Super bowl national anthem

The national anthem has become a strange battleground in modern pop culture. Every performance seems to fall into one of two traps: either it’s overstuffed with vocal gymnastics meant to go viral, or it’s delivered so cautiously that it barely leaves a mark. Charlie Puth’s recent rendition cut cleanly through both extremes—and in doing so, quietly set a new bar. Puth didn’t treat the anthem like a flex. He treated it like a song. That alone made his performance stand out. From the first note,