So as we all know by now Madonna, the queen of virtually everything, performed at the Super Bowl XLVI (36th Super Bowl for those of you who are not Nicki Minaj's alter ego) during halftime. I'll try to remain objective throughout this review, but bear with me if I do not do so. In what is by far the greatest Super Bowl performance of ever, Madonna winds, grinds, shuffles, vogues, kisses, vogues, lip-syncs, remains flawless, and vogues. Click "Read More" to check out the full write-up, you won't be disappointed.
The first thing that needs to be addressed is that Jay Leno commercial before her performance. #Amazing.
Now onto the performance: a bunch of gladiator-looking men are all pulling these ropes, right? And there's myriads of them all pulling at these ropes that in turn are tugging at a throne on a platform, where the Queen sits. AND THERE'S LIKE GIANT WHITE ANGEL WINGS ERRWHERE!! She's wearing a stunning golden robe and a golden headdress and her hair is golden and this moment is just golden. That super kawaii golden headdress!
The finger-snapping intro to "Vogue" is playing accompanied by some strangely fitting trumpets other instruments that make me feel all biblical. Then, all of a sudden the speakers come alive with her angelic voice: "What are you looking at?" Madonna gets up and literally, wait for it, starts to vogue. Then while the intro still plays she starts winding and grinding on that throne of hers LIKE A BOSS. It's hard to type while thinking about it, I just wanna strike a pose!
Then you start singing "Look around..." but then you realize that this is a remix! The intro leads into a glitchy series of "don't just stand there" with a radio of 5:1 of don't:(any other word here). It's such a good remix. And she's dancing to it so well and grabbing poles and whatnot. Ugh. Amazing. And then there's, like, the sounds of explosions and swords and it's all very Renaissancey and educational, even.
And then when she finally gets to the stage and starts to (lip) sing to the song, her and her dancers do a sick choreography involving, but not limited to, vogueing, looking fine, voguing, leg-raising, and voguing. And there's also some man-riding ala the Confessions tour performance of "Future Lovers." It's all literally so perfect I could just crumble.
As the song reaches it's finale, The Holy Madge sings "Let your body move to the music" and then it's evident: this is going to segue into "Music" better than one song in a megamix segues into the next. "Music" is repeated over and over, each time it changes more from her voice is "Vogue" singing it to her voice in "Music" singing it. The transition is complete.
Suddenly the screens all over the stage light up with psychedelically-colored turntables and Madonna starts to sayng. I don't know when this happened, but all of a sudden there's bleachers on the stage, and Madge and her four male dancers start to dance on them really coolly. It's just so cool, the whole place is lit up like a disco in different shades of purples, blues, and yellows and almost everything in between. The dancers are break-dancing on the bleachers. There's a part where she kinda tries to get on a seat on the bleachers and fails to do so, but it's nothing major. Performance remains flaw-free.
Then, Madonna gets all cray-cray and she starts doing dancer-assisted flips and cartwheels and other maneuvers of the sort in a very flawless manner. It's all quite, I don't know, amazing. She cartwheels in and out of a man's crotchamus. Yup. And out of nowhere some freakishly dressed man starts bouncing on a bouncy string and no doubt splitting his ballsack in half and widening his buttcrack in the process. WTF? The good thing is Madonna is still in the shot while this is happening so you can just focus on her. She's droppin' it like it's hot, too.
When elements of "Party Rock Anthem" start making their way into "Music" it's evident that these douchebags really did it. They're crashing Madonna's performance. Alright, let's have it. Make it as inoffensive as possible, s'il vous plait.
And surprisingly it is. "Sexy And I Know It" starts to creep into the song, Madge climbs onto one of their backs (don't ask me which one, I really don't give a whaa who's in that band), and then they make their way onto center stage. They start singing "Music" together and then...
"Everyday I'm shufflin'" blares through the speakers. In that split second you're thinking oh no, please no and oh yasss yasss yasss. Madonna starts SHUFFLING!! It's so cute because she looks like she's having the time of her life. She looks so good! BTW, shuffling is now socially acceptable, but only as long as you do the exact moves she does. Then while the breakdown to "Party Rock Anthem" plays, the boys of LMFAO sing the hook to "Sexy And I Know It." AND MADONNA DOES SOME SILLY THINGS WHILE INTERPRETING THE LYRICS OF THIS SONG SUCH AS: 1) Looking at that body, 2) flexing, and 3) doing a little grab-my-foot-while-I-literally-flip-a-360 much like in the "4 Minutes" video. OMG. For reals, this is happening. Then she proceeds to say, "I'm sexy and I know it," slaying me for the seventeenth time in the performance.
All of a sudden a bunch of Nicki Minaj look-alikes in cheer leading outfit-inspired unitards all get onstage and start clapping. It's time to give her all your luvin'. Then in a moment where even the angels cried, Madonna, Nicki Minaj, and M.I.A. do the "L-U-V Madonna" cheer, pom-poms and all. It's such a glorious moment. She grinds on both her featured artists and unfortunately there are no football players that make her walk sideways. In my fantasies, the Giants go up there and reveal that they actually already won and they carry Madonna as if she was the Super Bowl trophy, but alas; didn't happen. But then I get cheered up by the fact that the cheerleaders are doing the illest dance routine ever behind her. It's killer.
Perhaps the best part of her performing "Give Me All Your Luvin'" is the fact that the little bit in the video where they're all wearing blonde wigs is intactly transferred onstage. The moves are exactly the same. And they slay twice as hard! Pay no attention to M.I.A. (sorry girl) as she sings her verse, instead look behind her at Madonna totally slaying that robot/lover choreography and ending up all twisted like a pretzel on the floor. Amazing.
This performance leads into the showcase of the students of Madonna High School's nationally-known drum line. These nerds students drum away as Madonna and that fat kid in choir, aka Cee Lo Green, perform a strange duet of "Open Your Heart."
But then, oh no, everything gets dark and bleak as the intro to "Like A Prayer" plays. At this point I'm thinking "This is such a good song" but also thinking "This is ruining the mood." Long story short: it's a really good song, yes it ruined the mood in a way, Cee Lo looks like a fat whale dipped in sequins, there too many nuns onstage, this was clearly a technical difficulty as I'm sure that the track for "Erotica" or "Human Nature" must have gotten lost somewhere in the Internet.
The disappointing part: Madonna gets swallowed up by a cloud of smoke and disappears into a trapdoor, very anticlimactically. I would be extremely pissed at this song closing the performance if it were not for the fact that people who aren't Madonna fans totally eat that up. "Like A Prayer" is the song every Madonna hater secretly loves, and this was her way of literally pleasing everybody. It's genius. I choose to believe that this performance ended before the drum line even arrived onstage. It makes me happier this way.
All problems aside, this performance was amazing! Madonna delivered a a great performance. But what really made me love it even more was the fact that she looked genuinely happy! Ecstatic, even. There was a smile on her face the whole time, which brought a smile to my face the whole time.
All other singers, stay pressed. Madonna The Queen of Everything slays once again. And I have a feeling it won't be the last time in M.D.N.A. history.
What do you think of Madonna's Super Bowl Halftime performance? Be completely honest, I love to hear your comments!!
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