The Beautiful Game, subtitled The Official Album of Euro '96, is an album of music by various artists released in 1996 by RCA and BMG Records as the official companion album to the UEFA Euro 1996 football tournament in England.
The album is a mix between a compilation album of previously released material and a studio album of new material, featuring twenty-two different artists, providing English football or football-related songs. It reflected the then-current popularity of Britpop and Cool Britannia.
The album was co-ordinated by the London-based English Football Association, a Music & Media Partnership host body. Music & Media's managing director Rick Blaskey, executive producer of music for Euro '96, stated "its clear that two cultures of music and football have never been so close. Consequently, as this country has such a rich heritage in both, it seemed right, it seemed only right to use music to celebrate England hosting Euro '96".
The album was released on 20 May 1996 in the UK by RCA and BMG and on 27 May in other European countries. RCA also revealed plans to release the album in Japan, declaring that it would "sell there purely on its content". It was a commercial success, peaking at number 10 in the UK Compilation Chart. Of the singles released from the album, the most successful was by far Frank Skinner, David Baddiel and The Lightning Seeds' "Three Lions", the Official Song for the England Football Team for the tournament, which spent three weeks at number 1 in the UK Singles Chart and was certified Platinum by the British Phonographic Industry. Music writer John Harris recognizes that the album arrived at the peak of "beer'n'footy culture" that was "bolted on to Britpop", saying that the album captures how the build-up to UEFA Euro 1996 "caught the imagination of the UK's musicians."
Background
In the early 1990s, a subgenre of alternative rock known as Britpop emerged in the United Kingdom. Its bands were characterised by their influences of British guitar pop music of the 1960s and 1970s and indie rock from the 1980s.Harris, pg. 385. Britpop focused on bands, singing in regional British accents and making references to British places and British culture, particularly working-class culture. The movement developed as a reaction against various musical and cultural trends in the late 1980s and early 1990s, particularly the grunge phenomenon from the United States. Britpop groups brought British alternative pop-rock into the mainstream and formed the backbone of a larger British cultural era tagged Cool Britannia, a period of increased pride in the culture of the United Kingdom through much of the 1990s inspired by 1960s pop culture.
Meanwhile, England had been selected as the host nation to host the UEFA Euro 1996 football championships. The hosting of the event was contested by five bids: Austria, England, Greece, the Netherlands and Portugal. The English bid was selected by the UEFA Executive Committee at a meeting in Lisbon on 5 May 1992. In the year preceding the decision, the English FA had dropped out of their plans to also bid for the 1998 World Cup in order to gain the support of other UEFA members who were to bid for that event. By the time of the event in 1996, in the British music scene, Britpop had not only become most popular but music and football had "never been so close", and football-themed music had become increasingly popular in Britain during the 1990 FIFA World Cup. The UEFA Euro 1996 tournament itself arrived during the peak of Cool Britannia, and was seen as football "returning home" (as football was first played in England). During the tournament itself, support for England's football team was "unmissable".
In the promotion and marketing for the tournament, the English Football Association contacted London-based Music & Media Partnership to co-ordinate an "official album" of the tournament, which would both support the tournament and reflect current British music. The album was co-ordinated by Music & Media Partnership for the host body, the English Football Association. Music & Media performed the same role for the organisers of the 1994 FIFA World Cup. Music & Media managing director and UEFA Euro 1996 executive musical producer Rick Blaskey, said "It's clear that two cultures of music and football have never been so close. Consequently, as this country has such a rich heritage in both, it seemed right, it seemed only right to use music to celebrate England hosting Euro '96". It was settled in a deal with RCA Records and BMG that they would release the album. Official tournament sponsor Coca-Cola would also sponsor the album. It would be the first official album for a UEFA tournament in history.
Content The official CD version of The Beautiful Game features twenty-two different tracks, focusing mostly on the current Britpop subgenre of alternative rock and indie rock, although the album also contains songs from the related alternative dance genre. Tim Southwell of Loaded termed it a Britpop album. Many of the songs were recorded exclusively for the album, or were remixes created especially for the album, but the album contains some older, previously released material too, cross-licensed from other record labels. As such, it can be seen as a cross between a studio album and a compilation album. The older songs on the album were not composed as football songs, but they came to be adapted as such. The selection of bands on the album was described by The Baggage as "decidedly eclectic". It was rumoured at the time that Blur and Oasis, the two biggest Britpop bands and at the time rivals, would collaborate for the official England national team song for the event, but neither band recorded any music for the project, although Blur licensed their song "Parklife" for the compilation.
