Best Pregame Hype Songs
A pregame song has one job the rest of a playlist does not: it has to work in a room or over a PA rather than in headphones. "Thunderstruck", "Kernkraft 400" and "Lose Yourself" are the three that survive both, which is why every sport still uses them.
The list is split by where a track actually plays. A stadium record needs a crowd to finish it; a locker-room record needs to survive being shouted over. Very few do both, and the filter above sorts them.
If you only play one
AC/DC - Thunderstruck (1990)
The only track that holds up in all three places you need one: on a stadium PA, in a locker room and on the bus. The tapped intro is the hook and it starts on the first frame.
Filter by the job
Clean and explicit are Spotify's own markings on the track, not our judgement, so the flag matches what a school or club system will see.
- 01
Zombie Nation - Kernkraft 400
1999
The default stadium synth line on earth. No vocals, no language issues and no cultural expiry date, which is why it has survived 25 years of PA rotations.
StadiumClean - 02
AC/DC - Thunderstruck
1990
The one track that works in a locker room, on a bus and over a PA without being re-cued. If you only get one, this is the one.
StadiumPregameClean - 03
2 Unlimited - Get Ready for This
1991
The original Jock Jams record and still the most efficient. The horn hook is a starting pistol and the arrangement leaves room for an announcer.
StadiumClean - 04
Queen - We Will Rock You
1977
Less a song than a piece of participatory technology. A crowd can perform the whole thing with no instruments and no rehearsal.
StadiumClean - 05
The White Stripes - Seven Nation Army
2003
The only riff this century that became a terrace chant on its own. Belgian football fans started it; the rest of the world finished it.
StadiumClean - 06
Eminem - Lose Yourself
2002
The best locker-room record ever made, because it is about the minute before rather than the thing itself. Nothing else here matches it for narrative fit.
PregameExplicit - 07
Kanye West - Stronger
2007
The Daft Punk sample gives it a mechanical, relentless quality that suits a warm-up better than a celebration.
PregameExplicit - 08
Europe - The Final Countdown
1986
A fanfare with a pop song attached. Perfect for the last minutes before kickoff, and slightly funny, which stops it feeling overwrought.
StadiumClean - 09
Darude - Sandstorm
1999
The build is the whole point: a PA operator can start it two minutes out and let the arrival land exactly as the team comes out.
StadiumClean - 10
Blur - Song 2
1997
Two minutes long, one hook at 0:23, and the most licensed sports cue in Britain. Cue the hook, not the intro.
StadiumClean - 11
Drowning Pool - Bodies
2001
American football's most-used hype track. The counted intro gives a coach a rhythm to shout over, which is a genuinely practical property.
PregameClean - 12
Kid Rock - Bawitdaba
1998
Built to be shouted along to in a room with no acoustics. It has been in NFL locker rooms for a quarter of a century.
PregameExplicit - 13
Limp Bizkit - Rollin' (Air Raid Vehicle)
2000
Dated in every direction and still undefeated in a warm-up. The chorus is four words long, which is the correct number.
PregameExplicit - 14
Rage Against the Machine - Guerrilla Radio
1999
Tighter and faster than Killing in the Name, and it does not need its last 90 seconds to pay off, so it survives being cut short.
PregameExplicit - 15
Metallica - For Whom the Bell Tolls
1984
The bell and the bass line make it the best entrance-tunnel record in metal. Virginia Tech built an entire stadium ritual on it.
PregameClean - 16
AC/DC - Hells Bells
1980
The slowest track here and one of the most effective. A build this patient makes a two-minute warm-up feel like an event.
PregameClean - 17
Rob Zombie - Dragula
1998
Mechanical, ugly and exactly the right tempo for a weight room or a tunnel. It has soundtracked more college football entrances than most anthems.
PregameClean - 18
Beastie Boys - Sabotage
1994
Fast, funny and abrasive at once. Good for loosening a room that has gone too quiet rather than winding one up further.
PregameExplicit - 19
Linkin Park - Faint
2003
The string figure and the double-time drums arrive together in the first bar. Almost no other rock record starts at this intensity.
PregameClean - 20
Fall Out Boy - Centuries
2014
Written to be a sports record and it shows in every bar. The chorus is a chant with a melody bolted on.
