Super Bowl
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Few events can stitch together the various webs of American culture like the Super Bowl, and the numbers this year bear that out: With 123.7 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research, the Big Game last Sunday (Feb. 11) was the most-watched broadcast since the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969. And that means a lot of eyeballs for a lot of high-profile advertisement slots, which were priced accordingly: Commercials for the event this year went for as much as $7 million for a 30-second ad, according to the Wall Street Journal.
That makes working on such ads a high-stakes game, not to mention one that’s highly coveted in the world of music supervision and production. This year, boutique music and sound design company Barking Owl Sound landed seven such spots, doing sound design, mixing and production for ads with Booking.com (with Tina Fey) and Etsy; music arrangement and production for Budweiser’s spot; sound design, mix, production and original music for Starry’s ad with Ice Spice (No. 10 on Billboard‘s list of best commercials from the event); mixing and production for Paramount+’s Champions League ad; sound design and production for Kia’s commercial; and original music and production for Homes.com’s Mascot ad. And that high-profile work for the firm earns Barking Owl Sound co-founder/executive creative director Kelly Bayett the title of Billboard’s Executive of the Week.
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Here, Bayett discusses the behind-the-scenes work that goes into the sound production of a Super Bowl ad; how she helped build Barking Owl and its creative team as well as its new music library, along with the opportunities it entails for them; and what’s next for the company. “With seven spots this year, it really solidifies our position in the industry moving forward and opens us up to new opportunities,” Bayett says. “We can accept the challenge and our team can excel with a number of projects under the highest amount of pressure. Moving forward, we are strong as ever and ready for anything.”
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This week, Barking Owl worked on the music for seven Super Bowl advertisements, including for Etsy, Budweiser, Kia and more. What key decisions did you make to help make that happen?
In our industry, getting Super Bowl ads is definitely relationship-dependent. An agency and client will rarely go to a vendor they don’t know and trust for a piece with millions of dollars on the line. Our key decisions are actually based on building the long term and not what feels fast and easy. [It’s about] focusing on growing relationships that last and consistently keeping the work you are doing fresh and interesting.
Can you tell me about how the company got started and your philosophy around what you do and what work you choose to get involved with, particularly as it pertains to these spots?
I was a single mom and I and my then-boyfriend, now husband, decided to start a music and sound design company in our home. Fourteen years later, we have added mix, brand partnerships, gorgeous studios in L.A. and New York as well as a global team of composers and writers. Our philosophy was to create a company that focused on creative and felt like home. We care about the craft of sound. If you look at any piece of work we have done for the Super Bowl, or anything on our reel, you will see that we don’t just grab sounds out of the library. We create them for each moment and we have been really fortunate to attract clients who value and appreciate the process.
What is the typical process for how you guys work on a commercial like these?
We will get a brief from the agency, and from there, it’s go time. We get on a call and talk about the process, creative directives, and then we start to create and build. It’s important to us to have the agency involved in the collaboration so that there are no surprises on either side. We keep it fun and light, we have amazing executive producers in New York and L.A. in Ashley Benton and KC Dossett who keep everyone on task. It’s the only time of year where every job is racing to the same finish line, so it takes incredible scheduling and organization.
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Your work on these was a mix of sound design, mixing, production, arrangement and original music. How do you approach each of those roles differently?
We have different teams of specialists for each role. Original music can be the trickiest a lot of the time because we are creating themes, tones and movement with an incredibly fast timeline. You are working with personal taste, and when it comes to thoughts about music, there is no right or wrong, it’s all about feeling. Sometimes, you just don’t like something because it doesn’t move you, and that can be challenging. We have to become detectives and figure out what isn’t hitting emotionally or tonally. Sometimes the whole team is on board with the exception of one holdout, and even though majority rules, I feel like we have failed if everyone has not left happy.
Arrangements are really about timing and vision of the track. Sound design is one of the most fun pieces, and also the piece that if we do it exactly right with hours of foley recording and sound manipulation, it will feel like we have done nothing at all. Mixing is the glue that keeps all of it together, giving space for the dialogue, VO, music and sound design. A great mix is dynamic, a bad mix is overly compressed and you lose the craft of each element you have so diligently created. Having our work destroyed by lazy mixers inspired the creation of our mix department.
