2024 Super Bowl

06 Feb 2024

Post Malone Is Your New Best Friend in Bud Light Genie Super Bowl Ad

If only it was that easy to summon Post Malone to one of your bar bashes. In a just-revealed Super Bowl LVIII ad, Bud Light has roped Posty, as well as former NFL QB Peyton Manning and UFC CEO Dana White into a funny spot slated to run in the third quarter of Sunday’s (Feb. 11) game between the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers.

In the 60-second video, a Broncos fan in a Manning jersey reaches for a cold bottle of Bud Light in his fridge and accidentally summons the “Bud Light Genie,” a cheeseball in a track suit who is more than happy to offer up some of his signature wishes. The trio waste their initial wishes on 80s metal hair, a desire to be “filthy rich,” another to be invisible and to have giant biceps (which turns into just one hulking arm, strangely).

Additional wishes come in the form of a sweet ride, aka a stretch Delorean limo, as well as Bud Lights for everyone in the bar and the Manning’s fan wish that the “The Sheriff” would be his best friend. Cue Manning popping up at their table in the ad cued to Steppenwolf’s 1968 classic “Magic Carpet Ride.”

Halfway through, a wish for Malone to join the party results in the bearded singer and avowed Bud Light superfan materializing with beer in hand to cheers from the late night crowd. One of the pals even shows off her custom diamond grill in a selfie in which Posty flashes his glittering fronts. The spot ends with the the one-armed bandit wishing he could be at a UFC fight, where White informs him that he will definitely need another bicep to enter the octagon.

After Manning calls for a house party, Malone raises a bottle of BL to a raucous crowd while standing on a balcony cradling an electric guitar and shouting “let’s go!!” as his wish comes true: a T-Rex crashing the party.

The silly ad is the follow-up to last year’s big game spot featuring actor Miles Teller and wife Keleigh dancing. The once world-beating Anheuser-Busch brand took a major hit in 2023 after sending a promotional can to trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney, which sparked a backlash from conservative media outlets and artists including Kid Rock, Travis Tritt and John Rich.

Check out the Bud Light Genie ad below.


https://youtube.com/watch?v=Cl–5P79iRs&version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent

31 Jan 2024

Jimmy Kimmel Breaks Down MAGA Meltdown Over Taylor Swift/Pres. Biden Super Bowl LVIII Conspiracy Theories

All eyes are on Taylor Swift and boyfriend Travis Kelce as the tight end’s team prepares to go to the Super Bowl for the fourth time in five years. And while the Kansas City Chiefs more than earned their ticket to Feb. 11’s Super Bowl LVIII in Las Vegas with excellent play and one of the best records in the NFL this season, there are some who think it’s all a conspiracy, man.

Jimmy Kimmel broke down the QAnon-like meltdown currently racing through the conservative media world on Tuesday night (Jan. 30), pointing out the outrageous tin foil hat-esque theories being amplified on Fox News and other right-wing outlets. “You expect to hear this from a couple of nuts and then it disappears, but if anything it’s picking up steam,” Kimmel said of the phantom dot-connectors he dubbed the “Not-Too-Swifties.”

The host read a Jan. 28 tweet that helped kick off the fantasy football fiction, which posited, “The NFL is totally RIGGED for the Kansas City Chiefs, Taylor Swift, Mr. Pfizer (Travis Kelce). All to spread DEMOCRAT PROPAGANDA. Calling it now, KC wins goes to the Super Bowl, Swift comes out at the halftime show and ‘endorses’ Joe Biden with Kelce at midfield. It’s all been an op since day one.”

He also ran down another tweet suggesting that the Super Bowl is “rigged,” featuring a complaint about the “unneeded” and “unwarranted” Swift coverage during games and calling the Chief’s path to the big game “totally scripted.” That one also conjured a similar image of TNT at the game together and announcing their support for Biden.

For clarity, while Swift has attended a number of Chiefs games this season to support her beau Kelce, and Kelce has appeared in a series of commercials encouraging Americans to get the life-saving COVID-19 vaccine, neither has made any political endorsements in this year’s presidential campaign. And it is still unclear if Swift can, or will, make it back from her Eras Tour show in Japan on the night before the Super Bowl to cheer the tight end on.

