Super Bowl Half Tme Music/Super Bowl Game

[dld]

Man, if this is the state of popular music these days its in one bad state. I never thougth I'd say the Britney/Backstreet Boys/Aerosmith show was better than anything but it beat this poop-a-rama. Kid Rock showed a little life (more than I can say about P Diddy and Nelly or Kelly or wtf his name is) but I'd rather he not have. BUT, the payoff of seeing Janet Jackson's right hoob pop out for the "climax" of the show was sort of a decent payback for the 20 minutes of sufferage. Thats right, at the end of her insipid "duet" with Justin Timberlake, he reaches over, pulls on her absurd gladiator or dominatrix or whatever suit, and out pops one Jackson hoob. CBS pulled away so fast I wasn't sure if what I saw was real. A few long distance calls confirmed from others what I'd thought. So this halftime show went from zero stars to, shet, how many? How do you rate this crap? On the bizarre scale, it would be way high. Anyway, Helluva game, prolly the best ever and that includes Pittsburg Hounds From Hell 35, Dallas Cowboys 31 in '77.

[MindGoneHaywire]

http://www.offtop.com/misc/janet.gif

[Jefferson]

http://www.offtop.com/misc/janet.gif

I think that pretty much proves it was intentional. Timberlakes actions are obvious, the outfit Janet had on was meant to tear away, and her freaking nipple is covered with a silver star. How typical of MTV.

[dld]

Hey HyFi, I agree about the eerie resemblance. I was very uncomfortalble looking at her as she amd MJ (sorry Michael Jordan) look identical. Wonder if Michael has a pair of girly boobs? With metal star peircings? On the other hand, I think thats a little more detail than I reallly want to know.

And Jefferson, MTV was supposedly promoting, all day long, a shocking act that was going to occur at halftime. I doubt if the shocking act was Kid Rock wrapping himself in a flag. Thats so, yesterday.

[Dave_G]

Aerosmith was crap. Did you see Joe Perrys haircut, he looked like a goob.

The halftime act was worse. I watched a little. Missed the boob.

They need to get Marillion to play next year.

Dave

[DariusNYC]

Janet Jackson was singing (or was she lip-syncing) "Rhythm Nation", which is a really good song. And Justin Timberlake was singing (or lip-syncing) "Rock Your Body", which is another really good song, which of course although it's wildly popular, none of you guys have ever heard. The last line of "Rock Your Body" is: "I'm going to have you naked by the end of this song", and then there was the obviously staged tear-off of part of Jackson's outfit, but whatever. At least they weren't lip-syncing (or singing) crap (of which there's, of course, a lot of on the radio). "Mo' Money Mo' Problems" and "Hot in Herre" are also good songs. Of course, you won't like any of the songs I've mentioned if you completely write off the dance-pop, r&b and pop-rap genres, like most on this board. My point is not that it was some great half-time show: it was slick and fake and annoying. But at least they chose good tunes to be slick and fake and annoying with, and at least Evenescence, Faith Hill, Creed, Nickelback and Staind were nowhere to be seen! You guys need to lighten up.

Oh yeah, and by the way, I'm coming out of the closet on this: Kid Rock rules! Sorry guys.

Anyone want a Pop Singles 2003 comp for your enjoyment? I'll put one together. It was actually a pretty good year for pop singles.

[Hyfi]

How did a black girl get a white breast? At first I thought I saw what you did, but I'm not so sure it was the real deal. Did ya notice, she has the same bad plastic surgeon as her brother. They both picked the same white nose from the picture book.

[Swish]

Man, if this is the state of popular music these days its in one bad state. I never thougth I'd say the Britney/Backstreet Boys/Aerosmith show was better than anything but it beat this poop-a-rama. Kid Rock showed a little life (more than I can say about P Diddy and Nelly or Kelly or wtf his name is) but I'd rather he not have. BUT, the payoff of seeing Janet Jackson's right hoob pop out for the "climax" of the show was sort of a decent payback for the 20 minutes of sufferage. Thats right, at the end of her insipid "duet" with Justin Timberlake, he reaches over, pulls on her absurd gladiator or dominatrix or whatever suit, and out pops one Jackson hoob. CBS pulled away so fast I wasn't sure if what I saw was real. A few long distance calls confirmed from others what I'd thought. So this halftime show went from zero stars to, shet, how many? How do you rate this crap? On the bizarre scale, it would be way high. Anyway, Helluva game, prolly the best ever and that includes Pittsburg Hounds From Hell 35, Dallas Cowboys 31 in '77.