Music production work like this is a competitive space, dealing with both huge companies and smaller houses. How do you guys compete within that environment, and stand out against your competitors?
It’s an incredibly competitive environment and it only gets more competitive as new companies are popping up each day. I have never really been one to look around and see what others are doing. I am solely focused on our mission, our purpose and what work we are putting out there. How are we showing up each day? Is it good enough? We are also a female-founded company with female creative leads, which is highly unusual. I came up in a space that was so insanely male, we wanted to bring a different perspective and change the landscape with female composers, mixers and sound designers. Everyone matters and everyone is supported here. When people feel supported they are free to create better and more inventive work. We created a structure where we all work as a team and there is no internal competition. That is a huge difference as well. Our employee retention is incredibly high and we all know each other so well, it’s truly like family.
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You’re also building out your own music library. What will that allow you to do, and how can that allow you to grow in the future?
I am so insanely excited about this. We have this amazing library of about 15,000 original tracks from years of demos created for commercials that never sold. The quality we expect from composers and the years of crafting and scoring have resulted in an incredibly varied, diverse library of tracks that are of the highest creative level. We didn’t exactly know what to do with them or how to set up a library, but we knew that we could offer something unique to the industry, as well as broadening our reach to TV and film. Last year, we brought in a partner, Kirkland Lynch, who leads these types of strategic initiatives as CEO. Kirkland brings experience from years with Sony Music, Universal Music Group, Stevie Wonder and YouTube Music. He has been a great addition to the team bringing an understanding and knowledge we really needed.
What does success look like from your point of view for a commercial like these? And with seven spots at this year’s game, what does that allow you guys to do moving forward?
We aren’t in charge of the overall idea, so the success for us is to see if we have executed the idea in the best way possible. Sound design properly in the space, the music scored and arranged in a way that tells the story and makes you feel something, mixes where each sound element complements the other — that is success. With seven spots this year, it really solidifies our position in the industry moving forward and opens us up to new opportunities. We can accept the challenge and our team can excel with a number of projects under the highest amount of pressure. Moving forward, we are strong as ever and ready for anything.
For Will Bratton, the best part of Super Bowl LVIII was not when Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver Mecole Hardman caught the game-winning pass for an overtime touchdown or when Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker nailed a 57-yard field goal. It was when Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, during the trophy ceremony after the game, belted out an impromptu, raggedy chorus of “Viva Las Vegas” on the CBS broadcast.
Those three words, repeated several times in a pacing and melody only vaguely resembling Elvis Presley’s classic 1964 hit, have delivered an unexpected payday for the song’s rights holders.
“We were very excited about him doing that,” says Bratton, president of Pomus Songs Inc., namesake publisher for the late Doc Pomus, who wrote the song with Mort Shuman. “Royalties are paid for that performance through BMI.”
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Kelce’s rendition constituted an “ephemeral use,” according to Rachel Jacobson, who oversees film and TV for Warner Chappell Music (WCM), which administers Pomus’ recordings. As when a marching band plays an off-the-cuff snippet of a song during a televised football game, the use generates a royalty payment through BMI as a public performance. “Anything beyond that, then you come and clear it,” she says.
Although Bratton couldn’t say how much money Pomus Songs made from Kelce’s performance — “BMI’s generally three quarters behind, so we won’t have that data until probably next December” — the revenue is likely to continue. Late-night talk shows airing Kelce’s version would have to pay for a “previewing synch license,” according to Bratton, which would lead to a negotiated fee as opposed to the ephemeral use royalty payment. WCM’s Jacobson is not aware of any requests for such a license involving Kelce’s rendition of “Viva.”
For the Super Bowl, Bratton says, “It was also licensed to CBS Sports for a pre-game show and it was shown once during the game over a viewing of Taylor Swift. That paid — I don’t want to say how much, but it was good money.”