In Oct. 2020, Swift made a rare political endorsement when she announced that she would be voting for Biden.

Kimmel continued, reading a tweet suggesting that the Super Bowl will be “rigged [just like our elections],” parroting the incessant refrain from one-term former president Donald Trump falsely claiming that he actually won the 2020 election over President Joe Biden. The bit included a tweet from failed GOP presidential nominee Ohio businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, who suggested that “there’s a major presidential endorsement coming from an artificially culturally propped-up couple this fall.”

“Let me get this straight,” Kimmel said. “The same people who think that Joe Biden has dementia and needs [Vice President] Kamala Harris to feed him butterscotch tapioca every night also believe that he has somehow planned and executed a diabolically brilliant scheme to fix the NFL playoffs so the biggest pop star in the world could pop up on the JumbTron during the Super Bowl in between a Kia and a Tostitos commercial to hypnotize her 11-year-old fans into voting for Joe Biden.”

Kimmel then ran a series of Fox News, Newsmax and OAN clips from the network’s talking heads begging Swift to “not get involved” in politics, suggesting the whole relationship is a “massive psyop [psychological operation]” and, most outrageously, that her music is a form of “witchcraft” and that “the devil owns her [Swift’s] soul.”

Trump even seemed to get on the Taylor-bashing train, with Rolling Stone reporting this week that unnamed sources said the four-times-indicted former reality TV host has been telling people in his inner circle that he is “more popular” than Swift and that he has more committed fans than she does.

Watch Kimmel’s MAGA meltdown mash-up below (Swift bit begins at 2:49 mark).

30 Jan 2024

David Letterman Has Perfect Response to the Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce Haters: ‘This Is Such a Lovely Thing. Shut Up!’

With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, David Letterman is going on record as a lover of love. The prodigious PDA love between Taylor Swift and Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, to be specific.

The late night legend hit his Instagram on Sunday as the Chiefs punched their ticket to Super Bowl LVIII for a video in which he told all the haters complaining that the pair’s romance is getting more attention than the action on the field to leave TNT alone. “Taylor Swift, I don’t think in the history of show business, in the history of popular culture, we’ve ever witnessed anything like this,” Letterman said in the minute-long video with the caption “Dave is Team Taylor.”

Seated in a living room and looking dead into the camera, the legendarily acerbic Letterman delivered his monologue on the power of love with clear-eyed, open-hearted passion. “We live in a world now where all we hear is nonsense and ugliness, and the nonsense can’t be more nonsensical and the ugliness, God hopes it can’t get any uglier, but that’s all we hear,” he said. “That’s all we hear. So now, here’s Taylor Swift, who is a glowing bright light of goodness in the world.”

Now, Letterman being Letterman, when Dave went on to praise Swift dating Kelce, in his inimitable fashion he mistakenly-on-purpose referred to the ripped 34-year-old Chiefs star as 68-year-old Frasier star Kelsey Grammer. “No, that’s not true, Kelsey Grammer?” a woman’s voice off-camera said as Letterman doubled-down on his moniker muddle.

He then pantomimed how the Grammer fans are mad about the pop star infiltrating , while the Swifties (he was proud of himself for getting that one right) were saying, “oh we don’t want a footballer in here with Kelsey Grammer!”

But, in the end, Letterman argued, all you need is love.

“I say to both camps, ‘This is such a lovely thing. Shut up! It’s good for the footballers. It’s good for Taylor Swift, and it’s something positive and happy for the world,’” Letterman said. “Also, politically, Taylor Swift is a huge force, and I think just wants to see people do the right thing. So God bless Taylor Swift and Kelsey Grammer.”

Swift and Kelce have been a public couple since September, when the “Love Story” singer attended her first KC game. During a break between legs of her global Eras Tour, Swift has been a regular fixture in the Kelce family skybox at Chiefs games and on Sunday the couple shared a series of sweet moments — and their most public PDA to date — on the field after the Chiefs punched their ticket to Feb. 11’s Super Bowl LVIII at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.