I had to turn it off when Puff Popstar, or whatever goofy name he goes by now, came out with his entourage. That was enough gag factor for me. You got a nice payoff with the Jackson boob, but she was already singing with one, aka Justin Timberfake. Anyway, I changed the channel and jumped on the internet during the halftime show. The "entertianment" has become way too bizarre for me.

Swish

[-Jar-]

am I alone or has the media milked this breast issue to death already?

[Slosh]

am I alone or has the media milked this breast issue to death already?

Now that's an utterly predictable reaction

NP: Oxes

[dld]

am I alone or has the media milked this breast issue to death already?

Ha ha, Jar said "Milk this breast".

Hey, it took me a while to get it.

[ForeverAutumn]

Ha ha, Jar said "Milk this breast".

Hey, it took me a while to get it.

..."Now that's an utterly predictable reaction."

Oh you boys....all this fuss over a little breast. Now if you were in Canada, you would have seen the Canadian beer commercial with two women kissing.

Hmmm...I wonder what y'all would have had to say about that!

[Slosh]

..."Now that's an utterly predictable reaction."

Oh you boys....all this fuss over a little breast. Now if you were in Canada, you would have seen the Canadian beer commercial with two women kissing.

Hmmm...I wonder what y'all would have had to say about that!

I almost wrote udderly but decided not to dumb it down

~Slosh - I get jokes!

[Jim Clark]

..."Now that's an utterly predictable reaction."

Oh you boys....all this fuss over a little breast. Now if you were in Canada, you would have seen the Canadian beer commercial with two women kissing.

Hmmm...I wonder what y'all would have had to say about that!

that might not be quite as titillating.

jc

-hope that one hasn't been used-

[jack70]

Funny that this post was about the music and the game... and 95% of the posts don't even mention the game AT ALL. And then some of you complain about THE MEDIA making a big deal about the halftime nonsense ... all the while you're doing the same thing. Some of you guys call yourselves football fans???

1/ The crapola...

I can understand some of the public backlash of the halftime crap (more dumbing down of the culture), but it's no less insidious (IMO) than most primetime fare like "Friends" (lame), or MTV (more lameness), and MOST of the crap (overt violence or sexuality, when used without any meaningful plot reasons, simply for shock value) on TV. I'm not saying you don't have the right to watch that sorta stuff... just that there's a TON of it out there already, and not that inspiring for younger viewers. I just think you got this backlash from many parents of kids that don't let em watch much TV, and are more perturbed at how violence & sex is forced down their young kids throats against the values they're trying to impart to their kids. BTW, where are the NOW libbers, who used to get upset at the culture implication that assult is OK if it's "cute"... fine message for the kids who don't know any better. And we wonder why grammer school kids use the F-word.

The whole sexualization of prepubescent kids in our culture today is a little disturbing... and sadly, I don't have much in the way of insight or answers for it. Having said that, most football commercials are overtly sexy (Coors beer twins, etc), and this type of lame/sexy popular music is the norm today. I also see heaps of irony in Tagliabue professing outrage at the halftime show. In a sport where steroids, strutting, borderline humiliation, drugs, sex, criminal activity (Panthers), are all such a huge part of the sport, it sounded a pretty funny.

But why anyone would watch the so-called "entertainment" is beyond me. I watched a little of ESPN's pregame discussions at 11AM, but I didn't turn the TV on till kickoff at 6:30. I've been watching local weekly breakdown shows of the Patriots games since September, and I was more interested in The GAME than anything else. I didn't watch ANY of the halftime nonsense live.