Written for the Presley film of the same name, “Viva” has come to symbolize Las Vegas glamor-and-gambling culture and has been covered by Bruce Springsteen, Dead Kennedys, ZZ Top and Shawn Colvin. Bob Dylan wrote a chapter about the song in his 2022 book, The Philosophy of Modern Song: “This is a song about faith. The kind of faith where you step under a shower spigot in the middle of the desert and fully believe water will come out.”
The song was also in The Big Lebowski and a Viagra commercial (“Viva Viagra”), which, Bratton recalls, “was a very nice synch license momentarily — but I’m not sure if we regret it or not.”
Pomus, a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame songwriter who wrote classics such as The Drifters’ “Save the Last Dance for Me” and “This Magic Moment”; The Coasters’ “Young Blood”; and Presley’s “Little Sister,” was a “sports fanatic,” according to Bratton, who is married to Pomus’ daughter, Sharyn Felder. “He would have been thrilled that his song was used like that,” he says of Kelce’s “Vegas” rendition. “It was more of a holler than a sing. It was his enthusiasm that was notable.” He adds: “We just like it to make money.”
Taylor Swift said that Travis Kelce‘s viral “You Belong With Me” serenade at the 2024 Super Bowl afterparty Sunday (Feb. 11) was the “most romantic” gesture she’s ever received — and given that she’s a celebrated love-song writer, that’s some high praise. In a newly surfaced video from the post-game celebration — which was held […]
Streams and sales of Usher’s sizable catalog of music rose amid and following his performance at the halftime show of Super Bowl LVIII on Feb. 11.
From Feb. 11-12, consumption of Usher’s music totaled 35.9 million official on-demand U.S. streams, up 46% from 24.6 million between Feb. 9-10, according to initial reports to Luminate.
Additionally, his music accumulated 27,000 downloads Feb. 11-12, a 210% jump after accruing 9,000 Feb. 9-10.
The gains come despite higher-than-usual totals for the singer on streaming services thanks not just to buzz around his performance, but also the premiere of Coming Home, Usher’s ninth studio album, which was released on Feb. 9. Comparing the two-day period of Feb. 11-12 to the Sunday-Monday stretch of a week before (Feb. 4-5), the percentage gain is even higher – 299%, up to 35.9 million from 9 million. Download-wise, it’s a leap of 1,685% from 2,000 downloads to 27,000.
Leading the way is “Yeah!,” featuring Lil Jon and Ludacris, which accumulated 4.8 million official on-demand U.S. streams Feb. 11-12. That’s up 105% from Feb. 9-10, when the song earned 2.3 million streams.
Some of Usher’s biggest gainers were, like “Yeah!,” performed during the halftime show. The same can be said for “My Boo,” Usher’s duet with Alicia Keys (who made a cameo during the medley). The tune vaults 158% to 3 million streams Feb. 11-12, up from 1.2 million the previous two days.
“Love in This Club” (which features Jeezy) follows with 2.4 million streams Feb. 11-12, a 147% boost from 961,000, and then comes “DJ Got Us Fallin’ in Love” (featuring Pitbull) via 2.1 million streams, up 83% from 1.2 million.
Sales-wise, “Yeah!” also paces the pack, racking up 7,000 downloads Feb. 11-12. In the previous frame of Feb. 9-10, it earned 1,000 downloads, giving the song a 424% leap.
“U Got It Bad” boasts the next highest sales count at 3,000 Feb. 11-12, a 349% jump from 1,000 Feb 9-10.
The full breadth of Usher’s catalog gains will be noted on the Billboard charts dated Feb. 24, which cover streams, sales and airplay accrued during the Feb. 9-15 tracking week.