PregameStadiumClean - 21
Imagine Dragons - Believer
2017
The stomp-clap pattern needs no PA to work, so a bench or a crowd can carry it unaccompanied. That is a rare and useful property.
PregameStadiumClean - 22
Sia - Unstoppable
2016
The one here about nerve rather than aggression. It has become the default warm-up record for individual sport for exactly that reason.
PregameClean - 23
Kendrick Lamar - DNA.
2017
The beat switch a minute in is the most violent transition in mainstream rap. Cue it there and a warm-up changes gear on the spot.
PregameExplicit - 24
JAY-Z & Alicia Keys - Empire State of Mind
2009
The template for the home-city anthem. Every arena that has one is copying the shape of this record.
StadiumExplicit - 25
2Pac - California Love
1995
The talk-box hook is warm rather than hostile, which makes it a good opener before the tempo climbs.
PregameExplicit - 26
Wiz Khalifa - We Dem Boyz
2014
A four-word chorus over a beat with almost nothing in it. Designed, intentionally or not, for a hundred people to shout at once.
PregameExplicit - 27
Cardi B, Bad Bunny & J Balvin - I Like It
2018
The Pete Rodriguez horn sample makes it feel like a celebration already in progress. The best non-English option here by a distance.
PregameExplicit - 28
Migos - Bad and Boujee
2016
The triplet flow gives a room a rhythm to move to at a tempo that is not exhausting. Good early in a warm-up, before the heavy stuff.
PregameExplicit - 29
Travis Scott - goosebumps
2016
Hypnotic rather than explosive, which suits shooting drills and stretching far better than a track with a peak every eight bars.
PregameExplicit - 30
Avicii - Levels
2011
The Etta James vocal chop is one of the few dance hooks a non-dance audience recognises instantly. It has aged better than almost anything from its era.
StadiumClean - 31
Swedish House Mafia - Don't You Worry Child
2012
The drop is enormous and the vocal is singable, so a crowd can do something with it rather than just stand in it.
StadiumClean - 32
Martin Garrix - Animals
2013
Pure instrumental aggression with no lyrics to clear. A PA operator's safest big drop.
StadiumClean - 33
Fatboy Slim - The Rockafeller Skank
1998
The stop-start structure is a gift to anyone cutting to a replay or a graphic. It is built out of edits, so it survives being edited.
StadiumClean - 34
Technotronic - Pump Up the Jam
1989
The oldest record here that still fills a floor. Its tempo is the reason it works between plays rather than during them.
StadiumClean - 35
C+C Music Factory - Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)
1990
Four words of instruction and a horn stab. There is no ambiguity about what a crowd is supposed to do.
StadiumClean - 36
Village People - Y.M.C.A.
1978
The only track here with choreography that toddlers and grandparents both already know. Underrate it at your own risk.
StadiumClean - 37
The Isley Brothers - Shout
1959
Sixty-five years old and still the most reliable call-and-response in a stadium. The quiet section exists so the loud one can be louder.
StadiumClean - 38
Steam - Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye
1969
The song a home crowd sings at a departing opponent. It is a taunt with a melody, and it is still the best one.
StadiumClean - 39
Neil Diamond - Sweet Caroline
1969
The eighth-inning record at Fenway and a singalong everywhere else. The gap the crowd fills is what makes it work, not the song.
StadiumClean - 40
Journey - Don't Stop Believin'
1981
The last-ten-minutes record. Slow to arrive, which is a fault everywhere except a stadium, where you have the time.
StadiumClean
Settle it properly
Lists are one person's opinion. Put the same question to your friends instead. Everyone submits their answer to
"Best Song for Getting Hyped Before a Game"
and the room votes blind on whose pick was best. Free, no account, about four minutes.
Start the BattleWhat makes a good pregame song?
Three things, in this order: it has to be recognisable in the first bar, it has to leave room for noise on top of it, and it has to survive a bad speaker. That last one eliminates more good records than the other two combined, because a dense mix played outdoors through a compressed mono PA turns into a wash.
Recognition matters more than energy. A crowd that knows what is coming generates the anticipation, and the anticipation does more work than the peak. This is why a playlist of unfamiliar bangers never lifts a stadium however hard each track hits.
