GimmeSomeMo Posted February 1, 2012 Share Posted February 1, 2012 Oh right. Thanks for correcting me, I'm terrible We know Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest groovyguy Posted February 1, 2012 Share Posted February 1, 2012 http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150621235520339&set=a.74806480338.110065.72928245338&type=1&theater This Sunday the stage will be on fire for a memorable show! Madonna is Back, Are you Ready? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest groovyguy Posted February 1, 2012 Share Posted February 1, 2012 http://www.esquire.com/the-side/music/madonna-halftime-show-2012-6649772?hootPostID=5ca2dca3aa42d32b22eb5d90bea58670 February 1, 2012, 4:55 PM Madonna at Halftime, Home at Last She is the kind of superstar a game like the Super Bowl deserves By Tom Junod She was never Madonna, but Madonna was many things, and she gave birth to more. The Super Bowl halftime show is America's penitential stage. It is the biggest gig in the world, with the biggest audience, and it draws the biggest acts. But in many ways it's like the game itself: deracinated from any real fan base, given over to corporate excess, spectacular only in the sense that it offers spectacle, loud and overblown, subordinate to the products being hawked on the commercials. The game, however, often rises above the Christians-versus-lions atmosphere of excess because, after all, it's football — those really are Christians and lions, they're tearing each other apart, and despite all the artificiality they really do bleed. The halftime show never does. We watch Tom Brady and Eli Manning to see how good they might be; we watch The Who or The Stones or even Bruce to see how bad. Performers don't get to sing at the Super Bowl halftime unless they're among the very best in the world; and yet we watch them for the same reason we watch the first round of American Idol. They're old. They're irrelevant. They can't sing. They can't dance. They're sellouts. Their wardrobes malfunction. And, of course, they're old. The Super Bowl halftime show is at once an apotheosis and a reckoning, and the only performer who survived with his dignity intact was a performer who has for the last 20 years already subjected his dignity to the whims of his eccentricity — and even Prince did a medley of greatest hits and warhorse covers instead of new material. Next up is Madonna, who on Sunday in Indianapolis is scheduled to sing four old songs and one new one, and apparently the reckoning is already at hand, at least on the Internet. The woman is 54 years old. She never was much of a singer, and only slightly more gifted as a dancer. She affects an English accent, and at her last televised appearance, at the Golden Globes, she came off as both imperious and needy, with her arms worked out into strips of jerky. She's like a mother who embarrasses her children with her desperation to stay hot and current, and the moniker she's been given by the gossip industry — the disingenuously familiar "Madge," apparently short for "Her Majesty" — was last worn in public by the lady in the old Palmolive ad. What she really wants to do is direct... so how the hell is she going to survive the pitiless eminence of the Super Bowl? Here's how: She's Madonna. She's not better than The Stones or The Who, but she's bigger. Indeed, of four big acts that defined the Eighties — Michael Jackson, Prince, and Bruce being the others — she is the biggest, and the Eighties, for better and for worse, have defined everything that's followed. Her songs, arguably, have held up better than all but a few of Jacko's or Prince's, but what has made her so influential is not any of her songs but rather the way she has dwarfed her songs, the way she has made even the best of them almost afterthoughts, subservient to the larger spectacle of her career. No, she's not a great singer or dancer, but she never had to be, because she invented a new kind of stardom — stardom by way of Warhol's irony, by way of disco divahood, by way of New Wave dressup, by way of Reagan-era ambition. She was never Madonna, but Madonna was many things, and at a time when pop music was bitterly divided between notions of authenticity and artifice, she put a decisive finger on the scales. She invented not only herself but a relentlessly fungible idea of the self; she made us care not only about what she was doing but what she was doing next; and she imbued pop music with the values not only of MTV but also of Vegas. It wasn't that she was inauthentic, exactly, or artificial; it was that she knew that ambition trumped both, and that she could admit to striking a pose as long as she had another pose in her pocket, lined up and ready to go. Sure, the debate about authenticity in pop music drags on; witness the endless explication of Lana Del Rey (guilty as charged). But there wouldn't have been a Lana Del Rey without a Madonna Louise Ciccone; nor a Britney Spears; nor a Ke$ha; nor, obviously, a Lady Gaga. Nearly 30 years ago, Madonna invented pop stardom as we know it today, whether we happen to listen to Cat Power or Bjork, Nikki Minaj or M.I.A. — both of whom guest on our new single, by the way, and might very well appear beside her at the Super Bowl. So don't worry about how "Madge" is going to navigate the treacherous spectacle of the Super Bowl halftime show. The game will begin with warplanes splitting the sky; it will end with confetti raining down; and halfway in between, there she will be, at home in the most appalling extravagance. She gave birth to it, after all. Which is why she got away with calling herself Madonna. