[Image Source: Flickr - Trinity / CC BY-SA 2.0]

Raise your hand if you watched the Super Bowl. Keep your hand raised if you enjoyed the halftime show… Don’t lie now.

The The Who are a great band and have some great music. They have wonderful crossover appeal. I have a few of their songs on in my collection. They were part of the voice of a generation. The problem is that voice is not m-m-my generation. I am sure some baby boomers were more than happy to see Pete Townshend rocking out again. However, in the quick snapshot of the Twitter comments I saw as well as the conversation that was going around the living room, over the pizza, Doritos (great commercials by the way), and wings, none of us were too amused. Again, The Who are great, but there are other more current bands deserving of a shot to do a halftime set at the Super Bowl.

Last Tuesday, The New York Times discussed the the halftime show. In the article, Ken Belson talked about how the artists are chosen. He also touched on how the show itself has changed over time. In my limited memory of Super Bowl halftime shows, I remembered them as spectacles. Remember when Indiana Jones had to steal the Super Bowl Trophy? Remember The Blues Brothers? Remember ‘N Sync? What happened to that? Belson’s article has a little insight into the halftime show selection process. It turns out since 2004, the year of the wardrobe-malfunction, the selection of the halftime act has rested with the NFL. Since then some have noted the choice of subsequent acts as “safe.”

With the exception of Prince, who got away with an “interesting” looking guitar shadow, the halftime shows have been letdowns in the post-Janet era. This is personal opinion, so please disagree all you want. Take 2005, Sir Paul McCartney performed. What if someone like Mariah Carey, or Green Day performed instead? Since the NFL does not pay an appearance fee the the question then becomes one about availability and appeal, right?

As The Who played Baba O’Riley (a.k.a. Teenage Wasteland) one friend noted the irony of a senior citizen singing about a teenage wasteland. While they continued their set, we started to toss a few names around and I came up with Jay-Z. Some raised objection to his potential crossover appeal. I remember Marques made the suggestion of Lady Gaga via Twitter, and I shared it with the group. Think about the target audience of many of the commercials. Think about the target audience of the recent musical performers. There is a bit of a disconnect. I took a look at a Wikipedia list of previous halftime show performances. In the list, one link led to a Sports Illustrated top 10 list of halftime shows. Two of the halftime shows that made it into the top 10 were post-2004, The Rolling Stones (2006) and Prince (2007). The Stones’ core demographic are men over the age of 40. With respect to Prince, I would expect the same though perhaps a stronger following with women. Both have an undeniable universal appeal. There is one problem, they are not my first choice when I reach for my Zune. Mixview has a long list of more current artists they influenced. Electronic Arts did not try to sell Dante’s Inferno to my parents. They tried to sell it to me. The same could be argued about the GoDaddy and Bud Light commercials.

We are six years removed from the nipple seen round the world. Fines have been paid. Tempers have subsided (I hope). I get playing it safe. However, safe is boring. It is time to make the halftime show interesting again. What if we had an Avatar themed halftime show with the trophy as a hometree? Come next year, I hope I am not considering a switch to the Puppy Bowl instead of watching a twelve minute set from Boston, or Billy Joel. I kid, but this boring halftime show stuff has to stop. It does not fit with the rest of the pageantry that is the Super Bowl.