British, so this is a nice homage to the next summer games in Rio de Janeiro.  Third, it’s a fast and easy way to get rid of anyone who gets hurt on the track.  Eddie can eat them.

 4) Noel Gallagher’s Gold Medals

The best part of having a stupid band name like Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds is that you can always change it.  No one cares about birds that fly high- that’s what they are supposed to do!  So, change the band name to something totally in the Olympic spirit, and you got a winner!  And everyone loves Noel, so this works out pretty well.  The only reason Muse was even considered for the official song is because Noel and his brother can’t get along.  If they did, there wouldn’t have even been a discussion about who was getting this honor.

3) Little Barrie

Hey, I have a great idea.  Let’s stop making super famous and rich people even more insanely famous and rich!  Can we share the wealth for once?  Little Barrie make awesome music, their from London, they rock, and they are nice guys.  So let’s make them famous and actually spread some awesome music around the world!  We’ve also stress tested all of their songs.  They don’t get annoying no matter how many times you listen to them- trust us.  Also, this is probably our only way into all of those closed-door and private Olympic parties around town.  We tried to do the same thing with Michael Buble in Vancouver two years ago, but that fucker never answers his Facebook messages.

2) Black Sabbath

I have to be honest, this one is for the good of the whole world and us here in the Red, White and Blue.  With the money Ozzy and crew could rack in from royalties on this song, Sharon Osbourne could pay original Sabbath drummer Bill Ward whatever he wants, and either cure Tony Iommi and the human population or at least clone him.  With those two things taken care of, Black Sabbath are finally able to make good on this world tour that they promised.  Come on London, you can make the whole world happy with one final Sabbath tour by letting them create the official Olympic song for 2012.  You’ll probably need to move the games to TNT, but hey, it’s for the good of mankind.

1) Kasabian

This is a truly radical idea and I’m not sure if the Olympic committee and NBC will go for it, but let me try to present my case for Kasabian.  There’s a lot of music out there.  Some of it sucks, some is good, and some is awesome.  The crazy part about music is that since there is so much of it out there, you really can select whatever you want to hear.  Sometimes, I listen to bands like Unwritten Law just because I want to hear something that is not necessarily great (or good), but it makes me smile in the moment.  That moment is usually for 3 minutes while pumping gas in San Diego.  Sometimes though, like when I have a party and my friends come over, I put on a playlist that has good music on it that everyone can get into.  Since I will probably hear these songs over and over again for an extended period of time, I actually like to aim for great music on these playlists.  OK, so here’s my idea: pick some fucking great music!