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HolidayGuy Posted February 1, 2012 Share Posted February 1, 2012 Nice- thanks for posting, groovy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 1, 2012 Share Posted February 1, 2012 http://www.esquire.com/the-side/music/madonna-halftime-show-2012-6649772?hootPostID=5ca2dca3aa42d32b22eb5d90bea58670 February 1, 2012, 4:55 PM Madonna at Halftime, Home at Last She is the kind of superstar a game like the Super Bowl deserves By Tom Junod She was never Madonna, but Madonna was many things, and she gave birth to more. The Super Bowl halftime show is America's penitential stage. It is the biggest gig in the world, with the biggest audience, and it draws the biggest acts. But in many ways it's like the game itself: deracinated from any real fan base, given over to corporate excess, spectacular only in the sense that it offers spectacle, loud and overblown, subordinate to the products being hawked on the commercials. The game, however, often rises above the Christians-versus-lions atmosphere of excess because, after all, it's football — those really are Christians and lions, they're tearing each other apart, and despite all the artificiality they really do bleed. The halftime show never does. We watch Tom Brady and Eli Manning to see how good they might be; we watch The Who or The Stones or even Bruce to see how bad. Performers don't get to sing at the Super Bowl halftime unless they're among the very best in the world; and yet we watch them for the same reason we watch the first round of American Idol. They're old. They're irrelevant. They can't sing. They can't dance. They're sellouts. Their wardrobes malfunction. And, of course, they're old. The Super Bowl halftime show is at once an apotheosis and a reckoning, and the only performer who survived with his dignity intact was a performer who has for the last 20 years already subjected his dignity to the whims of his eccentricity — and even Prince did a medley of greatest hits and warhorse covers instead of new material. Next up is Madonna, who on Sunday in Indianapolis is scheduled to sing four old songs and one new one, and apparently the reckoning is already at hand, at least on the Internet. The woman is 54 years old. She never was much of a singer, and only slightly more gifted as a dancer. She affects an English accent, and at her last televised appearance, at the Golden Globes, she came off as both imperious and needy, with her arms worked out into strips of jerky. She's like a mother who embarrasses her children with her desperation to stay hot and current, and the moniker she's been given by the gossip industry — the disingenuously familiar "Madge," apparently short for "Her Majesty" — was last worn in public by the lady in the old Palmolive ad. What she really wants to do is direct... so how the hell is she going to survive the pitiless eminence of the Super Bowl? Here's how: She's Madonna. She's not better than The Stones or The Who, but she's bigger. Indeed, of four big acts that defined the Eighties — Michael Jackson, Prince, and Bruce being the others — she is the biggest, and the Eighties, for better and for worse, have defined everything that's followed. Her songs, arguably, have held up better than all but a few of Jacko's or Prince's, but what has made her so influential is not any of her songs but rather the way she has dwarfed her songs, the way she has made even the best of them almost afterthoughts, subservient to the larger spectacle of her career. No, she's not a great singer or dancer, but she never had to be, because she invented a new kind of stardom — stardom by way of Warhol's irony, by way of disco divahood, by way of New Wave dressup, by way of Reagan-era ambition. She was never Madonna, but Madonna was many things, and at a time when pop music was bitterly divided between notions of authenticity and artifice, she put a decisive finger on the scales. She invented not only herself but a relentlessly fungible idea of the self; she made us care not only about what she was doing but what she was doing next; and she imbued pop music with the values not only of MTV but also of Vegas. It wasn't that she was inauthentic, exactly, or artificial; it was that she knew that ambition trumped both, and that she could admit to striking a pose as long as she had another pose in her pocket, lined up and ready to go. Sure, the debate about authenticity in pop music drags on; witness the endless explication of Lana Del Rey (guilty as charged). But there wouldn't have