20. Declan McKenna – Isombard
From FIFA 17
Oh the irony! Declan McKenna shot to fame in 2014 after another of his songs, Brazil, received widespread radio play as a protest anthem against FIFA and the 2014 World Cup. We can only assume nobody at FIFA did their homework when giving the young Englishman a platform on their 2017 version.
Whatever the story, Isombard is a sweet, catchy and immediately likeable indie hit and one we fell in love with as soon as we heard it.
19. Fatboy Slim – The Rockafella Skank
From FIFA 99
Fatboy Slim was on fire in the 90s. While Praise You and Right Here, Right Now have become synonymous with other sections of your brain, however, The Rockafella Skank can only possibly take you back to low-res PS1 graphics of Paul Scholes and Robbie Fowler. What a time to be alive (if you were, of course).
18. Glass Animals – Heat Waves
From FIFA 21
Oxfordshire's Glass Animals have gone stratospheric in recent years, with Heat Waves cranking up almost two billion Spotify listens. Not bad considering your mum has probably never heard of them.
But this is where they really caught fire for so many. With mellow synths and dreamy harmonies, this was a stunning follow-up to Youth – which also featured on FIFA.
17. Kasabian – L.S.F.
From FIFA 04
Yet more evidence that FIFA 04 is up there with the very best editions in terms of its music. Going through its playlist is like finding an old Now compilation in the loft and deciding that summer must have been the greatest era for music ever (Now 41 for those interested).
The perfect blend of forgettable lyrics, soothing basslines and dreamy choruses, L.S.F could make you forget you had double science the next day as you mulled-over whether to start Mateja Kezman or Adrian Mutu in your next match.
16. Sam Fender – Play God
From FIFA 19
Another song which transcends gaming and stands alone as a superb song from the modern era in its own right. Yet more proof the music bods at FIFA care about the current, the fresh and the lesser known hymns of our times.
Play God is a face-meltingly good tune, with an awesome guitar riff and Fender’s phenomenal voice intertwining to turn the FIFA sesh in your bedroom into a beer-soaked festival tent. One of the all-time great songs on the game.
15. Society – Protocol
From FIFA 17
Forget FIFA for one second, this might actually be one of the best tunes of the past five years, full stop. Seriously, how was this not more popular outside of a computer game?
The crashing symbols, the powerful lyrics, the wailing vocals. It belongs over the closing credits of a Guy Richie movie. Instead, we got to breathe it in after scoring a late winner with Adebayo Akinfenwa in League Two. We’re not complaining; in fact, we’re just grateful FIFA brought it to our attention.
14. Muse – Supermassive Black Hole
From FIFA 07
Supermassive Black Hole by Muse is perhaps better known for its inclusion in the Twilight movie soundtrack. But it does mark the last time that the band were perhaps cool enough to be on FIFA before the overblown The Resistance album was released.
This track was a defining piece of music in so many UK teenagers’ adolescences in the mid-'00s, that it’s fitting that it also became the background noise for when you were busy building a fearsome Southampton side with Vieira and Gattuso in midfield. Or was that just us? Still, this is arguably one of the best songs the Devon-based trio ever released.
13. Disclosure – F For You
From FIFA 14
Despite EA’s overlooking of British dance (which we’re still not forgiving them for), they couldn’t really ignore the phenomenon of Disclosure, could they?
FIFA 14 saw F For You included – one of the lesser-known tracks off the duo’s debut album, Settle. It still slaps in the club, but if you’re a certain person, it evokes Luis Suarez and Neymar as much as it does all-night raves at Fabric.
12. Smallpools – Dreaming
From FIFA 14
Put this song and you're transported to a time when Liverpool had terrible kits made by Warrior. When Mesut Ozil was the big new star for Arsenal. When Gareth Bale and Cristiano Ronaldo were the two biggest things at Real Madrid. Times may change but Dreaming is eternal.
11. Kings of Leon – Red Morning Light
From FIFA 04
The song which played over one of the truly great FIFA intro videos. You can remember it now, can’t you: helicopters at night chopping their way towards a dimly lit stadium. Out of the darkness appears Ronaldinho, sublime in his yellow and green Brazil shirt – he plays an outside-of-the-boot pass to a rampant Thierry Henry, all the while that jangling rock guitar signals the start of something epic.
This was Kings of Leon at their peak, before the boyband haircuts and H&M dad shirts. They were hillbillies, and football was not their sport. They provided the music, while the aforementioned greats, alongside a devilishly handsome Alessandro Del Piero, scampered about in the darkness. Lovely stuff.
10. Avelino, Skepta & Stormzy – Energy
From FIFA 18
This may well be a hot take, but Season 2 of The Journey was the best one. It featured Thierry Henry at a party, come on! At FFT, we will die on this hill.
The mode began its second act with our loveable mercenary Alex Hunter with his mate Danny in Brazil, playing street football with a kid, in what can only be described as a remake of that scene from Mike Bassett: England Manager when Bradley Walsh does the same thing. Eventually, the screen cuts and Avelino’s beasty anthem Energy blares out.