New material
Britpop band The Lightning Seeds were commissioned to write the "Official Song of the England national team". Ian Broudie of the band wrote the music of "Three Lions", with comedians David Baddiel and Frank Skinner - presenters of football-themed comedy show Fantasy Football League at the time - providing the lyrics.Frank Skinner, "Don't blame a slogan for football's failures", in The Times, 22 May 2009 Unlike most football songs, its lyrics speak not of unbounded optimism for victory, but instead told of how, ever since the one unequivocal success of the English football team at the 1966 FIFA World Cup, every tournament has ended in dashed hopes for England. However, the repeated failures have not dampened the feeling that England could again reach those heights ("Three Lions on a shirt, Jules Rimet still gleaming. Thirty years of hurt, never stopped me dreaming").Mark Edwards Duckworth Lewis Method's songs about sport" in The Sunday Times, 5 July 2009
"Three Lions", in its completed form, is presented as the 22nd and final song on the album, listed with the subtitle "Final Version". However, the album also contains two different "versions" of the song, "Version One" and "Version Two" (sequenced as the first and twelfth tracks respectively), which are seemingly recordings (in reality comedy skits) of Baddiel, Skinner and Broudie trying to formulate what the song's lyrics should be when in the process of originally writing it. "Version One" features lyrics such as "Three Lions on a shirt / Just near where it says Umbro / The white one shows the dirt / The grey one not as much though," whilst "Version Two" sees them discuss writing the song in parody of Bruce Forsyth after Baddiel suggests writing about the Beautiful Game, to which Skinner suggests is Play Your Cards Right, with lyrics including Forsyth's catchphrases from the show "Nothing for a pair / Dollies do your dealing.""Version Two" lyrics.
Acid jazz-funk band Jamiroquai recorded "Use the Force" for the album, which would later appear on their album Travelling Without Moving (1996). Alternative dance band Black Grape recorded "England's Irie", a collaboration with former Clash member Joe Strummer and comedian Keith Allen. The song was described as combining squelchy acid-house synths, Britpop riffs and baggy beats with comically nonsensical lyrics ("my wife’s lactating and I’m spectating"), vocodered chants and sampled commentary. Bristolian trip hop act Massive Attack recorded "Eurochild Ninety 6", based upon the song "Eurochild" from their album Protection (1994). It features slow and heavy beats, a "late-night urban sleaze with a hint of menace" vibe, and was described as "the sound is that of Bristol’s esteemed purveyors of smoky dope beats." Original demos for the track included swirling chants and crowd noises, recorded by group member Robert Del Naja on a trip to Naples' San Paolo stadium, but they were dropped from the final version because they made it sound "too busy". The track itself was re-released as a B-side to their single "Teardrop" (1998) with the new name "Euro Zero Zero".
Several older songs were given new remixes; LFO's Mark Bell created the "96" remix of New Order's official England national team song from the FIFA World Cup 1990, "World in Motion", whilst The Shamen created the "On Grass Mix" of their song "Indica". Northern Uproar recorded "I Am the Cosmos" which was re-released as the B-side to their single "Town", released 11 days later on 1 June 1996. Nick Raphael, working under the pseudonym Spectre, remixed his song "Covert Dub" as "Offside Dub".Liner notes. Ant Chapman of Collapsed Lung remixed their football-themed song "Eat My Goal" for the compilation, renaming it "Beat My Goal (Black Cats Mix)". "Eat My Goal" itself had recently been remixed as the "Euro '96 Mix" which was featured in the then-current Coca-Cola UEFA Euro 1996 advertisement, and the "Black Cats Mix" is partially based on that version. Chapman would later state that the name "Black Cats" was a reference to his football team Sunderland AFC. Although Chapman considered the remix "awful", it was used for many years in the "Eat My Goal" segment on Ant & Dec's ITV children's breakfast show SMTV Live.
Although the majority of the artists are English, several Scottish indie rock artists also appear on the album. Teenage Fanclub wrote and recorded "Kickabout", based around the simple refrain of "hey everybody". The song later appeared as the B-side to their 1997 single "Ain't That Enough". An unlicensed cover version of the song was used in an Aldi advertisement in 2015 without having granted permission from the band. Primal Scream feature with an instrumental version of "The Big Man and The Scream Team Meet the Barmy Army Uptown". The vocal version of the song, which features Irvine Welsh and On-U Sound, did not feature on the album due to its profane, critical lyrics; the band released it as a single two weeks later on 3 June.
Production Unlike some various artist releases of new material, but similar to others, the new tracks on The Beautiful Game were recorded in separate studios with separate producers. "England's Irie" was recorded at Real World Studios in Box, Wiltshire, whilst being remixed at BS Studios, Los Angeles."England's Irie" liner notes. American producer Danny Saber produced the track and mixed it with John X.
Older material