Cities and countries are beginning to consider their own sonic identities. This is encouraging. A shared sonic language welcomes visitors, rallies residents, and connects everything from airport arrivals to public transportation and stadium nights. But a place is not a product, and a sonic identity can go wrong in so many ways if it’s not created with care and respect.
When the sound of a city is treated like an advertising cure, it feels shallow, wastes money, and invites backlash.
I know of two stories, each showing one side. In Malmö, a 73-second “sound of the city” premiered, drew public anger, then disappeared. The intent was fine, but the execution felt generic and disconnected from the everyday sound of the city. By contrast, the FIFA World Cup 2026 project shows how a sonic identity can be adapted locally across many cities. The framework is right—one identity that carries recognition with room for regional interpretation. The details reveal where city sound blossoms and where it fades.
The cautionary sonic tale of Malmö
Let’s start by exploring what went wrong in Malmö. Malmö’s misstep was not simply “spending on a sonic identity”, it was the way the work was framed and delivered. First of all, a single file was announced as the definitive sound of the city (it’s a stretch to call a single track of 73 seconds a sonic identity). It leaned on a tight electronic loop that already felt dated, and it did not reflect the city’s layered reality from neighborhood to neighborhood or its rich cultural history. There was little to no conversation with locals about what they thought captured the sound of the city.
In addition, the piece was neither modular nor adaptable, and there was no plan for embedding it across the city’s sonic touchpoints (e.g., public transportation or hotlines). With no real use, the pushback was predictable. People felt the city had purchased a campaign soundtrack rather than creating an anthem that could become part of the city’s identity for years to come. And they questioned why public funds were used for something that neither sounded like Malmö nor served Malmö.
The flexible anthem of FIFA World Cup 2026
If Malmö is a cautionary tale, then the FIFA World Cup 2026 anthem is a live experiment in doing things differently. After creating a single global theme, FIFA tasked each host city with adapting the theme to their own musical and cultural heritage, aiming for a balance between cohesion and local flavor.
I have to admit that I’ve only visited four of the sixteen FIFA host cities, so I’m listening more than judging. But some tracks feel rooted the moment they start. Boston leans into Celtic heritage without tipping into caricature. Kansas City benefits from a strong local voice with Tech N9ne. Mexico City and Monterrey draw from local palettes with taste. Philadelphia has an assertive posture that feels specific. Others overlap. Houston and San Francisco land in a similar production lane, which softens both “identities”.
This pattern stems more from a design issue than a talent issue. The project relies heavily on a single main melody, which isn’t ideal. When that melody is the only piece of shared material, local composers are forced to build a bed underneath and then force the motif on top. Which is why, in a few cases, the result sounds more like stock music aligned to a cultural stereotype, with the main melody slapped on top of it. That might work for compliance, but it doesn’t work for culture.
A compact system with a core motif plus 1–2 secondary motifs would have given local artists more room to capture their city’s sonic essence without disconnecting from the tournament.
Not to mention that some cities already have their own sonic identities. Atlanta is a great example. Its official sound blends marching band qualities and human voices to evoke community and diversity, which is the city’s story. That identity did not find its way into the FIFA Atlanta song. The track is fine, but the missed connection shows how global projects can sidestep existing, authentic materials in favor of uniformity. When a city already has a holistic sonic identity, folding it into the larger framework enhances recognition both at home and abroad.
There is another risk, as well, that’s worth noting. The main theme sits close to a phrase from the UEFA Europa League anthem. Whether intentional or not, that melodic similarity invites confusion and dilutes global distinctiveness. Sports are full of anthems people can hum from memory. If your hook lands close to another property’s footprint, you borrow its sonic equity while weakening your own.
Building a local sonic design system
The larger point is structural. A city or country is layered, rhythmic, historical, and futuristic all at once. It changes street by street and hour by hour. Reducing it to one tune and a single instrumentation choice is like summarizing a cuisine with a garnish. Melody is powerful, but rhythm, harmony, timbre, and environmental textures can evoke a sense of place just as clearly. A transit door chime, the sound of the local market, a harbor foghorn, chatter from the local high school, even the languages you hear on the street can become raw material and inspiration.
If you give musicians only one melody, they’ll do what they can. But if you give them a musical design system and guardrails, then they can make something that feels authentic while still sounding like the overarching anthem.
Tourism boards are starting to treat sound as part of that system, rather than as a campaign add-on, with Costa Rica offering a clear example. The country refreshed its identity around an embracing letter C, and then asked how that should sound. The solution used the circle of fifths as a musical analogue to the visual shape, folding C-G-D-A-E-B into a short mnemonic. The palette expanded with instruments often used in Costa Rica’s rich music culture (e.g., mariba, quijongo, and ocarinas), as well as field recordings of rain, birds, waterfalls, and the ocean. The sonic DNA weaved those elements together, so the mnemonic could sit inside a fuller musical world. The outcome wasn’t just a single track; it was a holistic sonic identity that complemented the visual identity and could be used across tourism advertising, trade fairs, and official events.