This is arguably the best rap song ever included on FIFA. It’s big, brash, immaculately produced and super-cool. Cameos from Stormzy and Skepta are nice, but nothing’s beating that Avelino lyric, “Why be a sheep when you can be the GOAT?” Incredible.
9. The Streets – Fit But You Know It
From FIFA 05
“But I stopped sharking a minute to get chips… and drinks”. Oh yes, another one you eventually learned every single word to by the time the next FIFA came out.
Staring at a team selection page with a mate (getting Shaun Wright-Phillips into the team is all that matters in multiplayer mode), the pair of you mumbling about that bloke in the white shirt. It’s a filthy banger, we all know it, let’s move on.
8. The Caesars – Jerk It Out
From FIFA 04
Did this song exist outside of FIFA? If it did, nobody ever played it. For that reason, this might be the most FIFA song ever recorded. One that immediately transports you back to the days when Adriano was still a world-beater and MSN Messenger was everything.
Unlike some of the more soothing songs on this list – classics that lulled you into a calm and sedate place – Jerk It Out's parping organs snapped you out of it. This was a song you got stuff done to: contract negotiations, press conferences, tactical tinkering, you name it. Carpe Diem!
7. The Jam – Town Called Malice
From FIFA 04
One of those amazing ones you could sort of sing alright and, despite the complex lyrics, ended up learning by heart.
Sure, you could “Babababadaba” from the get-go, but soon enough you could also wail along with that bit about disused milk floats lying in the dairy yard. For the length of this FIFA 04 banger you were Paul Weller. If Paul Weller was also the manager of Ajax.
6. Chase & Status – No Problem
From FIFA 12
Back in 2003, FIFA included two Kosheen songs on the same soundtrack. EA left it a long time to dip back into drum and bass after curating tracks from the Bristol-based breaks band.
No Problem, featuring Zimbabwean vocalist Takura Tendayi, has become a jungle classic. This was one of the highlights on FIFA 12 and it was proof that music's move from guitars to electronics might just be an explosive one – just as tiki-taka was dying out for something a little more pragmatic, too.
5. Blur – Song 2
From FIFA: Road to World Cup 98
Song 2 was pioneering for FIFA – the first proper loud, proper laddish anthem to be included in the game series, way back in FIFA 98. Yes, it’s the “woohoo song”.
The track was a big moment for London-based band Blur, too. Breaking from the britpop they’d defined, Song 2 was a fuzzy tribute to grunge gods Nirvana that saw the band’s popularity soar across the pond. Features in media such as this certainly helped the track’s cause and it almost single-handedly birthed the FIFA soundtrack as we know it.
4. Kasabian – Club Foot
From FIFA 13
It’s been used by Arsenal, Aston Villa and Benfica as walk-on music before games. It was in the Goal! movie. It was a favourite of Sky Sports. Club Foot just had to be on FIFA, didn’t it?
Basically, Club Foot is one of the greatest football songs of all time. And there’s plenty of competition just from Kasabian themselves.
Why did EA wait a decade to include the track though? Granted, they picked L.S.F. from the band’s debut album first time around, but we’re not sure why they then plumped for Club Foot in 2013 when it came out in 2004. Not that we’re complaining…
3. New Order – Blue Monday
From FIFA 05
One of only a few pre-1990s tracks to have been included in the FIFA series, New Order’s masterpiece, Blue Monday, was an unlockable song for the FIFA 05 jukebox.
Blue Monday is one of the most acclaimed pieces of music all time, largely seen as a landmark moment in dance music, and it’s sold over a million copies across various versions and mixes since its release in 1983. Seems weird to think it became the soundtrack to your crazy FA Cup run with Nottingham Forest.
2. Gorillaz – 19-2000 (Soulchild remix)
From FIFA 02
The quintessential early 00s banger, 19-2000 by Gorillaz perfectly straddled late-90s indie anthems and our post-millenium obsession with DJs and dance remixes.
Allow us to set the scene: you’ve just returned from a Saturday afternoon wandering round Virgin Megastore with your old man. You’re sporting boot-cut jeans and a Gareth Gates hairstyle as you plop yourself down on a beanbag and switch on the PS2. Damon Albarn’s soothing tones flood your ears as you waste an entire evening on career mode; Ronaldinho running the show for your Blackburn Rovers side. Your mum’s preparing turkey dinosaurs downstairs for tea. Life is good.
1. Stone Roses – Fools Gold
From FIFA 04
This is one of the coolest songs ever written, and the classic of the FIFA genre.
You could find yourself humming along to any musical section of 'Fools Gold' on a given day: the skiffle-drum beat, the plodding bassline, the mewing guitar that chimed in almost randomly or those lyrics you never bothered to learn.
You’d get to that one bit you sort of knew and that was always a treat: “Hummana, hummana, humanna, 15 dayyyys”. What Snoop Dogg smokes in song form.