Musically, what I saw in the replays was really shallow. Old tunes, and I heard much was lip-synched... TOTALLY unacceptable IMO. Fakers. That's the best we can do America today? Our culture is seen throughout the world for the superbowl, and that's the best those stupid CBS/MTV suits can come up with? Anyone remember the great PBS Blues series last year? Why not do a show that unites some of those classic oldtimer musicians and the new Blues generation... could have been spectacular IMHO. It never ceases to amaze me how most corporate types in the media etc are so tone-deaf to what's original or good. Or how they target everything at the teen market demographic, even though it was a minor part of that audience. It's gotta be the Peter Principal at work.

2/ Now, about the game... enough on the stupid "entertainment"...

I've followed the Pats since the 70's. For those that haven't seen the Pats much, that's exactly the type of game they've played most every week this season. Early lead... looks like they're the better team, yet the other team makes a run at the end... and the Pats are forced to make a furious last minute charge to pull it out of the fire. It's the type of season few fans ever get to enjoy, and it's been a long time coming.... finally a season where most breaks goe your way, and when they don't you still get another chance to redeem yourself. It's also special because we lost so many starters to injury this year, more than any other NFL team, yet still persevered.

I thought the zebra's were pretty good... don't think it effected the outcome anyway. Same with the Panther's decision to go for 2 pts... I thought it was an OK decision... but ya gotta use an "outta the box"play, and make it. Considering the Pats missed 2 "gimme" field goals, gave up a FG on a stupid squib kick before halftime(!), lost Rodney Harrison to injury (broken arm) which resulted in an 85yd TD by Carolina, and blew an easy 3 or 7pts with the intercept in the endzone near the end... I was glad the Pats came out on top -- would'a been a long offseason had they lost knowing they blew all those points (23). Altogether, a great game, with a couple of superbowl records (37pts in the 4'th Q!)

Did anyone see the replay tape of the streaker? Was on our local Boston sports show. Funny as hell... a near-naked dancin' & prancin' fool making an ass of himself... finally someone ran out to get him before Matt Chatham of the Pats drilled him to the ground with a nice body blow...BAM. I think the players were hardly in the mood for such nonsense at that point. What's hard to understand is how he got access to the field... lots of reporters with official credentials were totally barred from the lower field. And why'd it take so long for anyone to react to it?

We SHOULD be stronger next year, with the draft picks and players coming back from injury. But football rarely goes according to hoyle... and that's partly why it's such a great game. Congrats Pats... congrats Panthers.

[dld]

Jack, I totally agree with your analysis of the game. Personally, I was pulling for Carolina (since Dallas beat them this year, we could have claimed title to being a team that beat the champs). However, the non partisan sports fan in me wanted New England to come out on top. Hell, like you said, they flat gave away 23 points. End of story. To have lost that game would have been an injustice to the total effort they put forth. I just wish their fans knew how to celebrate a nationaL championship like our Tiger fans down here in beautiful (well, sort of) Baton Rouge. I guess we're more of a group of friendly drunks

Towards the end oft the game, I was getting a feeling similar to the feeling I had when LSU was in the position of having totally dominated OU in the Sugar Bowl, but faced the real possibility of OU scoring a TD against a very tired Tiger defense in the waning minutes, forcing an OT, and who knows what after that? Why Stoops abandoned the running game to go to the pass, after he had run our defense into the ground is beyond me. I'll forever be thankful for his decision tho.

As far as the dumming down of our culture, I just won't accept that as the norm. Call me idealistic, but just because its there doesn't mean we have to accept it. I read today the Beyonce lip syched the National Anthem. WTF???

As for Friends, I've grown rather fond of it in reruns. Certainly better than the basic sitcom fare gracing our airwaves. (none of which I've watched more than an episode or two, I'd rather watch bombs explode on the History channel). I only catch it for one reason, it comes on before the daily Simpson's rerun, so I usually see the final 2-5 minutes of it every evening after dinner. Perhaps in small doses like that its not so offensive???