been a Lana Del Rey without a Madonna Louise Ciccone; nor a Britney Spears; nor a Ke$ha; nor, obviously, a Lady Gaga. Nearly 30 years ago, Madonna invented pop stardom as we know it today, whether we happen to listen to Cat Power or Bjork, Nikki Minaj or M.I.A. — both of whom guest on our new single, by the way, and might very well appear beside her at the Super Bowl. So don't worry about how "Madge" is going to navigate the treacherous spectacle of the Super Bowl halftime show. The game will begin with warplanes splitting the sky; it will end with confetti raining down; and halfway in between, there she will be, at home in the most appalling extravagance. She gave birth to it, after all. Which is why she got away with calling herself Madonna. Another moron journalist who hasn't done his research. Madonna didn't name herself. She is also an amazing and inspiring dancer. Her singing is decent but for me her voice is perfection. It's not always about playing around with a five octave range or any of that boring crap. Why do people who know-nothing feel such a desire to comment? It's strange. You wouldn't find me commenting meticulosly on something I know nothing about! Ugh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HolidayGuy Posted February 1, 2012 Share Posted February 1, 2012 Lawdy at that news anchor in the video quoting Wikipedia as a source. http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/entertainment/2012/02/report-madonnas-super-bowl-halftime-set-list-revealed/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest groovyguy Posted February 1, 2012 Share Posted February 1, 2012 Lawdy at that news anchor in the video quoting Wikipedia as a source. http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/entertainment/2012/02/report-madonnas-super-bowl-halftime-set-list-revealed/ It appears her set list will include her new single, “Gimmie All Your Luvin,” along with classics, “Ray of Light” and “Vogue.” Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuck82 Posted February 1, 2012 Share Posted February 1, 2012 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest groovyguy Posted February 1, 2012 Share Posted February 1, 2012 MTV News Canada @mtvnewscanada MTV NEWS: Weekdays @ 6:30pm et, MTV NEWS Weekend: Sat + Sun @ 6pm et on MTV Canada. Everything Music + Pop Culture. Toronto, Canada · http://www.mtv.ca/news MTV News Canada @mtvnewscanada Tonight on MTV News: Chatting with Madonna pre-Superbowl, Mac Miller takes us back to Pittsburgh, Katy Perry goes 3D + more. Watch @ 630et Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest groovyguy Posted February 1, 2012 Share Posted February 1, 2012 https://twitter.com/#!/nicolewinhoffer/status/164845281203060736 RT @nicolewinhoffer: @monterrific #superbowl #countdown #day 1 #indiana!!!!!! Practice makes perfect!! http://lockerz.com/s/179814892 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mattress Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FreeMySoul Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 SBStageCrew SuperBowl Stage Crew Madonna Halftime rehearsal in full swing. And it's field full of AWESOME. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drunkbysix Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 OMG so exciting! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest groovyguy Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 http://drownedmadonna.com/index/item/522-madonna-to-be-interviewed-by-bob-costas-during-the-super-bowl-pregame-show.html Madonna to be interviewed by Bob Costas during the Super Bowl Pregame Show During the NBC's Super Bowl Pregame Show, hoster Bob Costas will interview Madonna, who is going to perform in the Half Time Show. Madonna's fans, do not miss the Pregame Show as well! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mattress Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 http://drownedmadonna.com/index/item/522-madonna-to-be-interviewed-by-bob-costas-during-the-super-bowl-pregame-show.html Madonna to be interviewed by Bob Costas during the Super Bowl Pregame Show During the NBC's Super Bowl Pregame Show, hoster Bob Costas will interview Madonna, who is going to perform in the Half Time Show. Madonna's fans, do not miss the Pregame Show as well! WOO! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Topaz Scorpio Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 http://www.esquire.c...2eb5d90bea58670 February 1, 2012, 4:55 PM Madonna at Halftime, Home at Last She is the kind of superstar a game like the Super Bowl deserves By Tom Junod She was never Madonna, but Madonna was many things, and she gave birth to more. The Super Bowl halftime show is America's penitential stage. It is the biggest gig in the world, with the biggest audience, and it draws the biggest acts. But in many ways it's like the game itself: deracinated from any real fan base, given over to corporate excess, spectacular only in the sense that it offers spectacle, loud and overblown, subordinate to the products being hawked on the commercials. The game, however, often rises above