Of Bruno Mars, Halftime, and a State of the Music Address.
Everybody is raving about the 2014 Super Bowl halftime show.
I didn’t like it.
At all.
To me, Bruno Mars’ act was something that you could see in any lounge in Las Vegas, and the Chili Peppers were, and are, just ridiculous. Seriously, why do people think everything has to be amped to the max to be entertaining? You have twerking and jerking, tattoos and nudity, profanity, obligatory dancers, lasers, smoke machines, make-up, pretty faces, and glitter, but not a lot of music.
It’s gotten to be tedious.
But hopefully, people are beginning to learn that when the dial is already all the way up, it won’t go up any further by forcing it. I believe the days of outdoing each other with manufactured shock and awe in music are coming to an end. Right now in America there are a million kids who can play blazing fast guitar licks and they’re all making Youtube videos in their bedrooms, but again, not a lot of music. Every rapper in the world fancies himself as the biggest and baddest of the bad and they’ve been shooting each other for years over it. It’s proven nothing.
Music is not an Olympic Sport. Some day an Olympic athlete might run a 5 second 100 meter dash and it will be hailed as a great accomplishment. However, the day, some kid plays a thousand notes on the guitar in 15 seconds and makes a Youtube to commemorate the event, well, congratulations son, you won…nothing. Theatrics and gymnastics are fine if the music has substance to begin with and they add something to the musical message, but music cannot and will not survive with these pyrotechnics alone.
Bob Marley was power in music. Bruno Mars is a Vegas lounge act.
Know the difference.
Dan King is admin for www.allthingsguitar.org