In Which We Rank The Worst Possible Super Bowl Halftime Acts

It’s been a while since I ran one of these, and I’d like to think that’s for the best… the offseason is such a goddamn depressing time. Anyways, in light of the news revealed earlier this week that Coldplay will be the halftime act at Super Bowl 50, I got to thinking about the state of pop music in the world today, and the unfortunate set of circumstances that has somehow led to this travesty.

Confession time: I used to be really into Coldplay. I still think that Parachutes, A Rush of Blood To The Head, and X&Y are all fantastic albums, actually. But after 2008 and Viva La Vida, shit has gone downhill fast for these guys. They’ve bought into a lot of the typical pop music songwriting tropes, and the seeming insistence of blending electronic ambience into their sound, which has just taken over further and further and moved them away from their days as an indie rock band. I blame Brian Eno for all of this. He did this to U2 as well – The Joshua Tree came out (which is actually another very good album), but everything was downhill after that for those guys as well. Now you see them selling out football stadiums with a giant fucking robotic spider-looking jumbotron supporting all the bullshit, and Bono’s now buggering off to Somalia and such all the time for photo ops with starving orphans, just as a feel-good thing for himself.

My point I’m making here is that if Brian Eno calls offering to produce your next album, let it go to voicemail.

Still, after some of the various bullshit that has gone down over the years at halftime shows – Kid Rock, Janet Jackson’s areola, the Black Eyed Peas, Katy Perry with dancing sharks and beach balls covering her breasts – how much lower do we have to sink? Well, this is where you come in. Who could be brought in to make the Super Bowl halftime show the worst possible performance EVER? Let’s hear these terrible, terrible ideas.