Public transportation brands add another sonic touchpoint. The French rail operator SNCF has had a human-driven signature for years, modernizing it along the way and using it in everything from advertising to the iconic station signal itself. In Berlin, BVG recorded voices from the city’s many cultures, along with everyday urban textures, and turned them into a big-city symphony. Dubai’s RTA took a similar approach by sampling the sounds of trains, boats, and car doors and transforming them into instruments for their sonic identity. These examples treat the city as a source rather than a backdrop.
By contrast, it’s easy to lean on classical cues and end up sounding similar. Transport for London’s Elizabeth Line commissioned a new recording of “The Blue Danube” by Johann Strauss (not sure I see the connection to London or the Thames). Vienna’s Wiener Linien explicitly cites Strauss’s Donauwalzer (“The Blue Danube”) as inspiration for its sonic identity, and then selected the brand voice through a public vote involving more than 20,000 residents. The results are calming and fitting, but when multiple destinations/brands lean on the same classical reference, they risk sounding similar.
Classical quotations can comfort, but they can also flatten differences.
Another route to specificity is to treat landmarks as instruments. In Cincinnati, the Robeling Suspension Bridge was recorded as a sound source for virtual instruments. Any city could do this with its resonant structures, from markets to monuments. The point isn’t to be gimmicky. It’s to build a library of instruments that could have come only from that place.
Essential considerations for a local sonic identity
Creating a solid sonic identity requires more than a theme tune. Here’s how I think about it.
Start by listening. Walk the city, ride its public transportation, sit still in its parks, and record what you hear. Talk to residents, local artists, and creators. Then, reduce what you’ve learned into a compact set of musical materials: a core melody for recognition, one or two secondary melodies for flexibility, and a texture palette that names the types of instruments, voices, and natural sounds that belong.
Write guidelines that encourage divergence within limits. If the main melody must appear, define where it can appear and how it can be reharmonized and retimed. If field recordings are part of the palette, specify how they can be layered so they remain identifiable and respectful.
Plan where people will hear the identity. A stadium night doesn’t sound like a mayor swearing-in, nor does it sound like a metro station. List the audible moments that matter and compose short cues and longer themes for those contexts. Then, use them. A sonic identity that only exists at launch is not an identity.
Test your various applications with the people that will live with it. Include both old and young ears, people with hearing loss and sensory sensitivities, and people who work night shifts. Ask what feels true, what feels tired, what gets in the way—and adjust it before going live.
Guard distinctiveness. Before you fall in love with a melody, make sure it’s unique. You don’t want to risk a legal fight with a pop star. Also, mind the loudness. Public sound that shouts all the time becomes noise pollution.
Avoid clichés. Use clichés only when they’re tied to the culture and fit the story. Mariachi can belong in a Mexico City story, but only when it’s the right story. Same goes for slide guitar—it can belong in a Texas identity, but not as the only idea. Resist a central process that treats every location the same. If a head office signs off every note, you’ll sound like nowhere. Create the system, then let local teams and artists make real choices within the constraints.
Be honest about adoption. If you promise the sound will show up everywhere, make sure a plan exists to put it into airports, transit chimes, local council web streams, and visitor apps. If not, scale back the promise and build your holistic sonic identity in phases.
Remember that success isn’t press coverage on launch day. Judge public sound by use, recognition, and warmth. Track where the identity appears, whether people attribute the short sonic cues correctly to the place and function, and how residents feel after living with it for a few months. Then, keep iterating.
The FIFA 2026 anthem shows the right direction: a global-to-local framework that can carry recognition while inviting difference. Where it sings, you hear confident, specific choices that feel native. Where it slips, you hear production twins and a melody forced on a generic musical bed. Those misses are fixable. A slightly richer set of shared materials and braver commitments to authentic local genres would help each city stand apart while still carrying the tournament’s stamp.
This isn’t just a city story. National tourism boards and cultural ministries are experimenting with sound in thoughtful ways because destinations are experienced with all our senses, not just our eyes. Costa Rica’s work demonstrates how a simple mnemonic tied to a visual idea, expanded with native instruments and field recordings, can become a versatile system rather than a one-off track. Atlanta shows the value of having a sonic identity already in place, and the risk of overlooking it when global projects roll through. Rail operators from France to Germany and the UAE show how everyday touchpoints become the strongest carriers of sonic identity when designed as part of the same holistic sonic identity. Landmarks can be turned into instruments, not to show off but to claim something unique that only belongs there.
Giving a location a thoughtful holistic sonic identity earns you more than just cool points. It helps people navigate, gives ceremonies a sense of place, makes public services feel more human, and even sparks honest discussions about the sounds we want to live with. If you’re considering giving your city or country a sonic identity, resist the urge to chase a single epic theme and call it done. Start smaller and deeper. Listen first, design a compact set of materials, and let them spread across real life.
That is how a tune becomes a place.
Cover image: Paweł Michałowski