[jack70]

Yeah... it's true... often the best team doesn't get to win the title. It's why sports is so exciting. The all-time example of that is NC State winning the NC in hoops... they wouldn't have even made the cut for the final top-48 seeding if they hadn't won 3 in a row for the ACC title and the automatic berth... and they gave us the greatest, most exciting ride of any hoops champion ever.

This really WAS a Cinderella-season for the Pats... how often do teams win so many close games? Yeah, it would'a been very tough for the Pats to swallow a loss because of a few errors, after playing so well (better overall). But the same thing happened in their AFC-Champ win over the Colts... they dominated Manning and their running game, yet the Colts were still within striking distance till the very end. It's partly because every team that gets this far is really good... you rarely see a team get shut-out badly unless they ALL get up with their bio-rhythms out of sync (Colts over Denver).

People talk about the Dolphins 17 game streak, but the Pats played something like 11 games against teams with winning records.. a much harder road than Miami did. BTW, they also won all 4 pre-season games (usually a bad sign for the season).

Makes you wonder how serendipitous Drew Bledsoe's injury against the Jets was 3 years ago... who knows how different things would be if that never happened. I also want to say that most of the Pats are a bunch of great guys off the field... many like Richard Seymore are on weekly interview shows and are really terrific guys. Brady as well... all the accolades haven't swelled his head... he has his ego under control. It's really refreshing in today's world of celebrity-ego-idiots.

I just wish their fans knew how to celebrate a nationaL championship like our Tiger fans down here in beautiful (well, sort of) Baton Rouge. I guess we're more of a group of friendly drunks.

I think it would'a been a lot worse if it hadn't been below freezing here for the past month. God knows what will happen if the Sox ever win it all...LOL. I don't understand it myself... but that behavior sort of echoes what we were all reflecting on with the media becoming dumbed-down and overly-sexual over the past decades. Stuff that wouldn't have been accepted decades ago is now commonplace. Maybe it's just a cycle-ish thing for the culture... or maybe it'll get worse in the future.


As for sit-coms like Friends, It's partly because I've watched stuff like Gleason's Honeymooners and All in the Family, and find most of today's shows poorly written, if not total rehashes of plotlines which are already 10'th-generation copies. The only sitcom I've even watched in the last 20 years is Seinfeld, and only occasionally. At least they tried to be a little different there, and although they often struck out, they also often hit some home runs. I just found the characters in Friends to be hollow, with no positive redeeming values... something you got with Gleason, Andy Griffith, & even the much-maligned Beaver. I watch my share of junk-TV too, but my main "complaint" is that too many Kids watch it, and get the idea it must be good. Shakespeare is good... and there are lots of great old movies and TV shows... and I wonder if too much 2'nd-rate fare will kill/stunt kid's appreciation (and seeking out) of truly rich film & literature. But I'm getting into R. Pirsig philosophical territory here, so I'll leave it at that...LOL.

TV is essentially a "public" venue... one we all own, at least in principle, and it should be held to a different dynamic than something you have to seek out or pay for (extreme violence and extreme sexist fare). If all parents were GOOD parents: wise, and who talked about these things all the time, I wouldn't be so concerned... but too many parents aren't even up to the task of raising a pet, let alone a human being. The schools can't make up for such parents abrogations, although occasionally a special teacher or coach can save such kids.

...I'd rather watch bombs explode on the History channel

Did you catch any of their recent 4-part/4-hr shows on The Barbarians? (Viking's, Huns, Goths and Mongols)... pretty good historical re-enactments if you're into history at all. I also enjoy American Chopper on the Discovery Channel.... mixes art and mechanics (motorcycle design) in a pretty cool reality-type show (I've NEVER watched any of the "real" reality shows). The family dynamics there are typical of what I & my friends grew up with, and I think many guys can appreciate that interplay there. BTW, their Superbowl commercials were better than most of the others.

[nobody]

I always think the way we as a society in the US have no problem with violence, but are deathly afraid of sex is pretty funny. I remember when I worked in a video store. You'd get parents coming in with little kids and picking out the most brutally violent things they could find, action, sci-fi, and war movies the kids wanted to see, without a second thought. Then the dad would come up with one, get all serious and ask, "there isn't any nudity in this, is there?" Like, marinating your kids brain in mindless violence from age 3 up is OK, but god forbid he see a female breast. I was always fairly shocked to see how common such attitudes were.

