Of all the records broken during the Paris Olympics, not all were broken by the participants: the song played during the closing ceremony has become the most Shazamed song of all time, breaking a record previously set during the opening ceremony of the same Olympics. And that clearly means that not everyone who should have seen the film Motivation actually saw it, because it was an important song in that movie.
The song is Night call by Kavinsky, who was on stage with French rock band Phoenix during the ceremony. The song never charted after its release in 2010, but if you Motivation you will know. It also appeared in the film version of Lincoln’s Advocate and in the slightly less known crowdsourced film Our RoboCop remake, and it is covered by London GrammarM Roosevelt and Mitski, and My Vitrioland much more.
Why the Olympics Broke Shazam’s Records
The purpose of the Olympics, officially at least, is to bring the world together – and this time it did just that, twice, by making people say, “What’s that song?” During the opening ceremony, the song was the disco hit of 1977 Supernature by Cerrone, who What a video. And for the closing ceremony it was Night callwhich here you can see what has been done.
According to Apple, as reported by EDM.com, Night call also set a new record for the most Shazam’d song in a single day, with France, Mexico and the US as the top three most searched countries during the closing ceremony. Other songs that saw a sharp increase in searches were Phoenix’s Lisztomania And If I ever feel betterboth of which were performed during the same ceremony.
For me, however, the musical highlight was Gojira’s spectacular performance at the start of the Olympic Games: you can’t beat that a show with severed heads, fire, headbanging, fire, fire and fire finally…