NFL Trade Rumors: Browns Looking at McNabb, Kolb
February 9, 2010Exploring Other Options for the Cavaliers
February 9, 2010
We usually keep our music conversations to ourselves at WFNY. A few of us have joked about starting a music blog. It wouldn’t be a joke if we all had more time to write on a weekly basis, honestly. Anyway, there are a lot of musical opinions amongst the writers at WFNY, so it is kind of fun when music and sports intersect at the Super Bowl Halftime show.
The halftime show was on a roll. We all know what happened in 2004 with Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake. Well, actually most of us didn’t know what happened until it was in the new cycle constantly for the subsequent weeks, months and even years. Regardless, that was a clear turning point in the show. In 2005 Paul McCartney took over those 12 minutes of performance time between the 2nd and 3rd quarters. In 2006 the Rolling Stones played “Start Me Up,” Rough Justice,” and “Satisfaction.” For me, personally, 2007 was the greatest halftime show ever as Prince finished his set with “Purple Rain” as the rain came down in Dolphin Stadium. 2008 Tom Petty did a very nice job with “American Girl,” “I Won’t Back Down,” and “Free Fallin.” I am not a big Springsteen fan, but even I can’t denigrate the fact that he opened with “Tenth Avenue Freeze-out.” As I said, the Super Bowl halftime show was on a roll. The key word being “was.”
And then the Who played this year. Admittedly, I am not the biggest fan of The Who. My joke (which I lamely repeated at least twice) leading up to the game was, “I think the Who should just play ‘Baba O’Riley’ three times and call it a night.” Just because I am not a big fan doesn’t mean that I would tell you they “sucked” or anything like that. (See Springsteen, Bruce) At the same time, I can’t sit here and tell you that The Who weren’t a dud. Without taking anything away from their catalog of hits, their performance left a lot to be desired. In hindsight, the Who were a bad choice. Except for a lot of us it wasn’t hindsight. So, who do we get to play this thing next year to bring it back to glory?
I don’t have answers yet, but I thought we could figure it out together. Here are my goals.
- I want to make this thing a bit younger than The Who next year.
- I prefer to keep it rock and roll, but I can be flexible with the definition of rock and roll. For example, Stevie Wonder would work except that he already did it in 1999.
- I do NOT want to return to the ridiculous multi-artist messes like MTV got into leading up to and including the Janet Jackson debacle. That doesn’t mean you couldn’t have two bands or a guest or two. You just can’t put Britney Spears with Aerosmith and N’Sync. That was done before and it was not a good time.
- Mass appeal. Even though I consider myself something of a musical snob, we have to know the audience and hit a big cross-section. Even if Icelandic death metal is your thing, don’t recommend it for the Super Bowl halftime show.
With that said, here are some names I came up with as possibilities thus far in no particular order.
Pearl Jam
Foo Fighters
AC/DC
The White Stripes
Radiohead
The Dave Matthews Band
Metallica
Coldplay
John Mayer
So help me out and give me some more names. I am sure I am missing some obvious ones.
133 Comments
T Leo – great addition. What about a Cream reunion?
LOLOL @ Matt #2 “Like Ray Charles, but living”. Sorry.
Bring on the P-Funk!
@ Scott – Cream reunion? Why not get the Yardbirds together? Page, Clapton, Jeff Beck (even though they never all played together).
I think that Beck would be amazing. Maybe not quite popular enough for a SB, but not too far off. Personally, I don’t think anyone would care about his appeal when he is rocking out “Black Tambourine”, everyone would be grooving. He’s got hits though: Loser, Devil’s Haircut, Where It’s at, Beautiful Way, E-Pro, Girl, etc. I also think The Flaming Lips, The Dandy Warhols, TV on the Radio, and possibly Spoon would also rock it out, but again, probably not popular enough.
Denny, Just to be proactive. I know you meant Jeff Beck, I wrote my post before I saw yours.
Pearl Jam would be cool to see.
But only one word is needed here… KISS
KISS would be a great choice to see during the half time show. huge catalog, one of a kind live show, everybody know who they are.
@ Desert Wahoo – only if it’s the midget KISS from the Dr Pepper commercial during this year’s Super Bowl.
These seem like the best choices to me:
RHCP
AC/DC
Green Day
Pearl Jam
Black Eyed Peas
Jay-Z/Beonce
pink floyd,wish you were here.THE WHO was awesome!
Forget about what you want, here’s what it will be.
They know now The Who looked so old children became mildly frightened. But they feel safest with 2 or maybe even 3 generation appeal. That knocks out tons of bands, all things vaguely rap, etc. Eric Clapton is close, but too obviously British for the venue.
The choice will be: Santana.