Oh...and I still think Miss Jackson's hot.

[Dusty Chalk]

I always think the way we as a society in the US have no problem with violence, but are deathly afraid of sex is pretty funny. I remember when I worked in a video store. You'd get parents coming in with little kids and picking out the most brutally violent things they could find, action, sci-fi, and war movies the kids wanted to see, without a second thought. Then the dad would come up with one, get all serious and ask, "there isn't any nudity in this, is there?" Like, marinating your kids brain in mindless violence from age 3 up is OK, but god forbid he see a female breast. I was always fairly shocked to see how common such attitudes were.

Thank you. I was just trying to say this aim thing on another forum. Like they haven't seen a booby before. What do you think they grew up on, bottles? And like there's anything wrong with seeing a booby. I think parents just get embarassed and don't want to talk about it, that's why they don't want their kids to see it.

I mean, you know cigarettes leads to marijuana, and marijuana leads to harder drugs, right? What the L does seeing a breast lead up to? Having sex? Becoming a pervert? Remaining heterosexual? I can think of worse destinies in life...

[DariusNYC]

One clarification on my earlier post, by the way: I'm not defending the Super Bowl Halftime Show; I thought it was pretty lame. I'm just making the rather less controversial statement that "Rhythm Nation", "Rock Your Body", "Hot in Herre" and "Mo' Money Mo' Problems" are quality toonage, at least in their original recorded versions.

I don't think I'm going too much out on a limb here. For example, Jackson's Rhythm Nation album was criticially drooled over when it originally came out, and it was a huge hit as well, and this was one of the biggest songs from that album (of course, that was, like 14 years ago or so which leads us to ask why they were focusing on that for a 2004 halftime show, but that doesn't take away from the quality of the recording itself, nor does the weak, probably lip-synced performance). Similarly, the other three songs were wildly popular (although only one, "Rock Your Body", was from 2003) with major crossover appeal in different demographics. If I remember correctly, "Rock Your Body" by the hated Justin Timberlake placed quite high in sacred Pitchfork's Best Singles of 2003 list, for all you alterno-folks who follow Pitchfork. Timberlake's album was quite well-reviewed and placed on several critics' year end best-of lists, and of course it was a huge seller as well. Personally, I think the updated Michael Jackson-style groove on that song is one of the catchiest things I've heard all year (of course, you couldn't tell that one way or another from the little snippet that was played during the Super Bowl). I don't actually have the official lowdown on Nelly's "Hot in Herre" from our nation's blessed critics, but I'm sorry, if you don't find that song enjoyable you should check for the tag on your toe (again, they only played a little snippet of it at the show, so if you didn't like it or know it beforehand the halftime show wouldn't have won you over). I also don't have any objective way of defending "Mo' Money Mo' Problems", except by referencing the fact that it was a huge hit, but a lot of awful songs are huge hits, I know. I do know that all my friends at the Super Bowl Party (I think we were a younger group than that attending most of your Super Bowl parties) were grooving just as much as I was when that number came on. Again, I just think it's a groovy groovy song, with good low key rapping on the verses and of course that catchy chorus.

My point is not that any of what I said should convince everyone, but just that I'm not making some wild out-there statement, just that certain songs that happen to be incrediblly popular that were played during the Super Bowl Halftime show also happen, cooncidentally I'm sure, not to suck. Good pop should be celebrated and defended because there is so much bad pop out there, and good pop brings folks together and is the opposite of elitist or exclusionary; it unites demographics. One nation under a groove y'all. That's why a song like R. Kelly's "Ignition Remix" or Outkast's "Hey Ya!" is worth more to me than the entire Shalabi Effect or Microphones catalog.

But no, I'm not defending the Super Bowl halftime show per se. Couldn't they allow someone to actually perform a song and finish it, for example? Maybe they could've actually got some life out of one of these performers.

(Oh, did I mention that Kid Rock rules? Sorry again, guys!)