Madonna At The Super Bowl
At least it’ll be on tape!
It’s been a strange week for music. Trying to be both hip and conservative, NARAS came up with Grammy nominations that could rival "The Exorcist" for making heads spin. The big sellers were ignored, a few token newbies were thrown in, like Skrillex, and journeymen like poor Joe Bonamassa were pissed they couldn’t qualify for a statuette, a link on their resume. Because yes, that’s what the Grammys have become, the domain of the little guy. While Neil Portnow is busy eliminating categories, he doesn’t realize his rank and file want to give EVERYONE a Grammy, they believe they deserve it for a lifetime of struggling. A Grammy is a giveaway, like those glasses you used to get when you bought a tank of gas, but those disappeared and now the Grammys have too and how’s a poor man supposed to stand such times and live?
So instead of having Metallica play the Super Bowl, which is the best fit, the audience, like the players, like to hit, or taking a chance with Grammy nominated Skrillex, turning the venue into a giant dance party, truly appealing to the younger generation and cluing in the oldsters, the NFL has enlisted this woman who is doing her best to look younger than the players, having been nipped, tucked and lifted almost to the point of extinction. That’s a conundrum, our biggest pop stars want to disappear. Although they want to dominate, they want to be skinnier and skinnier, with noses that in the case of Michael Jackson just about disappear.
As for the players in the game, Madonna is a contemporary of their mothers. Hip-hop runs the NFL. Just check the iPods they listen to to get psyched up before the game.
But nothing says America more than playing it safe.
As for Cirque du Soleil dancers, I’m surprised Madonna agreed, because they’re aging so fast you can see the sell-by date. If you don’t think Cirque du Soleil has peaked, you probably still believe you can sell that condo in Vegas, a decaying metropolis that is evidence of the mortgage mess foisted upon us by a government that said we could have it all without paying.
Listen, if she does "Express Yourself" and "Borderline", I’ll be happy. Those are great twenty (thirty?) year old records. But she’ll probably show a tittie or do something to piss off the NFL, isn’t that her stock in trade, ambushing our sensibilities?
But I’m just looking forward to the day classic rock dies. When there are no oldsters overcharging and keeping Live Nation in business. When the ubiquitous MTV stars fade away and radiate. That’s what people think music is today, a bunch of old farts overcharging for you to see them mime to tape. Maybe Madonna and Cirque are a perfect match, they’re both canned.
And what we’ve learned in the last few years is that these ancient performers are no match for the game. Yes, recently the Super Bowl has been anything but a snooze. It features tension, drama, adrenaline, all the stuff music used to deliver without really trying.
But now most musicians are just trying to get rich. Tell them they could make what an NFL star does and they’d suit up. Hell, that’s what I want to see, that’s what everybody’d tune in for, put Madge IN THE GAME! Let’s see her run her little tucas around trying not to get hit. Better yet, let’s see her punch out some three hundred pound lineman.
Madonna at the Super Bowl is so ridiculous, so endemic of what’s wrong with not only music, but America, it makes me glad that there’s an Internet not run by old farts running focus groups to provide homogenized entertainment to people who don’t really exist.
There is no typical American. Take a look at the giant YouTube videos…who could predict they’d succeed?
Then again, success is built on awe. Like a quarterback dodging to his left while he throws a touchdown pass to his right. We used to be awed at the show, we used to need to tell everybody about the music. If we speak about Madonna by the water cooler the day after the Super Bowl it’ll be because of a wardrobe malfunction, or something she says. Her music, unlike the game, is dead.
And music is being reinvented as we speak. And Madonna is left out. Because her paradigm evaporated. Being all things to all people, being able to reach everybody and dominate, those days are through, MTV doesn’t even call itself "Music Television" anymore. The Super Bowl is the last hurrah of the mainstream. Good for Madonna. Because any record she releases will be ignored by most, and it’s just a matter of time before we shrug our shoulders and refuse to overpay to see the faux glitz and glamour she provides on stage.
