Rio's inescapable soundtrack

Do Olympic events in Rio need a soundtrack of deafening pop music and old rock tunes? The swimming, the rowing, the gymnastics - there's no escaping the intrusion of blasted-out music, and presumably it will be the same with the athletics. Typically starting as soon as a particular race, performance or game has finished, and only stopping while the next ones get underway, it's as though the noise becomes not the background but the purpose of the proceedings. The rehashed tracks are the point, the sport is merely an expensive punctuation. The playlist is all. This noise also invades the commentary space. To press the mute button in frustration at this aural assault means to sacrifice the experts who could (unlike the music) enhance the experience of top-level competition. Life can no longer happen without a soundtrack of overused hits, apparently: neither daily life (shops, restaurants, public spaces), personal life as lived through various tech devices, or the public spectacle of Olympic Games, where the only music that should matter is the national anthems of the victors. Maybe the pop/rock juggernaut of contemporary life as expressed in Rio is a way of trying to drown out the reality of nations, or indeed of victors. Maybe the point is to make stately music like anthems seem old and creaky, pointless and undesirable. Because diversity is strength, all you need is love and, of course, 'imagine there are no countries'.