Super Bowl LVII will air on CBS and Nickelodeon and stream on Paramount+, with Usher performing the halftime show.

Watch Letterman’s video velow.

30 Jan 2024

Chiefs Coach Andy Reid Brags That He Met Taylor Swift Way Before Travis Kelce: ‘Last Thing Trav Wanted to Hear’

Stop trying to fight it. The next two weeks are going to be about the three teams playing in the Feb. 11 Super Bowl: the San Francisco 49ers, the Kansas City Chiefs and upstarts TNT (Travis N’ Taylor). Even typically unflappable KC coach Andy Reid couldn’t avoid getting roped into the romance that ate the NFL.

In fact, Reid popped into this week’s episode’s Let’s Go with Tom Brady, Larry Fitzgerald and Jim Gray podcast to discuss his team’s dominating victory in the AFC Championship game on Sunday, the endless pics of his signature horseshoe mustache freezing during the Miami game two weeks ago and the excellent play of QB Patrick Mahomes and tight end Travis Kelce this weeked.

Oh, he also dropped the one Taylor Swift-related story no one has heard yet.

Asked what it’s like to be the “Beatles” — with so much attention on the team thanks to Swift’s romance with Kelce and the deluge of press scrambling to chronicle their every kiss and whispered sweet nothing — Reid said simply, “she’s been great.” In fact, in a story sure to result in some locker room ribbing for Kelce, Reid revealed that he actually knew the pop star before Travis did.

“I knew her before, from Philadelphia. Her dad [Scott Swift] played at [University of] Delaware and was a big fan and good guy,” Reid said. “So I had met him there and her. So that was the last thing Trav wanted to hear, that I knew her before him. She told him, ‘I know your coach,’” Reid recalled. And he went, ‘Oh, God, come on!’”

All jokes aside, Reid said Swift is a “good girl and I’m happy for Trav,” while assuring fans of the team headed to their fourth Super Bowl in five years, “there’s been no distraction at all. Travis handled it right, she’s handled it right and we just move forward.”

While the rest of the world is tying itself in knots trying to figure out how, or if, Swift will be able to jet from her show in at the Tokyo Dome in Japan on Feb. 10 to Las Vegas in time for the 6:30 p.m. ET kick-off of Super Bowl LVIII at Allegiant Stadium, three-time Super Bowl champ Reid, as usual, is firmly focused on the X’s and O’s.

“Maybe you’re not the most talented. Maybe you’re not the fastest or the quickest or whatever,” he said in a press conference on Monday. “But let’s go maximize what we are and let the chips fall where they may.”

Super Bowl LVII will air on CBS and Nickelodeon and stream on Paramount+, with Usher performing the halftime show.

Listen to the episode below — Taylor talk begins at 24:30 mark.

25 Jan 2024

EDM Superstar Tiësto To Serve as Super Bowl’s First In-Game DJ

International EDM superstar DJ/producer Tiësto has been tapped as the first-ever in-game DJ for the Super Bowl. The Grammy-winning Dutch DJ will play a set before the Feb. 11 game at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas during player warm-ups according to a release from his label on Thursday morning (Jan. 25).

Tiësto, 55, will then stay on as the in-game turntablist, spinning during game breaks, with portions of his performance to be featured during the Super Bowl LVIII broadcast on CBS and live streamed on Tiësto’s social channels. “I’m excited to be a part of the Super Bowl LVIII!” Tiësto said in a statement about his gig as the first DJ to perform throughout the game. “And it’s even more incredible that it’s in my favorite place – Las Vegas. Thank you to the NFL for having me. I cannot wait to party with you all at the big game!”

The NFL’s director of event presentation and content, Tim Tubito, added, “Each year, we look to elevate the in-stadium experience for our fans, and with our first Super Bowl in Las Vegas, it seems only fitting to embrace the legacy of iconic DJs in this city by having Tiësto bring his signature style to our biggest event. As one of the most influential DJ/producers who helped define the culture of Las Vegas and electronic music around the world, Tiësto is the perfect artist to help us create an unforgettable game day experience for our fans, players and viewers everywhere.”

