First we had the Swifties, convinced via Taylor's endless Easter eggs that she was going to play the Super Bowl. You don't need to be too sophisticated to know that she's off-cycle, and that would never happen. To start from nothing, create a whole new show, rehearse it...exactly why? She's got nothing to promote!
And that's what the Super Bowl is all about, promotion. It's capitalism at heart. You do your show, and the next day you put your tickets on sale.
Then again, Dr. Dre and Snoop, et al, had nothing to sell. They did it for the victory lap, to illustrate the power of hip-hop, how it dominated. A finger in the eye to the endless classic rock acts who preceded them, along with the popsters. Furthermore, they delivered what could not be bought elsewhere, which is very rare in today's society. It was one and done, it was special. And there wasn't even a movie thereafter, like with Beyoncé and "Homecoming." Then again, how many people watched the Coachella livestream?
But "Homecoming" was a Taylor Swift moment, with the fierceness sans the need to settle scores. It delivered Beyoncé gravitas, which she used to great effect with "Cowboy Carter"... Good luck saying something negative about Beyoncé, it's kind of like Charlie Kirk. Don't go against the tide. Don't even ponder if "Texas Hold 'Em" was country music...all you're going to hear in response is that country is derived from Black music, and you don't want to double-down and debate that.
As for Kendrick Lamar? His rap beef with Drake was not the all-encompassing cultural event his fans believed it to be, but this appearance was also a victory lap, with a poke in the eye of Drake and a racist society, but the only thing is if you weren't a fan of Lamar's music to begin with, you missed it completely. Then again, if you said anything against the performance, you were a pariah.
Which brings us to 2026. Who's it going to be?
This is kind of like the Song of the Summer, a fake construct that is irrelevant, kind of like another awards show, never mind that our society is so now so fractured and it's so difficult to reach anybody that no track rose above.
You can only live in the past for so long. Which is why the NFL hired Roc Nation to book the Super Bowl. The players are Black, the owners are white, it's a bad look, and the NFL is always worried about its image. Pushing anything that contradicts it under the rug, like CTE.
So Roc Nation is thinking about who will play the Super Bowl and...
First thing you have to know is a whole slew of people don't want to do it, for a multitude of reasons. They don't want to spend all that money only to be compared to Prince, unfavorably. They don't want to risk failing in front of over 125 million viewers. Maroon 5 still hasn't recovered from its appearance.
So, after you narrow it down to who is willing, which is a relatively small pie, since the acts pay the expenses and almost no one is going to do it if they've got nothing to promote...
Bad Bunny is a PHENOMENAL CHOICE!
Huh?
Friday night, at the end of Bill Maher's "Overtime," Thomas Friedman said:
"I've actually never looked at Twitter, never looked at Facebook, never looked at Instagram, never looked at TikTok, and never smoked a cigarette. And my plan is to die saying all five."
And Tom did not say this sheepishly, but self-satisfiedly.
Thomas Friedman may be one of the most derided opinion columnists out there, the naysayers declare that he's out of touch. THIS PROVES IT!
All that anti-tech b.s. in the "Times"... If I read one more article about the perils of the internet and social media...
Let's get this straight... The internet is NEVER going away. Nor is social media, although the platforms may change.
If you grew up in the fifties and sixties, TV was the devil. Did that make kids watch less? Their parents wanted them to turn off the box and read, like they did. Did it work? NO! And at this point, the highest art form, the most popular art form in America, is streaming television. TAKE THAT!
If you don't know about that which you speak of...
This is the problem with those on the right deriding the choice of Bad Bunny. They see him as a left-wing, Trump-hating Puerto Rican who does not deserve amplification. HOWEVER, Bad Bunny is one of the three biggest acts in the world, if not the BIGGEST! But they don't know that.
The three biggest acts in the world are Taylor Swift, Morgan Wallen and Bad Bunny.
However, as broad as Taylor Swift's audience is, her music does not reach everybody, females are overrepresented in her audience.
As for Morgan Wallen... As big as he is in the U.S., and he's GIGANTIC!, country music doesn't play that well overseas.
But Bad Bunny? Good time music works for EVERYBODY!
It was hard for many to appreciate Kendrick Lamar's Super Bowl appearance without knowing the music beforehand, which was the case for most viewers, ubiquity is history, everything is niche.
But you don't have to know Bad Bunny's music to like it. You've just got to hear it, and you're in. It's usually upbeat with a groove you cannot deny, it's nearly impossible to keep your body still, the fact that he sings in Spanish is irrelevant. As if most people can even quote the lyrics of their favorite songs...the words may be important, but they come LAST!
So, all those Republicans didn't just dip their toe, they jumped right into the pool and opined about that which they knew little about.
More people in the world know Bad Bunny and his music than were even aware of Charlie Kirk, never mind his message. THAT'S the power of music. When done right, its reach is phenomenal. Write your screed in the paper, online, even be a talking head weighing in on TV news...you're no competition for Bad Bunny.
