I am by no means the biggest sports fan in the world -- Jon Harrison, for remaining a devoted fan of the Kansas City Royals despite a losing streak of possibly historic proportions, deserves the Little Hits crown -- but I have to admit, I'm always psyched for the World Cup. Unlike the Olympics, that other sporting quadrennial, I get the sense that average people around the globe actually care about and enjoy the World Cup, and it's always cool to feel that kind of global connection. However, I'm a realist about Team USA's chances, and therefore, my native Anglophilia leads me to support England, and the ethnic makeup of my adopted home of Allston, Massachusetts leads me to also support Brazil. (Seriously, this place went batshit crazy when Brazil won in 2002 -- people were driving around leaning out of car windows and waving enormous Brazilian flags!)

Anyway, to celebrate, we give you "The Official Colourbox World Cup Theme." Released to coincide with the 1986 World Cup, this instrumental is a deadpan parody of the sort of generic jock rock that accompanies sports highlight shows. It's such a perfect evocation of same, in fact, that I understand it's been used in that capacity occasionally over the last 20 years.

Colourbox themselves were a British synth-dance duo, brothers Steve and Martyn Young, who were kind of the odd band out at 4AD during the label's heyday. Their sample-based club-floor orientation was an odd fit with the likes of the Cocteau Twins and Modern English, but when they hooked up with the more abstract AR Kane, the group created the estimable "Pump Up the Volume," quite possibly the iconic U.K. dance track of the '80s. Due in part to legal and creative squabbles engendered by that single, the Young brothers apparently never released another record.

Ole, ole ole ole...

-Stewart Mason

I'm woefully ignorant of most of the output of the bands associated with Band of Outsiders. The reason I know this song is that the Dangtrippers used to cover it live. The enigmatic lyrics and cool guitar riff stuck with me for years until I was finally able to track down the record. I think...that there was another version of this recorded that was inferior to this Ivan Kraal-produced version, but I could be making that up.

Low Down Kids now includes an audio blog that delivers UK punk and power pop and tales delivered by one of the great raconteurs of our age. Highly recommended.