From FIFA menu screens to terrace anthems – how mainstream music creates the connection your football videos need
If you’re looking for music for football videos, you already know the problem. Generic tracks fill space. They don’t do anything else.
The tracks that actually work in football videos aren’t generic. They’re the ones your audience already has a relationship with – from the stands, from the FIFA menu screen, from a terrace chant that started in one corner of the ground and ended up everywhere. That relationship is what makes them perform. And now they’re licensed for your content.
Every track in this playlist is available on Lickd, licensed and claims-managed for YouTube. Here’s why each one belongs in your football videos.
The FIFA Standouts
Music for football videos your audience has carried for years
These tracks didn’t play during matches. They played in the menus – while you were building your squad, flicking through kits, waiting for a friend to stop arguing about who got to be Man United. That kind of repeated, ambient listening creates deep familiarity. And deep familiarity is one of the most powerful forces in football video performance.
Jerk It Out – Caesars
The opening riff is enough. Two seconds and your audience knows exactly where they are – back in a menu screen, circa 2005, controller in hand. That instant recognition is what makes this such effective music for football videos. It’s not just familiarity. It’s the specific pleasure of being reminded of something you didn’t know you still remembered. Use it for high-energy edits, goal compilations, or anything that needs to hit the ground running.
Supermassive Black Hole – Muse
One of the most iconic tracks from the FIFA catalogue era [OUTBOUND LINK: article or Wikipedia entry on FIFA video game soundtrack history]. It has a cinematic intensity that works particularly well under highlight edits, last-minute drama, or anything where the footage deserves a track that genuinely matches its weight. Use it when your football video needs to feel like something’s at stake – because Supermassive Black Hole makes everything feel like something’s at stake.
Blue Monday – New Order
The longest-running top 40 hit in UK chart history, and one of the most distinctive opening sequences in modern music [OUTBOUND LINK: Wikipedia entry on Blue Monday / New Order]. It appeared across multiple FIFA editions and has never left the cultural consciousness of football fans who grew up with the game. Its propulsive, mechanical energy works extraordinarily well under football footage – particularly anything that builds toward a moment rather than opening with one. For tension, anticipation, and the slow build before a big result, Blue Monday earns its place as a FIFA standout.
The Stadium Classics
Tracks built for football – and for football videos
These tracks go beyond the FIFA era. They live in stadiums, in pre-match tunnels, in the moment a ground of 50,000 people decides to start singing something nobody planned. They carry the weight of real football memory – and that weight transfers directly to your content.
All Together Now – The Farm
The Farm’s 1990 single became the unofficial anthem of Italia 90 – a tournament that defined football for a generation of UK fans [OUTBOUND LINK: Wikipedia entry on 1990 FIFA World Cup or The Farm]. Written as a response to the First World War, it found its truest home on football terraces, where hope, defiance, and collective noise made it feel like it had always been there. For World Cup content, retro football edits, or anything with a sense of occasion and history, All Together Now is the track. It’s music for football videos that carries the weight of an entire era.
Mr. Brightside – The Killers
Mr. Brightside has become one of the defining terrace anthems in modern football – not through any official association, but because crowds adopted it and refused to let it go. It turns up at cup finals, in pre-match playlists, at the end of seasons when everything is on the line. Your audience already knows every word. The moment it comes in, they’re somewhere deeply familiar – and they’re staying to find out where your edit takes them.
Chelsea Dagger – The Fratellis
Still opening sets at Ibrox on European nights. Still filling the room the moment the opening riff lands. Chelsea Dagger has a specific energy – celebratory, unstoppable, impossible to sit still to. It’s the sound of a goal going in, a title being won, a moment that deserves to be louder than it already is. If your football video needs that energy, this is where you start.
The Headliner
Right Here Right Now – Fatboy Slim – the definitive music for football videos
Right Here Right Now – Fatboy Slim
Some tracks soundtrack a moment. Right Here Right Now soundtracks the feeling that a moment is coming.
Fatboy Slim’s 1999 anthem has been part of football culture for over two decades – from pre-match walk-outs to title celebration montages, from broadcast packages to fan-made highlight reels that get shared hundreds of thousands of times. It has a sense of arrival and momentum that is almost impossible to replicate with any other track. When Right Here Right Now comes in, something is about to happen. Your audience feels that before a single frame of footage plays.
That’s what makes it the headliner for music for football videos. It doesn’t just fit the content – it elevates it. Build-up videos, pre-match atmospheres, season openers, trophy moments. It earns its place in every format because it carries a specific kind of cultural weight that no royalty-free alternative can manufacture: the feeling that this is the moment you’ve been waiting for.
Your most engaged viewers will clock it in the first two seconds. That recognition creates exactly the kind of connection that drives watch time, shares, and the comments that say “this gave me chills.”
Use it for the video that matters most.
Why mainstream music works as music for football videos
It’s not just familiarity. It’s the specific kind of familiarity that comes from shared experience.
These tracks were embedded in football culture before your audience knew they were paying attention. They played in the background while something else was happening – a game loading, a squad being picked, a terrace swelling around them. The music and the feeling became the same thing.
When you use these tracks as music for football videos, you’re not just picking a good song. You’re activating a memory your audience already has. That’s what drives the watch time, the shares, and the comments that say “how did this just take me straight back to being 14.”
Creators on Lickd see 200% more views, 76% more likes, and 35% longer watch time compared to content using royalty-free alternatives. That’s The Mainstream Music Effect – and it’s measurable [INTERNAL LINK: Lickd blog post on The Mainstream Music Effect].
Generic music fills space. These tracks fill the gap between watching and feeling.
How to use this music in your football videos
Every track in this playlist is licensed and claims-managed for YouTube on Lickd. No revenue holds, no demonetisation risk. Our VOUCH technology clears copyright claims automatically – usually within 30 minutes of upload. You choose the track, Lickd handles the licensing, and your revenue stays yours.
Browse the full football playlist and find the soundtrack your next video needs.
New to Lickd? Find out how claims-managed licensing works and why it’s the only way to use mainstream music safely on YouTube.
The right track doesn’t just soundtrack your football videos. It gives your audience somewhere to be.
