Haaland’s Kygo Jo has been nominated for Song of the Year (årets låt) at the Spellemann Awards (Spellemannprisen) 2026, turning one of Norway’s strangest FIFA World Cup 2026 stories into a contender at the country’s biggest music prize.
The nomination concerns “Kygo Jo (feat. Lyng) [Kygo Remix]”, the remix released by Kyrre Gørvell-Dahll, better known as Kygo, after Erling Braut Haaland scored twice against Brazil during Norway’s World Cup run. The original song was recorded in 2016 by Haaland, Erik Botheim and Erik Tobias Sandberg during a Norway U17 national team gathering.
According to VG, the remix has now been selected as Song of the Month for July, which automatically places it among the nominees for Song of the Year at the next Spellemann Awards.
A World Cup joke became a music award nominee
The story of “Kygo Jo” began long before the FIFA World Cup 2026. In 2016, Haaland, Botheim and Sandberg formed the group Flow Kingz and recorded a playful song dedicated to Kygo. Haaland used the artist name Lyng.
For years, the video existed mainly as a football internet curiosity. That changed during the World Cup, when clips from the original video spread again on TikTok and other platforms as Norway advanced through the tournament.
The turning point came before Norway’s round-of-16 match against Brazil. Kygo said he would release a remix if Haaland scored. Haaland scored twice in Norway’s 2–1 win, and the remix was released on 7 July.
That sequence gave the song its unusual force. It was not simply an old viral clip, and not simply a celebrity remix. It became attached to one of the defining moments of Norway’s World Cup campaign.
Why Kygo Jo qualified for Spellemannprisen
The nomination reflects a newer system introduced by Spellemannprisen for the Song of the Year category. Since 2025, one song is selected every month as Song of the Month (Månedens låt), based on figures from streaming, radio play and sales. The twelve monthly winners then become the nominees for Song of the Year.
The system is run in cooperation with Topplista, Norway’s official chart. Spellemannprisen describes the category as a way to highlight Norwegian songs with the strongest measurable performance across the year.
Under this method, “Kygo Jo” became July’s nominee after dominating Norwegian streaming charts in the weeks after its release.
VG reported that the remix quickly reached number one on Spotify’s daily chart in Norway. On 11 July, it set a Saturday record on Norwegian Spotify with 449,000 streams in one day. That was around four times the usual level for a daily chart leader, according to the newspaper.
The numbers behind the Kygo Jo nomination
The streaming data explains why the track moved from viral joke to awards contender.
VG reported that “Kygo Jo” was still drawing around 200,000 daily Spotify streams at the time of publication, with roughly one third of those streams coming from Norway and the rest from abroad. The remix was approaching 14 million Spotify streams overall.
The original 2016 video has also continued to grow. According to VG, it had passed 27 million views on YouTube, with nearly ten million of those coming in the most recent month.
Those figures show how the song moved across platforms. The old video drove nostalgia and humour. The World Cup gave it a new narrative. The Kygo remix converted that attention into a commercial release with chart performance strong enough to qualify for Spellemannprisen.
Norway’s World Cup summer is still shaping pop culture
The nomination also extends the cultural afterlife of Norway’s FIFA World Cup 2026 campaign. The team’s win over Brazil made Haaland the central figure of a national football moment, but the remix transformed that moment into something broader.
For Haaland, the song adds a new layer to a public image already built on goals, understatement and a strong Norwegian identity. For Kygo, it links his global pop profile to a distinctly local joke that became internationally legible because of football.
There is also a longer music-industry connection. Kygo was named Spellemann of the Year (årets Spellemann) for 2015, and he previously won Song of the Year with “Stole the Show”. He also won the same category for 2024 with “Whatever”, his collaboration with Ava Max.
The 2026 nomination is different. “Kygo Jo” did not begin as a conventional single written for charts or radio. It began as a teenage joke during a football camp. Ten years later, after a World Cup upset and a viral summer, it is part of Norway’s official music awards season.
The result is a rare crossover between sport, internet culture and the recording industry. Whatever happens at Spellemannprisen 2026, “Kygo Jo” has already become one of the most unlikely cultural stories of Norway’s World Cup year.
