MILLER: Super Bowl show and the year of once irrelevant musicians
I may be making a big mistake by writing this week’s column about the topic I have in mind, but I’m willing to take the risk.
I just hope I don’t drop the ball with my credibility like Wes Welker does with passes during the fourth quarter.
So to those who faithfully read my columns, all five of you, here I go.
I enjoyed this year’s Super Bowl halftime show.
(I’ll give everyone a few minutes to collect themselves.)
OK, good. Now allow me to explain.
I’m not a Madonna fan, but it’s hard to deny what the woman has done with pop music during the course of her career.
According to Guinness Book of World Records, Madonna has sold more than 300 million albums worldwide. She’s also known for her songs “Vogue,” “Papa Don’t Preach,” “Express Yourself,” and “Like a Prayer.” Like it or not, Madonna is one of those artists where it’s almost impossible to find a person on the Earth who hasn’t heard one of her songs.
Even if you’re not the biggest fan of her music, you have to admit she did exactly what she was hired to do at the Super Bowl:
Perform.
Madonna also had the advantage of not being the Black Eyed Peas, so her show was better than last year by default. Not even the short cameo appearance by Slash saved that performance. Then, just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, in comes Usher.
As the government reporter, I couldn’t help but wonder who embarrassed Texas more in the last year: Jerry Jones or Rick Perry.
Utilizing everything a big name performer would need on the nation’s biggest stage: Madonna had lots of lights, choreographed dancers, and used well-known guest stars to support her. Younger generations may not have known who Madonna was, but they knew LMFAO, Nicki Minaj, Cee Lo Green and M.I.A.
In short, the show was fantastic, even if M.I.A. caused a brief “controversy” by flipping off the camera while singing “I don’t give a…” Well, all we need to know is that it was a bad word.
Now I haven’t seen any penalties or fines issued, yet, but I’m sure the Federal Communications Commission will be flipping out about it.
But is giving the camera the bird really offensive? And if it is, is it more offensive than those ridiculous Go Daddy commercials?
Madonna wasn’t the only musician on TV that night who has been around for a while. In fact, several older bands were shown throughout the course of the night during the commercials.
Mötley Crüe was shown in a Kia commercial performing their hit “Kickstart My Heart,” a song written by bassist Nikki Sixx about his infamous 1987 overdose in which he was declared clinically dead before being revived by two adrenaline shots to the heart.
Always wanting to be a rock star at some point in my life, watching that commercial made me glad I am where I am now behind a desk typing. The commercial showed the band playing their hit while the Kia drove by.
And man, did they look old. Time has not been good to any of them. Especially Tommy Lee.
The best, “almost” irrelevant band to show up was during the Samsung commercial with The Darkness.
The British glam rockers best known for their 2003 hit “I Believe in a Thing Called Love” showed up seemingly out of nowhere during that ad, causing me to almost spill my drink on my own Samsung cell phone.
In fact, because of that commercial, I looked the band up and they’re supposed to have a third album out sometime this year. It’s pretty exciting stuff.
Hopefully next year, the commercials with musicians and the halftime performances are half as good as they were this year.
Just, no more Super Bowls with the Patriots or Giants. I can do without them.
