Charlie Puth performed the National Anthem at Super Bowl 60, and honestly — it was difficult to follow Brandi Carlile’s rendition of America the Beautiful, but we got an absolutely fine, utterly inoffensive, and artistically devoid rendition.
Super Bowl 2026: Charlie Puth gave us the Kenny G of National Anthems
This was … fine.
There was absolutely nothing wrong with Puth’s performance, but it was very much the Kenny G of performances, containing a lot of technical brilliance with absolutely no soul. It’s clear that Puth can sing everything, and his pitch is beyond reproach — but it was safe to the point of sounding like elevator music in a mall.
Puth followed the rubric and achieved what was asked of him. Nothing more, nothing less. This is one of those anthems that will be totally forgotten in a few years and we’ll move on to think about who is performing the next one. This didn’t come close to holding a candle to Chris Stapleton’s performance a few years ago, which was one of the most memorable of all time — or, perish the thought, Whitney Houston absolutely slaying the anthem when it was her turn to take a shot.
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