One does not look to national anthems for great music except, perhaps, to Spain, which has no words.
But Canada is considering a revision to the wording of theirs, to change "...all thy sons command..." to "...all of us command..." Considering that they changed their national flag four or five times in the last century, this won't be a problem.
But what, the CBC asked its listeners, are the worst national anthems from the point of view of monotheism, sexism, and war?
The list they came up with is:
1) France;
2) Vietnam;
3) Switzerland;
4) Britain; and
5) Austria.
Austria recently changed theirs to make it non-gender based, and Switzerland is running a contest to replace its present anthem, which is more like a Lutheran hymn. Vietnam is all war, all the time. Britain has a lot about smashing the Scottish foe. But France, for all the uses to which the music has been put, takes the cake with a line in the second or third verse that translates, "...we will slash the throats of your children and women..."
Vietnam, Britain, and, of course, France, have expressed no intention of changing.
I have always felt that Germany got the short end of the stick in the anthem department because of the phonetic similarity, and different meanings, with English and German. "Deutschland uber Alles" grates on the English-speaking ear because it sounds so much like "Germany over everything" when idiomatically it translates, "Germany foremost among nations". The words come from an early-19th Century poem, written long before there was a German country; but the poet took it upon himself to describe the German-speaking nation which extended, then as now, from about Brussels to Gdansk, and from Copenhagen to Venice. After World War II the Allies took a dim view of such a description and hacked off the first two verses. They were allowed to keep the music, written by Handel, and they now have an anthem which praises "German wine, German women, loyalty, and song."