How Much Is the U.S. Men’s National Team Adopting ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’ as Its Unofficial World Cup Anthem Helping Its Streams?
Categoria: Musica
This week's Trending Up looks at the effect becoming a singalong for the national soccer team has had on the John Denver classic's stateside streams.
Por Billboard | 24/06/2026
Welcome to Billboard Pro’s Trending Up newsletter, where we take a closer look at the songs, artists, curiosities and trends that have caught the music industry’s attention. Some have come out of nowhere, others have taken months to catch on, and all of them could become ubiquitous in the blink of a TikTok clip. This week: The World Cup boosts an old pop song with no obvious soccer connections but unexpected modern resonance, while streaming audiences embrace an oft-misunderstood German song and a cult-pop classic gets yet another revival thanks to a new synch. Almost Heaven, United States: ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’ Gets Team USA World Cup Bump If you’ve been watching Team USA get out to their impressive 2-0 start to Group Play of the 2026 World Cup tournament — with a staggering 6-1 goal differential — you’ve no doubt heard the strains of a familiar song emanating from the crowds: John Denver’s 1970 country classic “Take Me Home, Country Roads.” The song was one of the handful that the team sent FIFA when asked for a potential victory song to play after wins, but it’s easily the one that the crowds and the team itself have most embraced over its first week-plus of World Cup play. Consequently, the song — which is already something of a streaming perennial, having been streamed on Spotify over a billion times between its two most popular versions — has become even more of a favorite than usual on DSPs. Between the date of the team’s most recent win (Friday, June 19) and the two days following, the song amassed nearly 1.7 million official on-demand U.S. streams, up 20% from the the 1.4 million it amassed over the same three-day period the prior week, according to Luminate. On Thursday, Team USA has its third game of the Group Stage, against Türkiye — but the team has already clinched its entry to the next round, meaning the game is mostly just a tune-up for the team. So expect the fans to be relaxed, feeling good, and ready to belt out some “West Virginia, Mountain Mama” at the slightest provocation. German Singer Blumengarten’s Performance on ‘Gut Genug’ Goes Viral for Falsetto and Misunderstood Lyrics The easy entry for this week’s Only on The Internet file: “Gut Genug,” a German electro-soul song by three performers (KITSCHKRIEG, Blumengarten & Shirin David) largely unfamiliar to U.S. audiences, has become one of the fastest-growing hits on streaming — largely because folks are having fun mixing up the meaning of the German lyrics. The song’s primary hook is based around the German phrase “du bist gut genug,” meaning “you are good enough.” But according to countless TikTok videos, the phrase — as delivered in singer Blumengarten’s somewhat pinched falsetto — lands more like “Doobie scoot canoe,” a message less comforting or universal than its proper lyrics, but one with far greater meme po