the Christians-versus-lions atmosphere of excess because, after all, it's football — those really are Christians and lions, they're tearing each other apart, and despite all the artificiality they really do bleed. The halftime show never does. We watch Tom Brady and Eli Manning to see how good they might be; we watch The Who or The Stones or even Bruce to see how bad. Performers don't get to sing at the Super Bowl halftime unless they're among the very best in the world; and yet we watch them for the same reason we watch the first round of American Idol. They're old. They're irrelevant. They can't sing. They can't dance. They're sellouts. Their wardrobes malfunction. And, of course, they're old. The Super Bowl halftime show is at once an apotheosis and a reckoning, and the only performer who survived with his dignity intact was a performer who has for the last 20 years already subjected his dignity to the whims of his eccentricity — and even Prince did a medley of greatest hits and warhorse covers instead of new material. Next up is Madonna, who on Sunday in Indianapolis is scheduled to sing four old songs and one new one, and apparently the reckoning is already at hand, at least on the Internet. The woman is 54 years old. She never was much of a singer, and only slightly more gifted as a dancer. She affects an English accent, and at her last televised appearance, at the Golden Globes, she came off as both imperious and needy, with her arms worked out into strips of jerky. She's like a mother who embarrasses her children with her desperation to stay hot and current, and the moniker she's been given by the gossip industry — the disingenuously familiar "Madge," apparently short for "Her Majesty" — was last worn in public by the lady in the old Palmolive ad. What she really wants to do is direct... so how the hell is she going to survive the pitiless eminence of the Super Bowl? Here's how: She's Madonna. She's not better than The Stones or The Who, but she's bigger. Indeed, of four big acts that defined the Eighties — Michael Jackson, Prince, and Bruce being the others — she is the biggest, and the Eighties, for better and for worse, have defined everything that's followed. Her songs, arguably, have held up better than all but a few of Jacko's or Prince's, but what has made her so influential is not any of her songs but rather the way she has dwarfed her songs, the way she has made even the best of them almost afterthoughts, subservient to the larger spectacle of her career. No, she's not a great singer or dancer, but she never had to be, because she invented a new kind of stardom — stardom by way of Warhol's irony, by way of disco divahood, by way of New Wave dressup, by way of Reagan-era ambition. She was never Madonna, but Madonna was many things, and at a time when pop music was bitterly divided between notions of authenticity and artifice, she put a decisive finger on the scales. She invented not only herself but a relentlessly fungible idea of the self; she made us care not only about what she was doing but what she was doing next; and she imbued pop music with the values not only of MTV but also of Vegas. It wasn't that she was inauthentic, exactly, or artificial; it was that she knew that ambition trumped both, and that she could admit to striking a pose as long as she had another pose in her pocket, lined up and ready to go. Sure, the debate about authenticity in pop music drags on; witness the endless explication of Lana Del Rey (guilty as charged). But there wouldn't have been a Lana Del Rey without a Madonna Louise Ciccone; nor a Britney Spears; nor a Ke$ha; nor, obviously, a Lady Gaga. Nearly 30 years ago, Madonna invented pop stardom as we know it today, whether we happen to listen to Cat Power or Bjork, Nikki Minaj or M.I.A. — both of whom guest on our new single, by the way, and might very well appear beside her at the Super Bowl. So don't worry about how "Madge" is going to navigate the treacherous spectacle of the Super Bowl halftime show. The game will begin with warplanes splitting the sky; it will end with confetti raining down; and halfway in between, there she will be, at home in the most appalling extravagance. She gave birth to it, after all. Which is why she got away with calling herself Madonna. Great article. Very spot on! Except for the age of course. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FreeMySoul Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 omg that's exciting! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nikki Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 anyone know where to watch this pregame? is it the same as the press conference? is there a livestream of both? thank you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mattress Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 http://www.esquire.com/the-side/music/madonna-halftime-show-2012-6649772?hootPostID=5ca2dca3aa42d32b22eb5d90bea58670 February 1, 2012, 4:55 PM Madonna at Halftime, Home at Last She is the kind of superstar a game like the Super Bowl deserves By Tom Junod She was never Madonna, but Madonna was many things, and she gave birth to more. The Super Bowl halftime show is America's penitential stage. It is the biggest gig in the world, with the biggest audience, and it draws the biggest acts. But in many ways it's like the game itself: deracinated from any real fan base, given over to corporate excess, spectacular only in the sense that it offers spectacle, loud and overblown, subordinate to the products being hawked on the commercials. The game, however, often rises above the Christians-versus-lions atmosphere of excess because, after all, it's football — those really are Christians and lions, they're tearing each other apart, and despite all the artificiality they really do bleed. The halftime show never does. We watch Tom Brady and Eli Manning to see how good they might be; we watch The Who or The Stones or even Bruce to see how bad. Performers don't get to sing at the Super Bowl halftime unless they're among the very best in the world; and yet we watch them for the same reason we watch the first round of American Idol. They're old. They're irrelevant. They can't sing. They can't dance. They're sellouts. Their wardrobes malfunction. And, of course, they're old. The Super Bowl halftime show is at once an apotheosis and a reckoning, and the only performer who survived with his dignity intact was a performer who has for the last 20 years already subjected his dignity to the whims of his eccentricity — and even Prince did a medley of greatest hits and warhorse covers instead of new material. Next up is Madonna, who on Sunday in Indianapolis is scheduled to sing four old songs and one new one, and apparently the reckoning is already at hand, at least on the Internet. The woman is 54 years old. She never was much of a singer, and only slightly more gifted as a dancer. She affects an English accent, and at her last televised appearance, at the Golden Globes, she came off as both imperious and needy, with her arms worked out into strips of jerky. She's like a mother who embarrasses her children with her desperation to stay hot and current, and the moniker she's been given by the gossip industry — the disingenuously familiar "Madge," apparently short for "Her Majesty" — was last worn in public by the lady in the old Palmolive ad. What she really wants to do is direct... so how the hell is she going to survive the pitiless eminence of the Super Bowl? Here's how: She's Madonna. She's not better than The Stones or The Who, but she's bigger. Indeed, of four big acts that defined the Eighties — Michael Jackson, Prince, and Bruce being the others — she is the biggest, and the Eighties, for better and for worse, have defined everything that's followed. Her songs, arguably, have held up better than all but a few of Jacko's or Prince's, but what has made her so influential is not any of her songs but rather the way she has dwarfed her songs, the way she has made even the best of them almost afterthoughts, subservient to the larger spectacle of her career. No, she's not a great singer or dancer, but she never had to be, because she invented a new kind of stardom — stardom by way of Warhol's irony, by way of disco divahood, by way of New Wave dressup, by way of Reagan-era ambition. She was never Madonna, but Madonna was many things, and at a time when pop music was bitterly divided between notions of authenticity and artifice, she put a decisive finger on the scales. She invented not only herself but a relentlessly fungible idea of the self; she made us care not only about what she was doing but what she was doing next; and she imbued pop music with the values not only of MTV but also of Vegas. It wasn't that she was inauthentic, exactly, or artificial; it was that she knew that ambition trumped both, and that she could admit to striking a pose as long as she had another pose in her pocket, lined up and ready to go. Sure, the debate about authenticity in pop music drags on; witness the endless explication of Lana Del Rey (guilty as charged). But there wouldn't have been a Lana Del Rey without a Madonna Louise Ciccone; nor a Britney Spears; nor a Ke$ha; nor, obviously, a Lady Gaga. Nearly 30 years ago, Madonna invented pop stardom as we know it today, whether we happen to listen to Cat Power or Bjork, Nikki Minaj or M.I.A. — both of whom guest on our new single, by the way, and might very well appear beside her at the Super Bowl. So don't worry about how "Madge" is going to navigate the treacherous spectacle of the Super Bowl halftime show. The game will begin with warplanes splitting the sky; it will end with confetti raining down; and halfway in between, there she will be, at home in the most appalling extravagance. She gave birth to it, after all. Which is why she got away with calling herself Madonna. Articles like this drive me crazy. Carefully (albeit thinly) veiled as Madonna-as-survivor pieces, yet little more than a series of slams that paint her as talentless. Madonna can sing and can dance. End of. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest groovyguy Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 anyone know where to watch this pregame? is it the same as the press conference? is there a livestream of both? thank you Pregame is aired on Sunday before the Superbowl Game. The press conference is aired at 11am on Thursday - Live from Super Bowl Media Center. Watch here http://www.nfl.com/superbowl/46/live View NFL Network's Super Bowl XLVI Schedule Thursday, February 2 8:00 AM - NFL Total Access at the Super Bowl - LIVE coverage of New England Patriots & New York Giants team availability 11:00 AM - Super Bowl Live - LIVE from Super Bowl Media Center • Madonna press conference 6:00 PM - Playbook Sunday, February 5 9:00 AM - NFL GameDay Morning - LIVE from Lucas Oil Stadium 5:30 PM - NFL Follies: The New Year Mis-Tackular 6:30 PM - NFL GameDay StatZone Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Littlebastard Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 Articles like this drive me crazy. Carefully (albeit thinly) veiled as Madonna-as-survivor pieces, yet little more than a series of slams that paint her as talentless. Madonna can sing and can dance. End of. I agree where is this article spot on? I LOVE Madonna's voice and wouldn't want her to have a voice like Kelly Clarkson or whatever. End. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Get Together Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 Articles like this drive me crazy. Carefully (albeit thinly) veiled as Madonna-as-survivor pieces, yet little more than a series of slams that paint her as talentless. Madonna can sing and can dance. End of. What I hate most is the fact that people either forget or dance over the fact that Madonna was once a STUDENT of the great Martha Graham! Clearly, SHE KNOWS HOW TO DANCE. And very well, I might add. Second, when people say "Madonna isn't the greatest singer," they should provide that this is an OPINION; I personally love Madonna's vocals, no other female musician knows how to emote so much power and sadness and sexuality as Madonna has been able to do consistently over the years. The truth is, Madonna always has and probably will continue to be hated by some of the public. And at the end of the day, she will continue to reign over the dance floor. Madonna is an ICON. A living legend! And she will continue to push boundaries. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neutrocks Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 Articles like this drive me crazy. Carefully (albeit thinly) veiled as Madonna-as-survivor pieces, yet little more than a series of slams that paint her as talentless. Madonna can sing and can dance. End of. I have to agree. I felt like the writer was degrading her talent. I don't see it "spot on". Yes, she isn't the greatest dancer or singer, but I think even the casual fans and those who enjoyed her at some point in her career, would say she had a unique and decent voice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flip The Switch Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 http://www.esquire.com/the-side/music/madonna-halftime-show-2012-6649772?hootPostID=5ca2dca3aa42d32b22eb5d90bea58670 February 1, 2012, 4:55 PM Madonna at Halftime, Home at Last She is the kind of superstar a game like the Super Bowl deserves By Tom Junod She was never Madonna, but Madonna was many things, and she gave birth to more. The Super Bowl halftime show is America's penitential stage. It is the biggest gig in the world, with the biggest audience, and it draws the biggest acts. But in many ways it's like the game itself: deracinated from any real fan base, given over to corporate excess, spectacular only in the sense that it offers spectacle, loud and overblown, subordinate to the products being hawked on the commercials. The game, however, often rises above the Christians-versus-lions atmosphere of excess because, after all, it's football — those really are Christians and lions, they're tearing each other apart, and despite all the artificiality they really do bleed. The halftime show never does. We watch Tom Brady and Eli Manning to see how good they might be; we watch The Who or The Stones or even Bruce to see how bad. Performers don't get to sing at the Super Bowl halftime unless they're among the very best in the world; and yet we watch them for the same reason we watch the first round of American Idol. They're old. They're irrelevant. They can't sing. They can't dance. They're sellouts. Their wardrobes malfunction. And, of course, they're old. The Super Bowl halftime show is at once an apotheosis and a reckoning, and the only performer who survived with his dignity intact was a performer who has for the last 20 years already subjected his dignity to the whims of his eccentricity — and even Prince did a medley of greatest hits and warhorse covers instead of new material. Next up is Madonna, who on Sunday in Indianapolis is scheduled to sing four old songs and one new one, and apparently the reckoning is already at hand, at least on the Internet. The woman is 54 years old. She never was much of a singer, and only slightly more