In addition to Tiësto, this year’s game will feature Usher rocking the halftime show, as well as Reba McEntire singing the National Anthem during the pre-game, which will also host Post Malone doing “America The Beautiful” and Andra Day singing “Life Every Voice and Sing.” The NFL has featured a DJ set before the game since Super Bowl LIV in Miami in 2020, when DJ Khaled did the honors, with D-Nice taking over the next year in Tampa Bay, followed by Zedd in Los Angeles and DJ Snake in Phoenix in 2023.

24 Jan 2024

Ice Spice Teases Ex Reveal in Starry Super Bowl Commercial Sneak Peek: Watch

Ice Spice’s brother might be the superstar football player but she’s set to be involved in Super Bowl Sunday in another capacity.

Starry has tapped the “Munch” rapper to star in the soft drink’s Super Bowl commercial and they released a teaser of the expensive ad on Wednesday (Jan. 24).

With her “Deli” instrumental thumping in the background, viewers are in a POV conversation with Ice Spice who hints at her ex-boyfriend walking into the room before the 15-second commercial cuts off.

“Baby, you look so pretty when you ‘grahhh,’” the narrator tells Ice.

She replies while sipping on a Starry: “Stop, you play too much!” The Bronx bombshell eventually caves and gives the fans a signature ‘grahhh.’

A startled Ice Spice then pushes the camera away: “I said don’t look, it’s my ex!”

Ice Spice has kept her love life under wraps but confirmed she was dating someone in an interview with the Los Angeles Times in October.

Outside of her relationship, the 24-year-old continued to elevate her superstar status throughout 2023 and Ice Spice parlayed her success into four Grammy nominations and another four Hot 100 top 10 hits in the calendar year.

She’s carrying her winning streak into the new year where Ice Spice will be honored with the Hitmaker Award at the 2024 Billboard Women in Music Awards in March.

Tracee Ellis Ross will play host at the 2024 Billboard Women in Music Awards, which will be held Wednesday, March 6, at YouTube Theater at Hollywood Park in Inglewood, Calif. and will stream on March 7. 

No matter who’s lifting the Lombardi Trophy in Las Vegas come Feb. 11, the Spice Cabinet will be winners either way.

Look for the full Ice Spice ad on CBS on Super Bowl Sunday (Feb. 11) and watch the Starry commercial snippet below.


https://youtube.com/watch?v=5HpNMsbB6xA&version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent

18 Jan 2024

Post Malone, Reba McEntire and Andra Day to Headline Super Bowl LVIII Pregame

The NFL unveiled the lineup for the pregame entertainment for Super Bowl LVIII in Las Vegas on Thursday morning (Jan. 18). Before Usher takes the stage for the Apple Music Super Bowl Halftime show, country icon Reba McEntire will sing the National Anthem, while Post Malone will tackle “America the Beautiful” and Andra Day will sing “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”

The National Anthem and “Lift Every Voice and Sing” will be produced and arranged by Emmy-winning musical director/producer Adam Blackstone. Both the pregame and halftime shows will feature American Sign Language performances, with Coda actress Daniel Durant performing the National Anthem in ASL, actress/model/singer Anjel Piñero signing “America the Beautiful” and actor/choreographer Shaheem Sanchez signing “Lift Every Voice and Sing”; Sanchez will also perform the ASL rendition of the halftime show.

In a new interview with Vogue, Usher said he has been in intense rehearsals for his Apple Music halftime show, saying the 13-minute trip through his career “has to be perfect.” The “Yeah!” singer explained, “I’ve been doing this for 30 years. I want people who have been a part of that journey to feel like it’s a celebration for everybody, for all of us, from the beginning up until this point.”

The tightly-held specifics of the show have not yet been revealed, but Usher did promise that he would show off some of his signature dance moves and roller skating skills and that there would be a costume change and special guests.

