Monday, February 05, 2007

My Name is Prince...

USA Today gave Prince's Superbowl halftime performance an A, but I'm grading on a curve. In my eyes (and ears), the 2005 Paul McCartney performance is top of the heap. Mac's performance had good energy, and the set list served as a potent reminder of who he was and why he was prestigious enough to be there.

Yeah, Prince did have a tougher time, what with the weather and all, but why did he have to resort to covers? That makes no sense whatsoever... He could have banged out hit after hit after hit, and still stayed within the family-friendly decency guidelines. In other words, he wouldn't have needed to resort to Darling Nikki, and dry-hump the stage.

Yeah, the stage was remarkable and the band and the twins were great. Even the music itself was good, but my qualms are about the setlist. Prince is not one of those musicians that has had one hit album to draw from, and has to spend the rest of the night throwing out covers to fill time. He's got the back catalog to draw from, and it's full of hits. Use the massive promotional power of the Superbowl to remind people that you can kick major ass with your music...

Future Superbowl performers (because we know they're all reading Music Gluttons, right?) should study the McCartney performance for tips on how to do a Super halftime.

Grading since JBE (Jackson Breast Exposure):
Paul McCartney: A
Rolling Stones: B
Prince: B

4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Gotta disagree here. Thought Prince made a smotth move by not over-saturating with his own material. People will buy a new Mac album, but it takes some convincing to get back on the Prince bus these days. Being an oldies act would have probably been a bad move...

Then again - I could have gone for "Kiss" or come on, "Sign O the Times..."

11:04 AM  
Blogger Steve said...

For me, it still comes back to "if you got it, flaunt it..." In the case of Prince, baby got back-catalog. I mean, throw in Kiss or Raspberry Beret or Little Red Corvette (with an additional Chevrolet sponsorship opp!) and the joint would have been rocking. And then the set would have been that legendary set that Prince played in the rain.

Well, the setlist change and the assless pants he wore at the Grammies that year... heh. Nevermind, I don't need to see that again...

I think part of the problem with new Prince albums is that he's too obscure for his own good. I've got a copy of 3121 or 3171 or 1334, and I don't have a fricking clue what the title refers to... At least with his old obscure stuff you could at least guess what it was about...

11:55 AM  
Blogger casey said...

I think I have to agree with Steve. Prince sucked it up. All he had to do was walk out, play "Purple Rain" and "Kiss", and walk off. People would have cheered and he would be remembered for ages. Instead he came out with a backwards, housewife style do-rag, and played terrible covers of Jimi Hindrix and Foo Fighters. Seriously, Foo Fighters are still around (though not as good as the days of "Everlong"). If someone wanted their music during the bowl, why didn't they just hire FF? All in all I think it was a ridiculous affair, and I found myself wishing his equipment would short out in the rain just so it'd be more interesting.

7:26 PM  
Blogger Steve said...

Yeah, I thought the FF cover was odd too. I was watching with a group that weren't the biggest music fans, and they didn't know what the song was. They clued right in to All Along the Watchtower, but the rest could have been an obscure Prince song for all they knew...

Maybe Grohl needed some royalty money and sent Prince an email beforehand... "Dear Prince, I hear you're doing the SuperBowl this year, and I hate to ask this, but I just bought a new mansion and Courtney has snorted all the Nirvana money..."

2:32 PM  

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