Fox News averages 2.5 million viewers in prime time, 1.6 million viewers during the day. Bad Bunny? He's got a song with TWO BILLION streams on Spotify. Others with in excess of one billion. His reach is far beyond Laura Ingraham, never mind Corey Lewandowski and Danica Patrick.
This is a fight the right cannot win.
But let's play it out...
They lean on the NFL... Well, the NFL has plausible deniability, it can easily say music is so far out of their purview that they hired an outsider to make the choice, i.e. Roc Nation. As for final approval...their expertise is football, can you really blame them?
And the NFL does not want to cave, because Democrats watch football too...they don't want a Jimmy Kimmel situation.
As for Roc Nation... You don't want to pick a fight with Jay Z, he may not be an elected official, but he's a titan in America, a billionaire just like Trump, with an army of fans he's built over decades. He came from nothing and built an empire. Whose side is the public going to be on?
And Roc Nation are never backing down...never ever. Bitch all you want about DEI, the bottom line is being Black in America is still hard, and Jay Z knows it, he's never going to kowtow to the oppressor, the whites who have enjoyed the fruits of his labor and have kept his people down for centuries.
So the right wing talking heads are bitching about Bad Bunny...
And no one listening. They don't have the leverage. And like Thomas Friedman above, it's just illustrating how out of touch they are.
Never mind that Bad Bunny hosted SNL last night. Cancel Bad Bunny and good luck getting ANY performer who is not a dyed-in-the-wool Trumper to ever play the Super Bowl again. Isn't this what Disney learned, that it wasn't about Kimmel, per se, but their entire entertainment production, no one would work with them if they didn't stand up for Jimmy!
And even Nexstar and Sinclair caved.
So this is a bridge too far.
But having said that... One thing we have learned is you can never predict the future. Dr. Dre, et al, did the Super Bowl with nothing to promote. There was no tour, unlike with even Kendrick Lamar.
What I'm saying here is the NFL COULD blink. Nothing is set in stone anymore, everything is up for grabs.
You've got to understand that these are people making these decisions. And seemingly NO ONE has a hold on the culture, even though uninformed, head-in-the-sand doofuses believe they do.
Isn't that what the internet has taught us over these last three decades? That the newspapers and other media don't cover every story, and oftentimes they don't get it right? It's citizen journalists, the same decried by those who ruled in the past, who are surfacing stories/truth today.
Which is one of the reasons the NFL hired Roc Nation in the first place. Sure, they wanted to avoid responsibility, the plausible deniability referenced above, but in truth THEY JUST DON'T KNOW!
I'm stunned how many puffed-up people bloviate, not knowing what the landscape holds.
And if you're never wrong...
Hell, I've been wrong, I hate it, but it happens. That's the nature of being a human being. But these talking heads who never apologize, they've got feet of clay, they're depending on their fans to never see the truth.
This is what happened to movie stars. They used to be exalted. But once all their foibles, their personalities, their identities were revealed online, they were seen mostly as two-dimensional and not worthy of adulation.
The internet did that. And the internet made Bad Bunny a STAR!
The starmaking machinery?
That's so last century.
Like I said above, it's nearly impossible to reach anybody. TV appearances don't yield success...active listeners, those who sway markets, create hits and heroes, wouldn't be caught dead listening to terrestrial radio.
It all exists, FOR FREE, online. Pull up a Bad Bunny video on YouTube right now. MTV is never coming back...waiting for a video, are you kidding me?
My point is it's harder than ever to be big, and respect those who are. And Bad Bunny is big, REALLY big, and it is his audience that grew him, not the machine...he's really not obligated to anybody but himself.
Could Bad Bunny go gonzo on Trump in the months before the Super Bowl and lose the gig? Definitely, like I said, the future is unpredictable. But he's a smart guy and he doesn't want to, he wants that Super Bowl appearance now more than ever, to stick it to the man, those who believe he doesn't deserve a chance.
But Kristi Noem's talking about ICE at the Super Bowl... Have you seen the price of tickets? Do you think this is an event that draws a plethora of undocumented citizens? What next, looking inside the Jonathan Club or the Bohemian Grove for illegals?
And sure, maybe the vendors, the workers are not here legally. But doesn't that kind of prove the point, that these people are needed to make the whole thing work, our country?
Just like the shut down...
The news media is down in the weeds. Even health care is not the issue. The Democrats wanted their elected officials to take a stand, to say no mas, the details are IRRELEVANT!
And unfortunately, Trump and the Republicans can't see this.
Or, to use a cliché, you can win the battle and lose the war.
That's the question in Gaza right now.
That's the question with Trump.
That's what the Kimmel fracas demonstrated... Everything is intertwined, no domino is isolated, topple one and even if you war game it out a zillion times there will be unexpected effects.
So if you don't know what you're talking about, STFU!
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