Tempo is the least important variable, which surprises people. "Hells Bells" is slow and it is one of the most effective entrances in sport. What it has instead is a build, and a build buys you two minutes where a fast record buys you thirty seconds.
Stadium PA songs vs locker room songs
They are different jobs and the same playlist rarely serves both. A stadium record needs a crowd to finish it: "We Will Rock You", "Seven Nation Army", "Shout" and "Sweet Caroline" are all incomplete without thousands of people doing their part, and all four sound thin on headphones.
A locker-room record has the opposite problem. It has to survive being shouted over by twenty people in a tiled room with no acoustics, which favours records that are already abrasive and repetitive: "Bodies", "Bawitdaba", "Dragula", "Faint".
The overlap is small. "Thunderstruck", "Lose Yourself" and "Believer" are the three on this list that genuinely work in both, and that is why they turn up more than anything else.
What is a fight song, and is it the same thing?
No. A fight song is a school's own march, written for a band and specific to one institution: "On, Wisconsin!", "Notre Dame Victory March", "Anchors Aweigh". It is played by people in uniform, it belongs to one team, and the crowd sings words about that team.
A pregame hype song is a licensed record played over a PA and belongs to nobody. The two do different work at different moments. The band plays the fight song after a score; the PA plays "Kernkraft 400" in the gap before the next snap.
If you are searching for fight songs and you meant the marches, you want your school's band recording rather than this page. If you meant "songs that make a stadium feel like a fight is about to start", this is the list.
Game day songs by sport
American football leans heaviest, because the gaps between plays are long enough for a full hook and the crowd is outdoors. "Bodies", "Dragula", "Bawitdaba", "Rollin'" and "Thunderstruck" are the backbone of almost every stadium rotation.
Basketball needs shorter and tighter. The gaps are seconds, not minutes, so the tracks that work are the ones with a hook in the first bar and no build at all: "Kernkraft 400", "Levels", "Animals", "Get Ready for This".
Baseball is the odd one out. The crowd is there for three hours and the pace is slow, so the rotation trends nostalgic and participatory rather than aggressive: "Sweet Caroline", "Shout", "Y.M.C.A.", "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye". Individual entrances are where the aggression lives, and that is a different list.
Football, the rest of the world's kind, mostly does not do this at all. The crowd supplies its own songs, which is why "Seven Nation Army" is the one record on this list that a terrace adopted rather than a PA operator.
Best Pregame Hype Songs, answered
What is the best pregame hype song?
AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" (1990), because it is the only track that works over a stadium PA, in a locker room and on the bus without being re-cued. For a locker room specifically, Eminem's "Lose Yourself" is better, and for a stadium PA "Kernkraft 400" is.
What songs get played at football games?
"Bodies", "Thunderstruck", "Dragula", "Bawitdaba", "Rollin'" and "Kernkraft 400" make up the backbone of most American football stadium rotations, alongside the school's own fight song played by the band. Basketball uses shorter hooks: "Levels", "Animals", "Get Ready for This".
What is the difference between a fight song and a hype song?
A fight song is a school's own march, written for a band, specific to one institution and sung with words about that team. A hype song is a licensed record played over the PA and belongs to nobody. The band plays one after a score; the PA plays the other in the gaps.
What are good stadium songs for a crowd to sing?
"We Will Rock You", "Seven Nation Army", "Shout", "Sweet Caroline", "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye" and "Y.M.C.A." The thing they share is a gap the crowd fills. A record that leaves nothing for the crowd to do will never become a stadium song however big it sounds.
What should a team listen to in the locker room?
Something abrasive and repetitive enough to survive twenty people shouting over it in a room with no acoustics: "Bodies", "Bawitdaba", "Faint", "Dragula", "Guerrilla Radio". Save the records that need a crowd for the PA, because they sound thin indoors.
More lists like this
This list came from our Bangers prompts. Browse all song lists or the full prompt library.
Best pregame hype songs are one round's worth of ammunition. For the game around them, read the aux battle meaning and how to play an aux battle. Browse the 16 categories a round can use for every other theme, or the aux wars explainer for what half the internet calls it. Worth a look either way: Spotify party games.