I just came to the realization last night that Will.i.am better be the most useless songwriter ever if he's going to keep those assclowns Apl.De.Ap and Taboo around. Taboo was all right, (his verses always suck, though)...but man, Apl.de.ap was fucking terrible in his one spotlight moment during Boom Boom Pow.
I thought Where Is The Love sounded really good. Pump It and OMG (albeit that was mostly just a dance break) were all right, and The Time (a mediocre song at best) was a good high-energy cut for the event. I Gotta Feeling, Boom Boom Pow and Let's Get It Started (arguably the three best songs of theirs that they performed) were all butchered, and Sweet Child Of Mine was going to be awful from the moment Fergie walked over to Slash. She sang rather well on Where Is The Love, and dropped the ball on every other moment of the performance.
There's still a reason this kind of music would be great for a Super Bowl. I just think that the Black Eyed Peas were pretty much the WORST introduction point for the genre. Maybe we could've had Jay-Z supported by Alicia Keys and a couple other people (maybe Linkin Park?,) or maybe Rihanna supported by the Live Your Life crew and Vampire Weekend. Hell, Kanye West could've done Stronger, Heartless, Power, and Run This Town. But the Black Eyed Peas just don't perform well live; every bit of Will.i.am.'s talent is studio genius, and while he did admirably, his crew completely dropped the ball.
Overall, it was still better than The Who (one of my favorite bands who badly need to stop performing,) and it captured some of the energy that makes a halftime show good. I think Tom Petty and Prince were probably both better, but I guarantee they'll figure this out better next time.
My guess for next Super Bowl is probably Green Day, Lady GaGa, or the Foo Fighters. I considered Katy Perry, but she's moving more and more towards power ballads with each single. Kanye could be an upset if his summer album goes well and has another "clean" cut on it. Justin Bieber is still too controversial, and isn't going to do much this year to turn that view around. I think digging deeper into hip-hop would be too risky for them to consider, so Jay-Z is probably out. Rihanna could take it back if she releases a follow-up to Rude Boy that isn't so sexual. And digging into standardized modern rock (LInkin Park, My Chemical Romance, 30 Seconds to Mars) would be a huge risk; there's still a lot of people out there who hate it, and if it goes poorly, they'll be lambasted if they retreated and picked a classic artist afterwards.
Picking a pop star is pretty much guaranteed to go over at least lukewarm, though, and the leading pop articles are Katy Perry and Lady GaGa. And those power ballads just aren't right for the Super Bowl, so I think Lady GaGa could bring another really high-energy show. I'll be seeing her live at the end of the month, so then I'll know how those up-tempo songs are live; usually, she does piano ballad versions of the slower songs during awards shows, though I know she does the up-tempo stuff during her concerts.
Otherwise, the rock groups that bridge the gap between people who lambast the halftime shows for "moving into this new, terrible music" and the people who lambast them for "hiring near-geriatric old fogey bands" are Pearl Jam, the Foo Fighters, and Green Day. Green Day, obviously the most popular of the three, is also the group that's made the most political statements; obviously, we won't be getting any "American Idiot", though we'll still probably slog through "21 Guns." It'd be a mostly high-energy show, and probably consist of some Dookie, American Idiot, and 21st Century Breakdown, peppered with one or two songs that were in Green Day Rock Band. Pearl Jam would have very little trouble doing a great job of getting the crowd excited, but pretty much half of their set would end up coming off of Ten, which has lost a lot of its fervor amongst most people. The Foo Fighters, though, are coming out with a new album this May, and the new album has a focus on high-energy stuff. They'd probably have to structure the set so that it avoided him doing a lot of screaming (the way Grohl screams is still not the kind a lot of the older audience wants to hear, not to mention the risk of technical issues) but it could be really strong, using some TCATS, TINLTL, ESPG, In Your Honor, and whatever the lead single off the new album turns out to be. Also, you'd probably get Josh Homme and John Paul Jones (for all the fogeys!) on the stage to play a Them Crooked Vultures song.
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OVERVIEW: The Black Eyed Peas largely dropped the ball, but still presented a show that at least captures the energy of what a Super Bowl Halftime Show is supposed to be about. Another hip-hop artist probably would've done better, but doing another hip-hop artist next year is probably too risky. Upcoming candidates include Lady GaGa (with a more-than-likely lukewarm reception,) Green Day (minus American Idiot-politics and Dookie-cursing,) and The Foo Fighters (with a rather strong show and no screaming.)
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