On Sunday it’s the Super Bowl. Which, to us Brits and non-sporting types means: “lots of thick-necked types dressed in costumes running around trying to prevent that inevitable aneurysm by making human pyramid shapes.” The ‘game’ also seems to consist of: some shouting out of numbers in non-consecutive order and the general wearing of old astronaut helmets. You can tell we’ve got it licked, right?
The ‘Bowl’ (as we believe the viewers call it), also has a musical interlude. The most famous of these halftime shows was in 2004 when Janet Jackson saw her guest star (‘The Nipple’) overshadowing the whole shebang. So much so that for a while networks considered giving The Nipple its own reality show (or at least syndicated daytime talk show Nipchat).
The backlash was massive and post-04, Super Bowl acts were chosen because a) they didn’t have any nipples b) they were too old to bust a sneaky, two second delay-quashing move that would incite even the teensy weeniest bit of controversy.
That is until this year, because they’re getting Madonna to perform. The governess of shocking turns is playing, and here’s a couple of things we’d like to see (and not) from the show.
5No Cheerleading
Do we need to see Madge cheerleading? Attempting an “Awesome”? (I’m not making it up, that’s what one move is actually called). Nooooo.
“Madonna plays guitar” was a cool novelty a couple of years ago. But it jumped the shark when she’d insist on committing power chord harakiri on her hits by replacing the synth lines with kid-in-a-guitar-shop-tries-to-play-‘Smoke On The Water’ style riffery. None of that please.
3Something Shocking But Not “Shocking”
Remember that Marie Antoinette inspired performance of ‘Vogue’ at the MTV Awards or the Grammy one with Gorillaz? Madonna can pull it out of the bag in a spellbinding way, by creating great performances. We’re willing her to do it again.
2Hits Not Medleys
There’s nothing worse than a medley – an endless 15 minute Jive Bunny style traumatic trundle through an act’s catalogue of hits. Everything ends up sounding terrible and you just wish they’d just focus on playing one actual song the whole way through instead of truncated versions of 17.
She has brought some ‘guests’. MIA and Nicki Minaj (amazing), Cee Lo (boring) but LMFAO? Their global success in 2011 surely was the final crack of doom in a pop landscape which included ‘The Lazy Song’, Jessie J’s ‘I’m mad me!’ face and ‘Judas’?
The duo should take their rightful place: being forced to stay roadside, selling hot dogs to gnarled football fans.