Usher ended Super Bowl weekend with a bang — or wedding bells, rather. The “U Got It Bad” singer took to Instagram on Wednesday (Feb. 14) to share a series of photos from his Las Vegas wedding to his longtime girlfriend Jennifer Goicoechea on Feb. 11, just hours after the star took the stage at Super […]
Underestimate The DunKings … at your peril! Jennifer Lopez may have drowned husband Ben Affleck‘s pop-star dreams in Dunkin’s 2024 Super Bowl ad, but the Oscar-winning actor is following his heart. The DunKings boy band — comprised of Affleck and fellow Boston boys Matt Damon and Tom Brady — dropped their track “Don’t Dunk Away […]
On the latest episode of New Heights, the NFL’s favorite brothers Jason and Travis Kelce debriefed their raucous Super Bowl weekend in Las Vegas, from hanging out with Taylor Swift at Allegiant Stadium Sunday (Feb. 11) to going all out at that night’s afterparty to celebrate the Kansas City Chiefs’ victory.
“I feel like I just got in a trainwreck, man,” Travis confessed on the Wednesday (Feb. 14) episode. “That was a physical game, man.”
“That was a physical post game too,” quipped Jason, seemingly nodding to his little brother’s PDA moments with Swift on the afterparty dance floor.
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“All right now,” Travis replied with a knowing smile.
The pop star was on hand Sunday to cheer on Travis as he helped lead the Chiefs to victory against the San Francsico 49ers, securing the team its second Super Bowl win in two years. Swift and Jason watched the game from a private suite with Blake Lively, Lana Del Rey, Miles Teller and more famous friends, and at one point, the “Anti-Hero” singer was featured on the jumbotron chugging her drink – about which Travis called Swift a “pro” on New Heights.
After the game, Travis, Jason and Swift stepped out at a club in Las Vegas to celebrate with the younger Kelce’s teammates. Many viral videos emerged from the party, including clips of the Philadelphia Eagles center dancing in a red and yellow wrestling mask and the 14-time Grammy winner singing along to her own songs with Travis.
Jason also opened up about meeting two very different music icons at Swift’s introduction: Sir Paul McCartney and Ice Spice. “All of a sudden I hear Taylor behind me like, ‘Jason, turn around!’” the older Kelce recalled. “I look around, and Paul McCartney is standing right there. I’m like, ‘What the heck is this?’”
“Also got to meet Ice Spice, she was very nice,” he continued, with Travis adding that the “Munch” rapper is “awesome for showing up and showing support like that.”
Watch the latest episode of New Heights above.
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The performance of “Lift Every Voice And Sing” at the Super Bowl got Rudy Giuliani and Megan Kelly mad enough to whine about it publicly.
The 58th Super Bowl was held Sunday (Feb. 11), at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, Nevada, and carried all of the majesty people come to expect from the event. But the performance of “Lift Every Voice and Sing” by Andra Day before the game roiled the sensibilities of two major right-wingers: Rudy Giuliani and Megan Kelly. Both were displeased at the inclusion of the song, which has come to be known as the Black National Anthem.
The topic came up on the former mayor of New York City’s WABC radio show, prompted by his co-host Maria Ryan’s diatribe: “They’re going to do what’s called a Black National Anthem, and then America’s National Anthem,” she began. “Please stop dividing us. We can’t allow this. If you want to sing another song, that’s fine. I don’t care about that at all, but to call it Black National Anthem is dividing us. We’re all American citizens.”
The disgraced former lawyer for Donald Trump concurred. “This country is made up of people that come from places that have other national anthems, and it’s pretty damn insulting,” Giuliani added. “The people that are being persecuted the most right now in the country are the Jews, not the Blacks. Where’s the sympathy for the Jewish people?”
Kelly aired her grievance with the 1900 composed song by James Weldon Johnson in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “The so-called Black National Anthem does not belong at the Super Bowl. We already have a National Anthem and it includes EVERYONE,” she wrote. The former Fox News host has popped up infrequently over the past few years since losing her daytime talk show, infamously declaring that Santa Claus and Jesus are white.
Other X users were quick to blast her for the bigoted post, including author John Pavlovitz who wrote, “It’s good you’re too stupid to hide your racism.” A former congressional candidate, Christopher Hale also highlighted the irony of right-wingers’ despising the song, noting that it is a hymn: “It’s remarkable that there is right-wing backlash [about] the Black national anthem. The entire song is about honoring God,” he wrote on X.
Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce‘s already iconic post-Super Bowl kiss has been analyzed from all angles — but now, thanks to the NFL, fans are getting to hear exactly what the couple said to each other minutes after the Kansas City Chiefs triumphed over the San Francsico 49ers Sunday (Feb. 11). In an emotional TikTok […]
Music’s Biggest Night may have been a week prior, but Super Bowl Sunday still put plenty of pop superstars on prominent display — most notably, veteran pop&B icons Usher and Beyoncé.
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Usher of course performed as the halftime headliner at Super Bowl XLVIII, running through 15 minutes of his biggest hits with assists from guest-star collaborators like Lil Jon, Alicia Keys and will.i.am. And Beyoncé not only starred in a Super Bowl ad punning off her reputation for “breaking the internet,” she went on to basically do just that once again, with the announcement of her much-anticipated Act II sequel album to 2022’s Renaissance, and the release of two country-flavored advance cuts, “Texas Hold ‘Em” and “16 Carriages.” (And then, of course, there was also that Chiefs fan and part-time singer-songwriter who the CBS broadcast kept cutting to throughout the game…)
What will the gig mean for Usher’s catalog? And how big do we expect these new Beyoncé songs to get? Billboard staffers discuss these questions and more below.
1. Usher played a pretty hit-filled halftime show — which of his songs do you think will most be helped, either in terms of short-term spikes or long-term legacy, by its inclusion in his setlist?
Stephen Daw: While I’m certain that “Yeah!” will see plenty of well-deserved upticks after Ludacris and Lil John joined Usher for his show-stopping closer, their inclusion in the show was practically a foregone conclusion. But bringing up Alicia Keys for a genuinely great rendition of “My Boo” 20 years after its release felt like the kind of delightful, head-turning surprise we expect to see from a halftime show. Both Alicia and Usher sounded great on the track 20 years later (despite the internet harping on one pre-duet vocal crack), and the on-stage chemistry appeared just as potent as it was back in 2004. Sure, “My Boo” is already one of Usher’s most well-documented hits, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the classic duet saw a cultural resurgence thanks to this phenomenal revisit.
Kyle Denis: I think “Yeah!” will be helped the most. It’s Usher’s most widely known song and it got a serious showcase during halftime, complete with special guess Lil Jon and Ludacris. In terms of musical moments that will live beyond Sunday night, “Yeah!” leads the pack. It also helps that “Yeah!” was one of the few songs in Usher’s set that didn’t fall victim to a two-line snippet before moving onto the next track. Nonetheless, “My Boo,” could see a substantial jump in traction following the endless barrage of Alicia Keys-focused viral memes.
Jason Lipshutz: Like the rest of his Confessions singles, “My Boo” was a smash upon its release in 2004 — the Alicia Keys duet spent 6 weeks at No. 1 on the Hot 100 — but hasn’t remained a signature Usher single over the past two decades, and was a more unexpected centerpiece of the Super Bowl halftime show than uptempo smashes like “Yeah!” and “OMG.” Because of that tender stadium harmonizing because Ursh and his surprise guest, however, I’d guess “My Boo” picks up some new listeners, as well as some “Oh yeah, I forgot how great that song is!” streams, and receives a significant spike.
Taylor Mims: If an Usher halftime show was geared toward any specific demographic it was millennials and nostalgia hit hard on “Yeah!” There is not a single person who went to a middle school or high school dance in 2004 or later and didn’t hear “Yeah!” at least a few times per night. Hearing that song again brings back a ton of memories and millennials will be flocking to Spotify or Apple Music to bask in those forgotten times.
Andrew Unterberger: “Yeah!” definitely seems to be the biggest short-term beneficiary — gonna be real fun to (likely) see that classic back on the Billboard Hot 100 20 years after topping it for 12 weeks — but to me, the biggest winner from Usher’s set was “OMG.” The 2010 Hot 100 No. 1 remains an extremely contentious song within his discography, with many fans deriding it as a regrettable EDM-era throwaway and other fans telling those fans to hush and just fist-pump along with the hook. Usher’s decision to include “OMG” within his inner-circle setlist — the only song of his from the last 15 years to earn that distinction — is a major win for fans in the latter category.