“I’m literally speaking to every woman. I want to make it feel like that,” the singer said of his goal to make provide an intimate, steamy show in the 65,000-capacity stadium. “I want the world to smile when they look at me. I want them to feel something, and feel my passion, my love, feel like I was the right person to sit in this position, and I was the right person to bring this kind of energy and love and connection to the entire world.”

Super Bowl LVIII will take place on Feb. 11 at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.

17 Jan 2024

Usher Has Set a Very High Bar For His Apple Music Super Bowl LVII Halftime Show Set: ‘It Has to Be Perfect’

Though he’s currently running through the paces of rehearsals for his first go at it, Usher knows the rigors of preparing a Super Bowl halftime show. With just 13 minutes to perform a career-spanning set and eight minutes to set up the stage, the singer told Vogue magazine in a new digital cover story that there he knows there is no room for error.

“It has to be perfect,” said the “Yeah!” singer known for his mind-bendingly smooth dance moves and elaborate staging. “I’ve been doing this for 30 years. I want people who have been a part of that journey to feel like it’s a celebration for everybody, for all of us, from the beginning up until this point.”

Because the pre-game specifics of the halftime show are notoriously tightly-held, there were no details to share about what songs fan can expect to hear, even though Usher did give the magazine a sneak peek about his Apple Music Super Bowl LVIII set. Among the items definitely on the checklist: roller skating, killer choreography, one major costume change and, unlike last year’s performer, Rihanna, some special guests.

“This night was specifically curated in my mind to have R&B take the main stage,” he said, teasing that he’s pulled together a team who represent the architects of the genre to help him compile the set list. “Not just R&B music, but R&B performance, R&B connection, R&B spirit.” The singer who tearfully closed out his 100-show Las Vegas residency in December, said he’s also been thinking about such other legendary Vegas icons as Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley while putting together the show.

“I’m literally speaking to every woman. I want to make it feel like that,” the legendarily lusty singer said of aiming for a sensual intimacy in the 65,000-capacity stadium, while also keeping in mind other legendary Super Bowl halftime shows as he celebrates his own history.

“I’m thinking about the fact that I’ve been able to walk through the front door as a result of their sacrifice and ability,” he said of the legacy of such previous Black icons as Michael Jackson and Prince, as well as what R&B means in a country where some of its most famous practitioners had to enter the stage through the kitchen door in the 1950s and 60s due to segregation.

“It’s made me feel joyous. It made me feel like I want to go out there, and I want the world to smile when they look at me. I want them to feel something, and feel my passion, my love, feel like I was the right person to sit in this position, and I was the right person to bring this kind of energy and love and connection to the entire world,” Usher said.

“People will tune in for a football game, but I hope when they look at that halftime performance, I’m hoping they walk away with something that’s healing them,” he added. “Something that makes them feel hopeful, and not just look at the past, but have hope for the future, and have hope for a different type of future than we’re looking at right now in the present.”

The 45-year old singer is gearing up to release his ninth studio album, Coming Home, on Feb. 9, just two days before he takes the stage at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas for the big game. It’s a gig that his fans will tell you is a long time coming, but which didn’t materialize until Jay-Z called up to ask Ush to do the honors this year.

“Every day I’m kind of sitting here and I take a moment to just look at where we’re going to be, which is right there,” Usher told the magazine while pointing to the shiny black glass spaceship of a stadium in the Nevada desert.

And, not for nothing, the writer reveals that they have already heard an “afrobeat-inflected earworm” from Coming Home, assuring fans that it is “20 tracks of absolute bangers.”

12 Jan 2024

Usher Super Bowl Halftime Show Teaser, New Music From Ariana Grande, Lil Nas X & More | Billboard News

It’s Friday, January 12th, and we’re running down the new music releases of the day. Ariana Grande is back with her new track “yes, and?,” Lil Nas X dropped his long-awaited track “J CHRIST,” 21 Savage has released a solo album titled “american dream” and more. Ivan Cornejo is Billboard’s newest cover star. Usher’s Apple Music Super Bowl LVIII Halftime Show teaser features stars like Jung Kook, J Balvin and more!

