Charlie Puth, Brandi Carlile & Coco Jones Set for a History-Making Super Bowl 2026 Pregame Show
Super Bowl 2026 Pregame Show: Charlie Puth, Brandi Carlile & Coco Jones Bring a New Era of Anthems
Super Bowl 2026’s pregame show is stacking the deck with Charlie Puth on the national anthem, Brandi Carlile delivering “America the Beautiful,” and Coco Jones performing “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” It’s a carefully curated trio that says as much about the NFL’s cultural strategy as it does about the music industry’s current power players.
Hosted in Northern California, this year’s pregame slate leans into pop virtuosity, Americana credibility, and R&B ascendance all at once—a deliberate mix designed to appeal across generations, genres, and political fault lines, before the Lombardi Trophy is even in sight.
Why the Super Bowl 2026 Pregame Show Matters More Than Ever
Over the last decade, the Super Bowl pregame show has quietly evolved from background noise into a kind of musical State of the Union. The anthem, “America the Beautiful,” and “Lift Every Voice and Sing” have become tightly scrutinized cultural statements, reflecting everything from racial politics to patriotism to which genres currently rule streaming charts.
In 2026, the NFL isn’t playing it safe—it’s playing it strategic. Each artist on the bill checks a different box:
- Charlie Puth – pop technician and TikTok-era hitmaker with cross-generational reach.
- Brandi Carlile – critically adored Americana star with Grammys, roots cred, and LGBTQ+ visibility.
- Coco Jones – rising R&B force and Emmy-winning actor representing the next wave of Black pop culture.
Together, they form a sort of informal supergroup of 2020s American music: pop precision, roots authenticity, and R&B soul.
Charlie Puth and the High-Wire Act of the National Anthem
The national anthem slot is notoriously unforgiving: every note is dissected on social media in real time, and any misstep becomes viral fodder. Bringing in Charlie Puth is a bet on technical control as much as star power.
Puth’s reputation as a perfectionist—he famously builds songs from scratch on TikTok, turning random sounds into chart hits—makes him an intriguing choice. Expect a tight, harmonically interesting rendition that still respects the song’s traditional structure.
“The Super Bowl is one of those stages where every second counts, and every note gets remembered,” Puth has said in past interviews about performing live on major broadcasts.
The main risk? Over-polish. Viewers tend to love emotion as much as vocal gymnastics. The performances that linger—Whitney Houston’s 1991 version still being the gold standard—bring a sense of occasion, not just technique. Puth will need to walk the line between studio precision and stadium-sized feeling.
Brandi Carlile’s “America the Beautiful”: Roots, Resistance, and Resonance
Brandi Carlile has quietly become one of the most respected figures in American music: an anchor of the Americana revival, a Grammy magnet, and a go-to collaborator for everyone from Joni Mitchell to Miley Cyrus. Giving her “America the Beautiful” is like handing the song to the conscience of contemporary roots music.
In the last few years, “America the Beautiful” has sometimes overshadowed the anthem itself as a more inclusive, emotionally resonant patriotic song. Carlile’s raw, unvarnished delivery style is custom-built for that energy.
“I think patriotism is loving your country enough to want it to live up to its promises,” Carlile has said when discussing performing American standards on big stages.
Expect a version that leans into:
- Organic instrumentation – piano and strings with a live-band warmth.
- Dynamic phrasing – soaring high notes but room for quiet, vulnerable moments.
- Collective feeling – Carlile often turns solo spotlights into communal singalongs; a stadium chorus would not be surprising.
Coco Jones and “Lift Every Voice and Sing”: A Spotlight on Modern R&B
Casting Coco Jones to perform “Lift Every Voice and Sing” is both smart and symbolic. She’s part of a new guard of R&B artists who straddle streaming popularity, prestige television, and old-school vocal training. That combination makes her ideally suited for a performance that’s as culturally loaded as it is musically demanding.