gifted as a dancer. She affects an English accent, and at her last televised appearance, at the Golden Globes, she came off as both imperious and needy, with her arms worked out into strips of jerky. She's like a mother who embarrasses her children with her desperation to stay hot and current, and the moniker she's been given by the gossip industry — the disingenuously familiar "Madge," apparently short for "Her Majesty" — was last worn in public by the lady in the old Palmolive ad. What she really wants to do is direct... so how the hell is she going to survive the pitiless eminence of the Super Bowl? Here's how: She's Madonna. She's not better than The Stones or The Who, but she's bigger. Indeed, of four big acts that defined the Eighties — Michael Jackson, Prince, and Bruce being the others — she is the biggest, and the Eighties, for better and for worse, have defined everything that's followed. Her songs, arguably, have held up better than all but a few of Jacko's or Prince's, but what has made her so influential is not any of her songs but rather the way she has dwarfed her songs, the way she has made even the best of them almost afterthoughts, subservient to the larger spectacle of her career. No, she's not a great singer or dancer, but she never had to be, because she invented a new kind of stardom — stardom by way of Warhol's irony, by way of disco divahood, by way of New Wave dressup, by way of Reagan-era ambition. She was never Madonna, but Madonna was many things, and at a time when pop music was bitterly divided between notions of authenticity and artifice, she put a decisive finger on the scales. She invented not only herself but a relentlessly fungible idea of the self; she made us care not only about what she was doing but what she was doing next; and she imbued pop music with the values not only of MTV but also of Vegas. It wasn't that she was inauthentic, exactly, or artificial; it was that she knew that ambition trumped both, and that she could admit to striking a pose as long as she had another pose in her pocket, lined up and ready to go. Sure, the debate about authenticity in pop music drags on; witness the endless explication of Lana Del Rey (guilty as charged). But there wouldn't have been a Lana Del Rey without a Madonna Louise Ciccone; nor a Britney Spears; nor a Ke$ha; nor, obviously, a Lady Gaga. Nearly 30 years ago, Madonna invented pop stardom as we know it today, whether we happen to listen to Cat Power or Bjork, Nikki Minaj or M.I.A. — both of whom guest on our new single, by the way, and might very well appear beside her at the Super Bowl. So don't worry about how "Madge" is going to navigate the treacherous spectacle of the Super Bowl halftime show. The game will begin with warplanes splitting the sky; it will end with confetti raining down; and halfway in between, there she will be, at home in the most appalling extravagance. She gave birth to it, after all. Which is why she got away with calling herself Madonna. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lightsight Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 Love the guy at the end sticking up for Madonna Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Butter9 Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 Superbowl @ 6:30pm EST Fen 5, Sunday = 7:30:00 a.m. Monday February 6, 2012 in Thailand I'm even considering skiving off work !!!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest groovyguy Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 Madonna press conference in Indianapolis: February 2 at 11:00 AM Live from Super Bowl Media Center Tomorrow morning Madonna will attend the press conference in Indianapolis. 11:00 AM – Super Bowl Live – LIVE from Super Bowl Media Center Madonna press conference Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest groovyguy Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 SUPER FINALE SUPERBOWL AFTER-PARTY featuring MADONNA TOUR DJ ENFERNO at Blu/Hyde on Feb 05, 2012 Details: The Super Finale, DJ Enferno Blu/Hyde Indianapolis, IN Sun, Feb 5, 2012 08:00 PM Get tickets here Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest FrozenEyes Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 Love the guy at the end sticking up for Madonna WTF? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FlopJanet Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 http://drownedmadonna.com/index/item/522-madonna-to-be-interviewed-by-bob-costas-during-the-super-bowl-pregame-show.html Madonna to be interviewed by Bob Costas during the Super Bowl Pregame Show During the NBC's Super Bowl Pregame Show, hoster Bob Costas will interview Madonna, who is going to perform in the Half Time Show. Madonna's fans, do not miss the Pregame Show as well! LOL So now I have to watch the pregame show as well? At this point I'm going to be watching everything but the Superbowl itself. Pregame, half time, and The voice after. I have no interest in the superbowl itself though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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