Our national anthem among the worst? Wait ‘til the World Cup comes to KC | Opinion
It’s not lost on me that the world is a worrying place these days. As journalists, we’ve been writing some difficult stories on what is happening in Kansas City and in the nation. It’s important stuff, but I know sometimes you need a break.
So, let’s talk about national anthems.
The Winter Olympics in Italy are less than two weeks away, and the FIFA World Cup 2026 is coming up in June, so you’ll soon be hearing a lot of anthems.
In America, even the least patriotic of us perk up a little when we hear the opening strains of “The Star-Spangled Banner”: “Oh say can you seeeeee.” But wait. Hold on to your flags and garters:
A recent study ranks America’s song near the bottom of 47 different countries’ anthems. We’re No. 33, below Cape Verde in Africa, and above Belgium in Europe.
What hit #1? Spain’s “La Marcha Real”.
Argentina and Algeria — you can hear their anthems in KC this summer at the World Cup — ranked in the Top 10. Something tells me we here in Kansas City will be singing pretty loud for our teams. Maybe Francis Scott Key’s ditty isn’t the best song ever to be written, but No. 33? It can’t be, and I wanted to find out why it was ranked so low. (Keep reading for where to listen to rest of the top anthems.)
Sports fans favorites?
The study was commissioned by SeatPick, a ticket search engine and marketplace, so the songs were ranked on how they perform among sports fans in a stadium. According to the results, the U.S. ranked low with an overall strength score of 3.26 out of 10 because of several factors, most notably its slow tempo and lack of energy.
But I take issue with the ranking, and so should you, fellow Americans. So does musicologist Rebecca Lepping at the University of Kansas. She’s a (take a deep breath) research assistant professor in the department of neurology, the director of the PROMUS Lab (Power of Music) and the director of research for the Human Brain Mapping Program at the University of Kansas Medical Center. She knows what she’s talking about. You might remember when I talked to her about the distaste of Christmas music last year.
I have questions about how the folks from SeatPick (rather, their designated researchers) decided what went into a good anthem. The methodology of the scores included analyzing each song according to several criteria, which was complicated, but Lepping recognized the lingo. “This is the kind of work that I do, trying to understand music from this scientific perspective.”
When I showed her the criteria, she was able to bring it back to layman’s language. “They have a good methodology. I think where their methods deviate from what I would consider scientific is in their interpretation of their results.”
How they ranked the anthems
SeatPick analyzed tempo, energy, loudness and positive lyrical sentiments.
We both questioned what made a good tempo and what made the kind of sentiment sports fans want to sing.
Lepping described it this way: “They are saying that a motivating tempo band default (is) centered at 120 beats per minute. That’s the important part. They chose 120 beats per minute … that’s sort of twice your heartbeat, so it’s quick. They define that as motivating.”
“The Star-Spangled Banner” is much slower, right? Lepping called it at about 80 beats per minute. “I wouldn’t say that it’s slow. It’s not like 40 beats per minute, which is super slow, or even 60 beats per minute, which would be like something more calming and relaxing.”
What about sentiment? Just because “The Star-Spangled Banner” doesn’t hype up certain words — SeatPick looked for “victory,” “pride,” “rise,” “together” and others. — doesn’t mean our anthem isn’t patriotic.
Lepping looked at another one of the scores — repetition and chantability: “A lot of people don’t know all the words to ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ because it’s … really evocative poetry, but it doesn’t have a lot of repeats. So again, that would mean that objectively it’s going to score lower on their defined scale. It doesn’t mean that it’s not beautiful. It doesn’t mean that it’s not stirring.”
The national anthem sometimes brings tears to sports fans at games, and folks at sporting events expect a good performance. Singer Vanessa Thomas, who has performed the national anthem many times in her career, told KCUR last year: “It’s always a performance where you have an awareness that the audience has an expectation … meeting a certain standard for this song, but more than that it’s a highly-anticipated moment.”
The Top 10 anthems
If you’re curious, here are the Top 10 anthems SeatPick says are the best to sing in a sports arena. To hear them, you can find most of them on the YouTube channel, VocalNationalAnthems. And while I love “La Marseillaise” (the anthem of France), there’s no way our song is worse.
1. Spain, “La Marcha Real”
2. Morocco, “Cherifian Anthem”
3. South Korea, “Aegukga”
4. Algeria, “Kassaman”
5. Brazil, “Hino Nacional Brasileiro”
6. Colombia, “¡Oh Gloria Inmarcesible!”
7. Argentina, “Himno Nacional Argentino”
8. Mexico, “Himno Nacional Mexicano”
9. France, “La Marseillaise”
10. Tunisia, “Humat al-Hima”
This story was originally published January 28, 2026 at 11:39 AM.