Known for her breakout work on the reimagined Bel-Air and her acclaimed EP What I Didn’t Tell You, Jones has the narrative arc the NFL loves: early promise, industry setbacks, and a high-profile comeback powered by social media and word-of-mouth.
“Lift Every Voice and Sing” has increasingly become a barometer of how seriously institutions take Black cultural expression. Having Jones perform it places a rising Black woman at the heart of the country’s biggest shared TV event—an important corrective to decades where R&B was core to American music but peripheral in prestige bookings.
Critics have noted that recent renditions of “Lift Every Voice and Sing” at major sports events feel like “a parallel national anthem—a reminder of histories that the traditional pageantry often leaves out.”
How This Trio Reflects 2026 Pop Culture and the NFL’s Image Play
On paper, Charlie Puth + Brandi Carlile + Coco Jones might seem like an eclectic grab bag. In practice, they’re a neatly balanced cultural equation:
- Demographics: Different age brackets, fan bases, and racial backgrounds.
- Genres: Pop, Americana, and R&B—three pillars of the modern streaming ecosystem.
- Brand Signals: Pop mainstream, roots authenticity, and social-aware casting.
The NFL has spent much of the 2020s trying to widen its cultural footprint while also responding to criticism over player safety, racial justice, and its relationship to protest. Curated music choices have become a quiet way of saying, “We see what’s happening in the culture—even if we don’t always respond directly in press conferences.”
From a purely entertainment-industry perspective, this lineup also underlines where power has shifted:
- Streaming clout matters – Puth and Jones both built modern careers on algorithm-era visibility.
- Critical prestige travels – Carlile’s festival and awards bona fides make her a safe bridge to older audiences and tastemakers.
- TV synergy rules – All three artists move in and out of television, whether via soundtracks, performances, or acting roles.
Strengths, Risks, and What Could Make These Performances Iconic
As with any Super Bowl music moment, the real test will be execution. On first glance, though, there’s more working in this lineup’s favor than against it.
What’s Working
- Vocal firepower: All three can genuinely sing live—still not a given at giant TV events.
- Cultural range: Multiple genres and identities reflected without feeling like a token shuffle.
- Narrative potential: Each artist has a story the broadcast can package into a tidy pre-performance montage.
Potential Weak Spots
- Overproduction: Heavy-handed arrangements or audio mix issues can flatten even great singers.
- Spectacle vs. sincerity: The pregame can sometimes feel like a warm-up act for the halftime sponsor parade; these songs need room to breathe.
- Culture-war crossfire: No matter how thoughtfully performed, these selections live inside a political pressure cooker the artists can’t fully control.
If everything clicks, Super Bowl 2026’s pregame could join the short list of actually rewatched performances, not just “well, I guess we saw that once” moments: think Whitney’s anthem, Beyoncé’s halftime, or more recent “Lift Every Voice and Sing” renditions that reverberated far beyond sports Twitter.
Where to Watch, Listen, and Dive Deeper
The full Super Bowl 2026 pregame show will be broadcast live on U.S. television and streamed via the NFL’s official partners. Performances typically surface shortly afterward on:
- The official NFL website
- Network and NFL YouTube channels
- Highlight packages from major outlets like AP News and sports networks
For more on each performer’s body of work, check their profiles on:
- IMDb – for film and TV credits, especially Coco Jones’ acting roles.
- Major music platforms for curated “This Is” or “Essentials” playlists, which often spike in streams after Super Bowl appearances.
Final Take: A Carefully Chosen Snapshot of American Music in 2026
Charlie Puth, Brandi Carlile, and Coco Jones aren’t just pregame entertainment; they’re a curated snapshot of what “American music” means in 2026: digital-native pop, rootsy storytelling, and R&B reclamation, all filtered through the blinding spotlight of the NFL’s biggest night.
If the performances land, they’ll do what the best Super Bowl music moments always do—momentarily unite an audience that rarely agrees on anything, and leave us arguing afterward not about politics or penalties, but about whose version gave us chills. In a fragmented media era, that alone is something like a minor miracle.
