variety.com: No “Joke”: Brandi Carlile is one of the few vocalists out there with so powerhouse of a voice, she could almost be considered overqualified to sing “America the Beautiful.” That’s what she’ll be doing just prior to Super Bowl LX kicking off on Sunday, and although it is not always considered to be as demanding as its patriotic twin, “The Star Spangled Banner,” Carlile promises that she’ll be performing it at the upper end of her range, which may mean that this seemingly gentler song will have its own bombs bursting in air, musically speaking.
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In my opinion the NFL ran an incredibly successful money-making scheme this year. (A money-making scheme which I fell for). Football generally has a slightly more conservative audience (although not by too much because its fanbase is so large), and the NFL has a conservative leadership. So having a queer woman sing America the Beautiful, a queer punk rock band play the opening ceremony, and a Puerto Rican man play the halftime show seemed like a shock for the company, but what it did was make so many people (like me) who wouldn’t ordinarily watch the Super Bowl actually tune in. The NFL still managed to exercise censorship (a skipped verse of American Idiot and censoring Billie Joe Armstrong telling ICE agents to quit their jobs come to mind), but they still pulled in a leftist fanbase. Brandi Carlile’s America the Beautiful was still a wonderful rendition, though. None of this year was a coincidence, though, and money-making scheme or not, all of these people together sends a powerful message.
“America the Beautiful” has got my personal vote if we ever get together to pick a new national anthem. As Carlile says in the article, I really like the feeling of “fragile hope” in the song, and the aspirational aspect of it, as I think the heart and soul of the American experience has been slowly trying to reach the lofty goals that the founding fathers laid out two and a half centuries ago. While I don’t think any rendition of the song could approach the quality of Fozzie Bear’s performance in The Muppet Movie I think Carlile was a great choice to sing the song at the superbowl. I like Carlile’s work, especially with The Highwomen, and she is truly a powerhouse vocalist. I appreciate that we live in a world where a big deal isn’t made over a gay person singing a song on telivision, but I worry that we’re actively working towards crossing that line. We should be inspired by this song and this performance and rededicate ourselves to mending the every flaw of this country.
I LOVE BRANDI. She is one of my mother's favorite shared artists and she is so versatile. I specifically love when she played at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction most recently and did a Sound Garden cover with Taylor Momsen, the lead singer of the band The Pretty Wreckless. I love that she sang America the Beautiful and it was so good. As someone who doesn't watch a whole lot of football this was the only reason I had the game on because she is such an amazing artist. I really love how heartfelt this really seemed to her and the meaning she put behind it especially during this time in the world. Anyway, this superbowl pissed me off. They literally censored a line in GreenDay’s song. Like you knew they were going to play this song when you hired them and you knew they were gonna make a statement.
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