Rihanna Super Bowl Setlist Draft Extravaganza!! (with Lindsey Weber, Jason Lipshutz & Julianne Escobedo Shepherd)

By DJ Louie XIV

Pop Pantheon

07/02/23·1h 17m

For this week's B-Side, DJ Louie is joined by a literal Navy of Pop Pantheon All-Stars- Who? Weekly's Lindsey Weber, Billboard's Jason Lipshutz and Julianne Escobedo Shepherd- to preview Rihanna's epic return to music at Super Bowl LVII, this Sunday in Phoenix, Arizona! They talk all the big questions: Why now? What does it portend for new Rihanna music? What made her change her hard "no" to the NFL over their treatment of Colin Kaepernick?

Then, the main event: Louie, Lindsey, Jason and Julianne try to figure which of Rihanna's ~40 hit songs she'll pull out for this 12-14 minute set, how she'll structure it to showcase the diversity and generational strength of her discography and pontificate on guests she could plausibly bring out to join her on stage.

Finally, the crew discusses whether Rihanna's Pop Pantheon tier ranking has shifted from cuspy 2-1, where she was ranked in our series with Julianne back in December 2021, and if this performance- and the promise of new music- has the potential to finally elevate Rihanna, once and for all, to Tier 1 of the Pantheon.

Listen to last year's Super Bowl episode, in which Louie and Rich Juzwiak break down almost every halftime ever, lay out the evolution of the format and debate the best and worst performances.

Listen to Louie and Julianne's two-part Pop Pantheon series on Rihanna

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