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2. Despite releasing his new Coming Home album just two days earlier, Usher didn’t play a single song from the album during his show — not even his recent Hot 100 top 40 hit “Good Good.” Were you surprised by the snub, and do you think it’s going to have any particular impact on the album’s commercial fortunes?
Stephen Daw: I don’t think it was too shocking that nothing off of Coming Home made it onto the stage on Sunday. Historically speaking, the Super Bowl halftime show is a place to celebrate a career’s-worth of accomplishments, not necessarily to promote new work. While a quick, 30-second nod to “Good Good” could have given the song a brief bump, I don’t think the lack of Coming Home numbers will have too much of a negative effect on the album’s numbers — a rising tide lifts all boats, and I suspect that the influx of listeners going back through Usher’s catalogue will only benefit his latest LP.
Kyle Denis: I was less surprised that Usher ignored Coming Home and more surprised that he flat-out ignored the last decade of his recording career. Surely, we could have fit a tease of “Climax” or a “Good Kisser” drum break or a snippet of “I Don’t Mind” somewhere in the show! In terms of the commercial fortunes of Coming Home, it’s a bit hard to say. Playing a new track from the LP would have certainly helped; it’s hard to imagine the average viewer watching the halftime show and understanding that Usher has a new 20-track album out right now. Between the absence of Coming Home during his set and the lack of a commercial for neither his forthcoming tour nor the album itself, it does feel like the ball was dropped in terms of prioritizing the promotion of the record.
With all that said, I don’t think Coming Home was ever going to pull astronomical numbers — but I can almost guarantee that the final tally would have been higher with a bit more concerted focus on the album during the halftime performance. Between the success of “Good Good” and his fast-selling tour, Coming Home is already shaping up to be Usher’s biggest commercial win – in terms of full-length projects – since 2012’s Looking for Myself.
Jason Lipshutz: Considering that his Super Bowl performance included a slower R&B medley in between pop smashes, I was surprised that he couldn’t sneak “Good Good” in between songs like “Burn,” “Nice & Slow” and “U Got It Bad.” Obviously the old-school fans loved seeing stars like Alicia Keys, Lil Jon and Ludacris come out during the halftime show, but having Summer Walker and 21 Savage arrive on the Super Bowl stage would have thrilled a whole new generation of Usher fans — while also demonstrating the breadth of Usher’s decades-long run as a crossover hit machine.
Taylor Mims: It is surprising. For promotion alone, it seems like it would have been a smart move to sneak even a few moments of some new material in. But Usher decided to do a retrospective of his long and accomplished career and who can blame him. When you’ve only got 12 minutes to remind the world about your 30 years of success, there have to be some concessions.
Andrew Unterberger: I was a little surprised: Coming Home is a real moment for Usher, his first album as the lone lead artist in nearly a decade, released just two days before the Super Bowl and already boasting his biggest hit in a decade. I don’t think it’ll necessarily hurt the album that much, and honestly, it’s unlikely the album would be boosted by a token song or two as much as 2004 blockbuster Confessions will be with its seven (!!) separate songs featured in Ush’s set. But it’s a little unfortunate that an artist who’s continued to release great music for the whole back half of his 30-year recording career would present himself pretty much solely as a catalog artist — again, “OMG” was the oldest song he performed, and that song is 14 years old at this point.
3. Beyoncé grabbed some of the night’s headlines for herself with the announcement of her upcoming Act II album and the release of two new songs, “Texas Hold ‘Em” and “16 Carriages.” Do either of them sound like “Break My Soul”/”Cuff It”-sized hits to you, or do you think folks will need some time to come around to her (mostly) new country-influenced sound?
Stephen Daw: Emotional Ballad Beyoncé Singing Ridiculous Vocal Runs Because She Can™ is my personal favorite Beyoncé variant, so I’ve naturally found myself listening (and re-listening) to “16 Carriages” more out of the two. But if we’re looking for a hit, then I’m going all-in on “Texas Hold ‘Em.” The vibe is immaculate and smartly straddles the line of a country hit and a Beyoncé banger. It doesn’t feel like she’s pandering to a specific audience (looking at you, Ben Shapiro), but instead feels like a natural evolution on the sound she introduced with “Daddy Lessons” on Lemonade. I don’t know that either of these will reach the heights of a breakthrough like “Break My Soul,” but I think a top 20 placement is absolutely in the cards for “Texas Hold ‘Em.”