Tetris Kelly
Will Jung Kook join Usher onstage at his Super Bowl halftime show? Ariana Grande, Lil Nas X and more release music. Kali Uchis talks pregnancy and her hot new album. We look at the rise of ITZY, and Ivan Cornejo is the future of regional Mexican music. Welcome to another edition of Billboard News, I’m Tetris Kelly. It’s Friday, January 12th, and we’ve got a brand-new cover star, but first let’s get into our Friday Music Guide.

Tetris Kelly
We’ve entered a new era: Ariana Grande is back and she’s saying “Yes, And?” This self-empowering bop is definitely not safe for work.

Tetris Kelly
We’ll have more new music throughout the show. But now it’s time to get to our last feature of genre cover star, Ivan Cornejo, the future of regional Mexican music.

Ivan Cornejo
It stood out to me so much, I think, that I was just like, ‘hmm I actually like this.’ At the time, I wouldn’t really listen to regional music. It was more of like my dad’s Mariachi music and like the old-school stuff. A couple of years later, Natanael Cano drops, you know, ‘Corridos Tumbados.’ He’s definitely like a pioneer for this new genre that you call salsa reino and like corridos tumbados, so many people got inspiration from Nate, that he really took a big step and just changed the whole corridos feel, like a lot of people just adapted to that quickly.

Watch the full video above!

12 Jan 2024

Yeah! Usher Rewinds It Back, Gets Support From LeBron, J Balvin, Jung Kook in Apple Music Super Bowl LVIII Halftime Show Teaser

Take that, rewind it back, Usher is about to make the Super Bowl go smack! This year’s Apple Music Super Bowl LVIII Halftime Show star dropped the trailer for what promises to be a super-hype game break on Friday morning (Jan. 12).

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The first look at what Usher has in store came via a one-minute hype video taking viewers on a kaleidoscopic trip through 30 years of Ush. It opens with a gospel choir singing “Peace Up,” as various other fans second that emotion over a church organ and the choir adds “A-town down” in a tribute to the clip’s soundtrack song: 2004’s smash with Lil Jon and Ludacris, “Yeah!”

After a woman says “take that and rewind it back,” the camera rolls into the past to 1998, after Usher’s second album, 1997’s My Way, blew the singer up into a global superstar thanks to such hits as “You Make Me Wanna…” and “Nice & Slow.” The clip even includes some old video of a pre-fame, teenage, babyfaced Usher smiling in the studio as a group of double-dutching girls reveal that “Yeah!” is their favorite song.

The song that topped the Billboard Hot 100 for 12 consecutive weeks in 2004 bubbles up and gets reworked by a marching band, subway flutist, teenage string quartet, late night diner beatbox crew, pianist and pal J Balvin — who recreates the famous oven door meme — amid footage of Ush killing it on stage. Another friend, BTS singer and “Standing Next To You” collaborator Jung Kook makes a brief cameo, along with NBA superstar LeBron James, who also can’t help singing along to the hit’s indelible chorus.

The clip ends with Usher, 45, standing against a red background wearing shades and an open-to-the-navel shirt black shirt and matching gloves as he swings his signature U pendant around his neck framed by the words “One performance. 30 years in the making.”

Usher announced he was taking on the iconic gig in September, saying in a statement, “It’s an honor of a lifetime to finally check a Super Bowl performance off my bucket list. I can’t wait to bring the world a show unlike anything else they’ve seen from me before. Thank you to the fans and everyone who made this opportunity happen. I’ll see you real soon.”

The inaugural Apple Music-sponsored Super Bowl Halftime Show took place last year with Rihanna setting new viewership records as she unveiled her second pregnancy during a performance. Usher will bring his hits to the stage in Las Vegas’ Allegiant Stadium for this year’s game on Feb. 11 as he gets ready to release his upcoming ninth studio album, Coming Home, on Feb. 9. The big game will air live on CBS and stream live on Paramount+, NFL+ and Vix.

Watch the Apple Music Super Bowl LVIII Halftime Show preview below.


https://youtube.com/watch?v=QcRLTbQxgcI&version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent