二楼

排名从最差到最好

第三十二名
The worst. Just the worst. Watching at the time, you instantly knew you were witnessing something magical and special – like seeing a unicorn cough up blood. The Black Eyed Peas had light-up robot suits. Cool! Sorta! They did their version of “I’ve Had the Time of My Life.” Not so cool! Usher looked like he wanted to hide. Then the tragic words: “Ladies and gentlemen . . . the one and only . . . Slash!” Oh Slash, poor Slash – dueting with Fergie to “Sweet Child o’ Mine.” How did this happen? This was the same Super Bowl where Christina Aguilera did her memorable interpretation of the National Anthem, so yeah, music had a rough day. So did Steelers fans.

第三十一名
Before the 1990s, the Super Bowl honchos had no idea they could turn the halftime show into part of the event. Until then, it was a bathroom break. So there’s no point making marginal distinctions between the first 24 of them – a low-budget blur of college marching bands, Elvis impersonators, Carol Channing, George Burns, the Rockettes, and year after year, Up With People, who were chipper castrati packed in ice between Super Bowls, then defrosted as an annual reminder to NFL fans that bladders get full and plumbing can help. It’d be silly to judge these by modern-day standards, since none were planned as anything more than cheeseball filler. But at least they weren’t the Black Eyed Peas.

第三十名
This is where people started learning they could put on an actual show at halftime. But learning slowly. Don’t blame the New Kids, who didn’t get to sing any of their perkier tunes. Instead, they got stuck doing their sappiest hit, “This One’s for the Children,” segueing into a Disney kiddie choir. Except the Gulf War had just started, so “It’s a Small World (After All)” was the last sentiment anyone wanted to hear. Since ABC News did a war report during halftime, this got bumped until after the game, which was probably for the best. The New Kids said their piece a couple weeks later at the American Music Awards, where Donnie Wahlberg performed in a “War Sucks” T-shirt.

第二十九名
The lineup of talent looks so promising, yet none of the stars did any of their actual hits – everybody who wanted to do some air-drumming to Phil Collins, or some couch-humping to Xtina, got thwarted by goopy ballads nobody knew. Phil did the love theme from Tarzan. Xtina and Enrique rubbed everybody the wrong way with a song called “Celebrate the Future Hand in Hand.” Even “Proud Mary” couldn’t get Tina turning. People, this is the Super Bowl. You gotta make a big impression. You gotta like what you do.

第二十八名
A “Winter Magic” pageant, because the game was in Minnesota. Giant snowmen. Figure skaters Dorothy Hammill and Brian Boitano. Hideous dancing imps waving hockey sticks to Queen‘s “Don’t Stop Me Now.” And Gloria Estefan, because when you think of the Great White North, you naturally think of Gloria and her Minneapolis Sound Machine. But everyone clicked away to watch In Living Color‘s live comedy special – one of those genius ideas that changed the world. (In Living Color had a lot of those.) Nobody had ever challenged the Super Bowl halftime before, and it worked, because even cheap Dick Butkus jokes were more fun than hearing “Winter Wonderland” in January. This was the big turning point, as the In Living Color stunt finally jolted the Super Bowl into getting serious about halftime. The next year they brought in Michael Jackson. What would Brian Boitano do?

第二十七名
Damn, 1995 was a year of high-profile disasters: Waterworld, Hurricane Peter McNeely, the fateful day Bill Clinton’s secretary announced, “Sir, the girl’s here with the pizza.” And then there was this one. Disney staged a live-action Indiana Jones caper on the field, except Harrison Ford wisely stayed away. Patti LaBelle and Tony Bennett weren’t so lucky. By the finale of “Can You Feel the Love Tonight?,” viewers all over America were gaping in horror – it was like watching the Nazi soldiers open the Lost Ark.

第二十六名
A tribute to New Orleans, also to the 40th anniversary of the comic strip “Peanuts,” and maybe also to drugs. Because Charlie Brown has what exactly the hell to do with jambalaya and Mardi Gras again? But because New Orleans is New Orleans, the music was still kinda catchy at its corniest. It all ended with Snoopy dancing on a Mississippi River steamboat to “When the Saints Go Marching In,” which segued into “Happy Birthday, Charlie Brown.” Meanwhile, a TV audience of traumatized Broncos fans vowed never to get high before halftime again.

第二十五名
John Belushi was dead, by the way. But the Super Bowl brought back the Blues Brothers, perhaps because they couldn’t get the 1985 Chicago Bears to reprise “Super Bowl Shuffle.” Dan Aykroyd, John Goodman and Jim Belushi immodestly attempted soul classics by Solomon Burke and James Brown. The Godfather of Soul himself appeared, yet maybe deserved a little more airtime than Jim Belushi, don’t you think? By the time ZZ Top came to the rescue for some “Tush,” it was too little too late.

第二十四名
Nobody wanted to go near the Super Bowl in 2019, amid all the outrage over the NFL’s blacklisting of Colin Kaepernick. Cardi B and Rihanna turned it down flat. The best the NFL could dredge up was Adam Levine, who’s never looked less like a rock star than when he yelled, “Can I play some guitar for you right now?” It was godawful, despite cameos from Travis Scott, Big Boi and Spongebob Squarepants. When Levine whipped off his tank top to flash his nipples (twice as many as Janet Jackson showed) for “Moves Like Jagger,” it turned into one sad bachelorette party. Note: Rumours that there are other people besides Levine in Maroon 5 could not be confirmed at press time.

第二十三名
Neither Pete Townshend nor Roger Daltrey had ever watched an American football game. (Or the halftime-show DVDs the NFL sent them for reference.) Maybe that explains why the Who didn’t understand the high-visibility, high-stakes nature of this gig. Alas, they showed up even more shoddily prepared than the Colts, fumbling a medley of classics — sad to think of all the kids out there first hearing “Won’t Get Fooled Again” or “Baba O’Riley” in this sorry condition. Daltrey sounded like he really did just wake up in a SoHo doorway, killing “Who Are You” dead one hoo-hoo at a time. Those suspicious “crowd sing-along” audio cues sounded about as believable as a Seinfeld laugh track. Sad but true: There’s no easy way to be free.

第二十二名
What did you expect – Nirvana reprising their Unplugged set? This was wholesome all-American country entertainment, and it got the job done with some of the brightest Nashville stars of the day, all of them pretty near their peak, except the Judds, who were in the sixth or seventh year of their farewell tour. (Poor Wynonna was doing fine solo until her mama crashed the show.) No thrills, but in a gig like this, playing it safe can be a smart move.

第二十一名
We’ve seen the nipple and the damage done. Without question the most famous halftime show ever, the one that forced a generation of Americans to hear their moms utter the word “aureole.” It killed off Janet Jackson‘s previously unstoppable career – almost 20 years of hitmaking, zapped in one breast-bounce. It damn near killed Justin’s too, as his clumsy (and none too gallant) handling of the controversy ended his post-N’Sync honeymoon with the public. (It took two years and Timbaland for JT to get his sexy back.)
The music was mostly great, but the fallout was poisonous. The Bush administration (especially Colin Powell’s son at the FCC) led a hysterical crusade to demonize MTV and Miss Jackson. You could pinpoint this as the moment MTV decided to bail out of the music business entirely. All around, a disastrous moment for America. Also, Jessica Simpson sang.