Published the day of the Super Bowl, I bet this guy is somewhat red-faced now after writing this particularly ill-informed filler...sorry, I meant 'article'.

For your amusement, I've linked directly to his blog at the foot of the page if you'd all like to go rub his face in it and mess with him a little!


02/04/07 CRITICAL MASS
Let's Go Crazy - Imagining a truly super halftime show
By Kevin Forest Moreau

Prince plays the Super Bowl halftime show on Sunday. He's great and all, but can we think a bit more outside the box?

Somewhere at or around 8:30 p.m. on Sunday night, halfway through the most-watched sporting event of the year, rock and soul legend Prince will prance onto a makeshift stage in the middle of Dolphin Stadium in Miami. No doubt he'll perform a couple of his better-known hits, maybe throw in a newer, lesser-known song from last year's "3121." If we're really lucky, perhaps he'll spring a surprise on the audience, like when he and Beyoncé opened the 2004 Grammy Awards. Then he'll take a bow, and that'll be it.

All due respect to Prince, who's proven himself a stellar talent, but I expect that at around, say, 8:50 p.m., millions of Americans will switch back over to the Super Bowl on CBS from ESPN or HBO or the Golf Channel or whatever temporary refuge they’ve taken. To be fair, Prince is a more exciting performer than the Rolling Stones (who played last year's halftime show) or Paul McCartney (2005)—to say nothing of Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson, whose 2004 "wardrobe malfunction" spooked the Super Bowl powers that be into booking safe, non-threatening performers.

Granted, the man who wrote "Darling Nikki," "Soft and Wet" and other risqué odes to the pleasures of the flesh isn't exactly in the same vanilla class as Sir Paul or the moss-encrusted Stones. But when you think bone-crunching, smash-mouth football, Prince's isn't the first name that comes to mind. Nor should the words "safe" and "non-threatening."

One of the 10 commandments of mass media, as any advertising copywriter, TV producer or newspaper editor will tell you, is "know your audience." Sure, the Super Bowl is more than just a football game. Millions of people who wouldn't be caught dead watching a regular season contest tune in each year for the sheer spectacle of it all—that, and the commercials. But that sense of spectacle can't help but be diminished when you interrupt the big event for a concert by a guy who dominated the music world … back in the mid '80s. (Hey, it beats the Stones, who haven't really mattered, if we're being honest, since 1978.)

Next Sunday, the 49th annual Grammy Awards telecast will feature a reunion of the Police, who are celebrating the 30th anniversary of their formation by stoking rumors of a comeback tour. That's a subject for a whole other column, but I mention it here because it's closer to the kind of hype-generating "event" the NFL should be considering to draw eyeballs to its crowning moment—something like the U2/Green Day collaboration that kicked off the New Orleans Saints’ return to the Superdome last fall. What about the aggro-rock band Rage Against the Machine, which is reuniting for this summer's Coachella Valley Music Festival? Rage would never compromise its politics by playing anything as corporate as a football game, but its angry, hammer-to-the-skull sound couldn't be more appropriate.

The point is, the folks charged with booking the talent for the Super Bowl halftime show should be thinking much bigger. If you continue scheduling acts whose vitality and relevance are questionable at best, the importance of the game itself will suffer as a result. Get Marilyn Manson, Alice Cooper, Rob Zombie, Gene Simmons and Tommy Lee to form a one-off shock-rock supergroup. Reunite Led Zeppelin, with Dave Grohl on drums. Coax N.W.A. to get back together, with Snoop Dogg sitting in for the late Eazy-E. Hell—grab McCartney and Ringo Starr, put Sean Lennon on vocals, add Eric Clapton on guitar (and maybe John Mayer for the younger kids), call it Beatles 2.0 and watch the ratings skyrocket exponentially.

Are any of those things possible? Perhaps. Would they be easy? No. But nothing worth doing ever is. The point is, the Super Bowl is supposed to be a huge deal. Let's start seeing some halftime entertainment that truly reflects that status, and the spirit of the game.

TELL HIM WHAT YOU THINK HERE!

ARTICLE LINK

'Nuf said.