Football season is here! Chris Stapleton and Snoop Dogg have taken the reins for this year’s Monday Night Football anthem.
Videos by American Songwriter
The performance, teaser by Stapleton and Snoop on Instagram, will kick off broadcasts starting this week. The pair, along with Cindy Blackman Santana backing on drums, are covering the Phil Collins classic “In the Air Tonight,” which was originally released in 1981.
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The advance clip on Instagram shows a cityscape with a line of cars pulled up next to a river. Stapleton is then shown walking down an alley where he locks eyes with Snoop as he gets out of one of the cars. The performance then kicks off with Santana behind the kit — pounding out the song’s legendary drum break — as figures hold up their cell phones.
According to USA Today, the artists and the song itself were selected after careful focus-grouping on the part of the NFL revealed the high levels of nostalgia inherent to Monday Night Football. One name dropped in the research was longtime announcer Howard Cosell, who commentated on the broadcast from 1970 until 1983.
“In the Air Tonight” remains one of Collins’ biggest songs ever, topping the charts in several countries and hitting the top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100.
“We just wanted to make sure we heard everybody’s voices – whether it was the fans’ voices, whether it was the artists’ voices, whether it was staying true to the Monday Night Football brand over the years,” video producer Rico Labbe told USA Today. “We just wanted to make sure we meshed all that together. It could be a challenge. But we think we hit the sweet spot.”
“We really felt that [Stapleton] had this soulful feel to him that incorporated everybody,” he added.
Meanwhile, Carrie Underwood has returned to Sunday Night Football for the 11th year in a row. Her version of “Waiting All Day for Sunday Night” is set to the tune of Joan Jett’s “I Hate Myself for Loving You.”
Stapleton is confirmed to be hitting the road with George Strait in 2024. His new album Higher is set to release on November 10. Click here to get ticket information and tour dates to see Stapleton and Strait on the road.
Photo by Becky Fluke, Courtesy of Sacks & Co.
