Music and football fans all over the world can finally heave a sign of relief, for the much awaited FIFA album is finally here. Released in May 2014, the album has 16 pure dance tracks written or selected for the Brazilian-hosted World Cup soccer tournament. With the world cup in Brazil, a lot of emphasis has been on Latin-oriented music, and so it won’t come as a surprise to see that most of the tracks are performed by Latino artists.

The album opener is led by the official theme song of the tournament, "We Are One (Ole Ola)," which is a collaboration between Pitbull, Jennifer Lopez, and Brazilian axé singer Claudia Leitte. "Dar um Jeito" (We Will Find a Way)” by Santana and Wyclef Jean (with Avicii and Brazilian singer Alexandre Pires), serves as the tournament's official anthem. This time there’s also an official mascot song ‘Tatu Bom De Bola’ (Arlindo Cruz) and an official Coca-Cola campaign song ‘The World is Ours’ (Aloe Blacc and David Correy).

Shakira, who sang the Official Song of the 2010 FIFA World Cup (Waka Waka) and Ricky Martin who gave us the 1998 Offical FIFA Song smash hit Cup of life, give another round of punchy tunes with La La La and Vida a bilingual Spanish and English song respectively. There’s also classic 1960s doo – wop group The Isley Brothers with Its your thing. We also have artists such as Bibel Gilberto and Lang Lang with extremely catchy piano based track ‘Tico Tico’. The album also has Norwegian rising pop star, singer Adelen with her track ‘Ole’ a groovy dance track, that contains a sample of Steam’s 1969 hit single the very catchy ‘Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye‘. Sergio Mendes Carlinhos Brown and a host of other leading Brazilian musicians also feature on the album. Nearing the end of the playlist we have the Baha Men with Night and Day, thankfully its something better than their last hit ‘Who let the Dogs out’. The headlining track "We Are One (Ole Ola)," appears at the end of the album in a remix version, slightly longer than the original, adding a little more punch to the already heady mix. As a Bonus Track you have a girl band F.A.N.S with ‘Pasion Total’ which is labelled as the FIFA Under 17Women’s World Cup Official Song.

Most of the songs capture the Brazilian culture and the overall excitement of the world cup. The album is a great party spinner and a good one hour entertainer for any beach party too. Besides lyrics to all songs, the album inlay also includes a list of previous FIFA World Cup finals winners and runners – up.

There’s no doubt that fans all over the world will enjoy this great combination of top international stars and fantastic Brazilian artists and that this album will add great rhythm to the footballing action in Brazil.

-- Reviewed by Verus Ferreira