Kyle Denis: Folks will probably need a bit of time, because the overarching sound of both singles stands worlds away from the glitzy bombast of Renaissance. There’s some potential for “Texas Hold ‘Em” to morph into a line dance anthem that evokes the dance trend that helped “Cuff It” take off, but I’m more interested to see if “16 Carriages” can get Queen Bey her first hit ballad in quite some time.
Jason Lipshutz: “Texas Hold ‘Em” sounds like a hit to me, full of big hooks, back-and-forth whoops and a captivating Beyoncé vocal take that sneaks up on you instead of bowls you over. There’s an air of inclusivity to this country boogie, as if Bey is beckoning the listener to an unfamiliar party; maybe it won’t be as commercially resonant as “Break My Soul” or “Cuff It,” but “Texas Hold ‘Em” sounds like a pristine table-setter for this Beyoncé era, and I’m hoping it crosses over to country, pop and Queen Bey fans alike.
Taylor Mims: “Texas Hold ‘Em” is a winner and if anyone can make pop radio come around to country, it will be Beyoncé. That stomping beat will get enough Beyoncé fans on board with the country route and then some folks might be a bit warry of the banjo, but she’ll wrangle them in eventually. If the rumors are true that Beyoncé is on a mission to reclaim genres created by Black people, I think people will be open to her taking country back to its roots and give it all a listen.
Andrew Unterberger: The Super Bowl boost and general headline-making moment of their release will certainly help their first-week performance — though unfortunately, they’ll be hurt by their Sunday night release, meaning they’ll have just four full days’ worth of chart stats to count towards their first frame. Beyond that, it’s a little harder to predict: Radio will likely be slower to fully embrace this sonic left-turn than it was the top 40-accessible “Break My Soul,” and streaming momentum will depend on one of the songs catching heat on TikTok and other social media platforms. So far, so good: “Texas Hold ‘Em” in particular is off to a fast start, holding the No. 2 spot on both Spotify’s and Apple Music’s daily charts and topping iTunes. I’d ultimately bet that the era’s most pronounced chart impact will have to wait for the full album’s release in late March, though.
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4. All eyes will certainly be on the country world following the release of these songs and the full Act II to see what their response will be to her efforts. How much, if at all, do you think Nashville and the country machine will embrace this version of Beyoncé?
Stephen Daw: Country music’s track record when it comes to Beyoncé specifically is mixed; while 2016’s “Daddy Lessons” earned her some country radio play and a significant amount of support from A-listers in the genre, the Recording Academy’s genre committee famously denied the star any consideration for country-related awards at the 2016 Grammys. It’s hard to predict whether or not the country industry will bring Beyoncé into the fold here — but quite frankly, they’d be stupid not to! What better way to celebrate the format’s rise to cultural dominance than by showcasing how one of the biggest artists on the planet is putting out good country music? Not platforming “Texas Hold Em” or “16 Carriages” on country radio is just leaving money on the table.
Kyle Denis: Based on the writing and production credits on the two new tracks, it looks like Beyoncé has intentionally side-stepped the contemporary Nashville machine for her new country album. And that would make sense, considering she’s trying to pay homage to the Black roots of the genre. I wouldn’t be surprised if the track’s music videos (should we get any) get some spins on CMT, and I also wouldn’t be surprised to see country megastars across racial lines embracing Queen Bey. In terms of the country radio institution, however, it would truly be a watershed moment in music if Beyoncé was able to get legitimate country radio hits with original country songs crafted outside of the purview of Nashville.
Jason Lipshutz: I’d suspect that different factions of the country music industry embrace this Beyoncé era to varying degrees: while streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music have already slotted in “Texas Hold Em” atop their primary country playlists, country radio moves more slowly and is generally more traditional in their programming, so that will be a tougher nut to crack. We’re likely in for a few months of some country listeners being frequently exposed to new Beyoncé, and others fairly unaware of her new project; such dissonance will produce warranted hand-wringing, but that’s just the reality of the different speeds and approaches of Nashville’s biggest platforms.
Taylor Mims: As a community, the modern country genre has historically been very skeptical of Black artists and many artists of color have said they are treated like outsiders who need to prove their sincerity to “three chords and the truth.” But Beyoncé does not need the genre gatekeepers’ approval. She does not need their airplay or an invite to perform at a country awards show. If they don’t welcome her, it will highlight the rampant discrimination in the genre. If they do welcome her, a Black woman will be the center of attention in the genre for possibly the first time. Either way, Queen Bey wins.
Andrew Unterberger: I think they’ll embrace her in ways that don’t require a great deal of prolonged commitment. For instance, I bet country award shows will recruit her heavily: She’ll be great for ratings, and even the controversy her appearance will inevitably generate will be good for putting the show on folks’ radars. But will she become a major presence on country radio? Will the genre’s conservative-minded ruling class openly welcome her as a peer? Will her success lead to greater opportunities for other Black artists, and artists crossing over from outside genres? That all seems a little less likely to me.
5. Of course, there was another longtime pop star besides Ush and Bey who dominated headlines on Super Bowl Sunday. Since she’s now the only one of the three who hasn’t, give your prediction: Will Taylor Swift ever headline Super Bowl halftime?
Stephen Daw: Yes, Taylor Swift will absolutely do the Super Bowl halftime show someday, but I don’t think that day will come any time soon. The pop superstar is at an all-time zenith in her professional career, with signs only pointing further up for her future. Putting aside all the records she broke in her own career, Taylor brought in a ridiculous amount of revenue and attention to the NFL itself, and she did it without once performing at a game. Simply put, the league needs her more than she needs them — so she might as well keep waiting until she’s ready to bring out the big guns for her much-anticipated halftime performance.
Kyle Denis: She’ll do it. If she doesn’t, it’ll be to make a point that she’s bigger than the whole thing – but is anyone really bigger than the Super Bowl? I expect Tay to take the halftime stage before the decade closes, probably around 2026 or 2027, by which point her re-recording endeavor should finally be over. A Super Bowl halftime show would be a picture-perfect way to celebrate Taylor Swift finally owning all her work.
Jason Lipshutz: I think she will, although I’d guess it’s still a few years away, after her six-album re-recording project is completed (so she can play Taylor’s Versions of all of her hits) and the Eras Tour is long in the rearview (so that the halftime show doesn’t feel like a rehash of a mega-tour and its accompanying concert documentary). I’d imagine that Taylor Swift has an open invitation from the NFL to take their biggest stage, though, so whenever she wants to take over halftime, she will.
Taylor Mims: Not anytime soon. Would the NFL love to have Taylor Swift perform at halftime? Most certainly. Could Taylor Swift pull off an epic halftime show? Without a doubt. But Super Bowl halftime performers do not get paid to perform and often use the 15 minutes or less to promote something. Taylor Swift gets promotion for free every single day and she does not need help selling tickets or albums. Also, imagine Swifties trying to get their hands on the already uber-coveted Super Bowl tickets. The mayhem!
Andrew Unterberger: My reflexive response was “no,” as Taylor Swift hasn’t performed at an award show or televised live event in years. After all, why should she? Her own tour is arguably a hotter ticket than any other institution’s most popular or prestigious events right now anyway. But I do think Swift cares about history, and the fact of the matter is that most of the greatest stars of modern pop history — from Michael Jackson, Prince and Madonna to Beyoncé, Lady Gaga and now Usher — have a Super Bowl halftime performance on their resumé.
So if and when her own live schedule becomes a little less hectic, and maybe after she’s spent a little less time reflecting on her past than she has over these past few years of album re-recordings and Eras revisitings — let’s say around the turn of the next decade — I imagine she’ll probably want to put a checkmark next to this all-timer qualification. By that point, it’ll probably be one of only a precious few she has left.