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Monday, February 8, 2010
On TV / Awards / Opinion / Mike McCray / News The halftime cultural divide
Posted By Mike McCray on Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 5:16 PM
Half-way through the Saints win during Super Bowl XLIV last night, The Who took the stage in Miami to perform the hits.
Now, I wouldn't consider them crossover artists by any means, but I'm at least aware of them and willing to argue that everyone who's ever watched TV or a movie has heard, "Who Are You" and "Baba O'Reilly" but following people's reactions on Twitter, thoughts and opinions were clearly split along racial lines.
One side raved about the band, 'still having it' and the lights being awesome while the other had lots of "Who the fuck are The Who? and "That old white guy's gonna die on stage" tweets, the funniest one from comedian Lil Duval, "I wonder is this how white people felt when Nelly performed at the Super Bowl?"
Light-hearted, but an interesting point.
Look, there's no way of pleasing everybody, but will the halftime show of the biggest game of the year ever find an artist who can peak the interest of a majority? I thought Prince was a great choice a few years ago. I don't really hear a lot of non-Blacks going on about "Purple Rain" or anything but back in the whole androdranas era, he was a crossover hit.
Mash-ups shows are always awkward, remember Aerosmith and Brittney Spears?
So, can we still blame Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson for widening the gap? (and ruining TV?) If you think about it, that was the last Super Bowl halftime show to really go for more than one group.
What's the solution? At the moment, being bestowed with the honor of performing halftime of the Super Bowl seems to be a lifetime achievement award and a symbolic, one foot in the grave. We really don't need teen girls ruining the party waiting on the Jonas Brothers or Miley Cyrus. Jay-Z is huge but realistically, could they even afford him?
What if they took it back to the first Super Bowl and get some black college marching bands to do halftime? That kinda just reverses the roles of the same problem.
What if the music reflected the actual players, kinda like basketball games where you don't mind hearing rap blaring because all the players like rap, you could probably get a good mix of stuff there.
Either way, something needs to be done before we end up with American Idol runner-ups or some legendary group with one living member left doing a medley of hits with a bunch of singers who weren't even born when the original song came out.
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