Opening the Super Bowl LIV on Sunday, February 2nd, Demi Lovato sang the National Anthem to millions. She sang for one minute and forty-nine seconds. Written, the song takes one minute and fifty-five seconds to sing, and most national anthem vocalists take much longer. 

Aretha Franklin, for example, dragged the song out for a solid four minutes and fifty-five seconds on Thanksgiving Day in 2016. Playing the organ to accompany herself, the football stadium she was at was transformed into a gospel church. The Queen of Soul faced much backlash after such a performance, but there were many that loved it. The same reaction was found after Jimi Hendrix played the anthem with an electric guitar in 1969 at Woodstock. 

Last Super Bowl, in 2019, Lady Gaga sang the Anthem after jumping off of the stadium’s roof. Like Franklin, but for different reasons, Gaga faced backlash. Like Fergie’s in 2018 before a basketball game. There, the Black Eyed Peas singer performed an interesting rendition inspired by the blues genre. Any rendition of the National Anthem has controversy, but one thing is clear. The traditional melody of the Anthem is hardly ever sung without a spin. 

Lovato kept things very traditional. With little inflection, her voice soared above the 99.9 million viewers with a song sung just as it was written on paper, and people loved it. It’s very rare that the National Anthem is not spun with the artist’s own style, but when it isn’t, and the song is sung as it was written, it’s a breath of fresh air for most. That was reflected in the viewers’ reactions on twitter. One tweet wrote “Crushed. It.” with Lovato tagged. 

Next, Lovato’s goal is to knock it out of the park with her very own halftime show.