Abolish the monarchy, dissolve the UK, and unite Ireland, all so that we won't have to hear "God Save The King" again. Only "Flower of Scotland", "Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau", "Amhrán na bhFiann", and "Jerusalem", all of which are a million times better.
Now even without the UK, the same melody is also used by the national anthem of Liechtenstein. This being the case, I say Liechtenstein should get annexed by Switzerland, purely so that no-one will need to be reminded that the UK ever existed.
Serbia is a close second, in my opinion. It's just a simpler version of The Emperors hymn by Haydn, with lyrics that consist of begging god to save the country. The fact that it replaced the old anthem (Hey, Slavs) irritates me to no end. We used to be a country
Honestly "Bože Pravde" would be like a middle tier anthem like Hungary's, if it weren't for the context of the fall of Yugoslavia. That context alone makes Serbia's anthem bottom tier.
I don't have an exact ranking of bad national anthems, but I've always found Norway's anthem to be profoundly tedious and bottom tier. The only thing Norway's anthem is good for is letting me subvert the opening line by saying "No, we hate this country as it falls down", but as an anthem there's just better choices out there, and there's better anthems in the Nordic countries. Like even Denmark's "King Christian Stood By Lofty Mast", for as much as it pains me to award points to a song praising a monarch, at least that anthem is the only national anthem in the world to include the word "brain" in its lyrics.
Interestingly enough, people mostly don't associate it with the Germans. The majority of people here don't know about the fact. I'd doubt it would get any love if that was the case.
If anything, it's very fitting that we have knock-off German anthem in this era where we don't have any sovereignty.
This version is kinda shit, it's not a song that should be sung by a single singer. It's a big orchestral choir song, the more people that sing it, the better, huge stadiums in fact. Obviously the Proms are full of crackers so avert your eyes to the video but this is a much better example of that song: https://youtu.be/sERiPuOQyvo
Yes this song is also where /r/greenandpleasant gets its name, partially ironic and partially because nobody wants to use "United Kingdom" for a leftist community, particularly when we'd want to replace it. Jerusalem is a song about that, claiming England is kinda naff and we must work tirelessly to improve it.
I think "Jerusalem" is great, personally. I mean, it's certainly better to have an anthem that, if religiously, describes the England of today as full of "dark, Satanic mills" and asserts that this current state of affairs must be tirelessly resisted; than to have an anthem like "Land of Hope and Glory", that basically says England is awesome and great and mayhaps should continually expand by the grace of God.
Never understood why they didn't go for Rule Britannia, which is admittedly hard to sing but is a banger. (and in the context of the Opera it started in is more about freedom from oppression than Imperial expansion)
On the other hand, consider how narrowly you avoided being girt by sea.
A good national anthem should be a bad song. Think about it. A soldier crying and saluting an objectively brilliant piece that makes you want to cry? Meaningless. The song makes everyone want to cry. But that same soldier crying to a mediocre 19th century drinking song with the most forgettable orchestral backdrop you've ever heard? Damn, he must really love his country to be moved by that piece of shit
I have a theory that national anthems are bad by design. If its a good song, there's no patriotism in liking it. Its a bop! Of course you like it!
But a bad song, a bad song is ripe with opportunities to flex your love of country. Its a contest! Look at how brainwashed I am! Look at how much I'm moved by the bad song!
That's why you'll never see any national anthem on anyone's ipod (Hendrix excluded). It sucks by design
Note that Germany have basically the same anthem since 1922, but each time their system change, they change which stanza goes first. Now only the third is considered anthem, first being too fashy and second too silly.
Poland fact: Polish anthem is also very revanchist but nobody give a fuck to change the text, there's even very high praise for Napoleon Bonaparte left in second stanza (and very ironic one that Bonaparte shown us how to win)
Poland fact 2: contrary to what anyone could think, there is not a single mention of God, Mary or anything religious in the Polish anthem.
I think Japan has the worst, it just slides off the brain into non-hearing. And i'm sure it's not the only one, i bet i heard a lot more of so fucking boring ones i even forgot i listened to them.
I mean what is the point of anthem from a musical standpoint? To offer a distinct and simple melody so even the densest people can remember and follow it. Also one which can be screamed loudly (often when drunk) on various patriotic-ish occasions. In short, an officially sanctioned pub song. From that point of view US anthem is pretty good one. French or German too, even Polish is not bad.
Finally also note that anthems specifically composed as anthems, especially after WW2 tend to suck donkey ass (with some exceptions), it's just the audible equivalent of tricolor flag.
I do think that Japan's anthem is interesting if for no other reason than that the lyrics are literally a thousand years old and allude to legends about sazare-ishi, but it is a very drowsy song, and anything pro-monarchy is just fundamentally kinda cringe.
I think that much like flags, anthems serve different purposes in different countries. Japan adopted a national anthem really just for the sake of emulating Western countries, and didn't really have any sort of locally-grown, naturally-developed "national anthem culture" at the time. And in a country where people aren't necessarily going around drunkenly screaming patriotic songs, the purpose of a national anthem is oftentimes more like... I dunno, some short ditty to play in like ceremonial meetings between heads of state or whatever. It doesn't need to be particularly inspiring, it just needs to exist.
The US anthem can’t be sung well by the average person (especially towards the end), hence why in stadiums the crowd doesn’t even try to sing along and just cheers and whoops. The UK is about the monarch at the level of the text. But the US anthem is about the same thing in how it functions as a piece of music to create a social situation where the crowd remains passive in its adoration of a single person. There is no collective experience of doing and participatory togetherness. There is only the admiration of the celebrity pop singer as an emblem of the American aristocracy.
I read somewhere that "Auferstanden Aus Ruinen" was deliberately written so that you can adapt its lyrics to "Deutschlandlied" as well as "Ode to Joy" and vice versa. It doesn't quite work once you get to the end of a verse, but it does mostly work.
I despise the Dutch anthem for being total monarchist bootlickery. It even has a line about honoring the King of Spain. (referring to Charles V, who was king of the Spanish Empire, which the Netherlands was a part of)