Somebody threw these names out, and I definitely can see any of them working fairly well:
Santana
Stone Temple Pilots (Lead singer went to my high school near Cleveland)
Eagles
Steve Miller Band
Chicago
But I still think the best choice with absolute mass appeal and good music for the show is:
Green Day. Even if they bothered me by selling out and going all corporate-political rock, they have enough great songs they could pick a couple old and a couple newer ones to put together a heck of a show.
Also:
Muse.
BON JOVI! The band is gearing up for its 2010-2011 Circle tour, and will be in full swing of things by the time of the next superbowl. Plus, Jon’s a fan of football, had an AFL team, is friends with Belechick and other big coaches, and Jovi has a great back catalogue of hits and has sold 130 million albums worldwide…need i say more?
SPINAL TAP! They go to 11.
the more I think about it…the more I think it should be Santana.
Latino appeal…global appeal..ability to bring in other artists seamlessly.
Shakira (illegal)
G&B (they sang ‘Maria Maria’ – one of my favorite Santana songs)
Rob Thomas (smooth)
Michelle Branch (game of love)
pick a couple of those and mix it in with a couple of his classics Black Magic Woman and Evil Ways and call it a set.
“We need a band that everybody likes.”
“Like Toto.”
“Right, like Toto.”
Da na na na na na in Afffffricaaaa.
BigSam… you sound too excited about this. ARE YOU FROM SOUTH JERSEY?!
GWAR wins. Live Super Bowl show would never happen again, so it would be good that nobody would ever forget it.
RHCP playing in their socks would be frickin hilarious. We’ve had an exposed breast and a phallic guitar shadow, why not just go all the way?
Slayer! Fits the “oldies” requirement for playing in the Super Bowl.
My #1 choice or idea would be to get Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr together to have whats left of The Beatles. That would be the biggest act that they could get. Now I know thats probably not that possible, So then my #2 is Bon Jovi.
My #3 is since it is going to be in Dallas, they could a country theme with carrie underwood, garth brooks and maybe tim mcgraw
Two words. Foo. Fighters.
foo fighters isnt a big enough name for the super bowl i mean i like them but it wont happen. they have been going with the bigger name bands for the last 6 or so years
Phish. Booyah.
I can’t believe I even continued to muse about this – I was going to suggest Mellencamp – but the Super Bowl must either stay at roughly the same echelon of rock stardom (e.g., The Stones (which is probably a step up), Santana (probably a step down)) or climb the stairway to Zeppelin. They have set the bar high.
Yeezy
p.s. kanYe West for all of you white people
p.s.s. I’m white too.
I’d also like to see Shinedown or 30 Seconds to Mars. Shinedown isn’t big enough but their music can be enjoyed by all of the super bowlers. 30 Seconds is a genre rock and kanYe would tick a lot of people off.
No. No 30STM, or Shinedown, or anybody that plugs a PRS into a Mesa Boogie Triple Rec set to ‘distort until it doesn’t sound like a guitar’. I’m all for decent modern rock bands, but no “daddy beat me and now i drink a lot” rock. More importantly, that stuff doesn’t have mass appeal. Unless you’re at a NASCAR event or an Ed Hardy t-shirt festival.
I agree 30Seconds wouldn’t work. We’re on the same wave length there Denny… But why not to Shinedown? I think their music fits into the overall rock category, not punk or emo, or screamo.. They are just a Rock band. IDK, maybe you are hearing things I’m not.
I’m just tired of hearing the outdated irrelevant music being played by a bunch of AARP members.
“I get it, you were a BIG band like 30 years ago. Ok, that’s nice, now can we move on as a society?”
This is fantasy, but a reunited G&R would be the ultimate…
Michael Bolton! I celebrate his entire catalog.
While all these are great suggestions, many of them are classified to only one particular group of fans (i.e. Metallica,
Rob Thomas, Garth Brooks, etc.) In my humble opinion, the show should come down to three bands:
Pearl Jam
Foo Fighters
3 Doors Down
The reason I classify these three bands as the only ones eligible is because of their appeal in Arlington and around the United States. They are all nationally recognized names and would play an awesome Super Bowl. They all have “heavy” songs but they have “soft” songs too. They are all crowd pleasers, and I would be more than happy any one of them played the 2011 Super Bowl.
If you really want it Super, combine Springsteen AND U2. They’re great when Bono and Bruce have played together. Imagine the possibilities, even in only 14 minutes.
Mellencamp would be a good choice when the Super Bowl comes to Indianapolis in 2012. I’m all for Pearl Jam, but would the NFL balk because “World Wide Suicide” was the band’s tribute to Pat Tillman and how the handling of his death was seriously botched?
BTW: if this predicted “music blog” starts up, I’d like to petition the board for a guest column position.
DUDE YOUR STUPID!! NO ONE LIKES METALLICA? THEY’ve only sold 90 million albums WORLDWIDE!! They sell out STADIUMS like where the Superbowl is on their own, and lastly, they have one of THE best energy lives shows EVER, which is what the SUPERBOWL is and should have!!