To borrow a line from Madonna, music makes the people come together, and live broadcasts like the Super Bowl halftime show and the Grammys are a flashback to a simpler, less fragmented time in popular culture.
When Madonna made her grand entrance during the recent Super Bowl halftime show, perched on an ornate float drawn by legions of bronzed charioteers and framed by a flurry of gilded wings, my father couldn’t take his eyes off of her. “Does she have some back problems?” he asked earnestly, presumably baffled as to why a celebrated pop performer would require an army of musclemen to haul her onstage—and why, once there, she moved with the grace of an unoiled Tin Man. As you may have surmised, my father is not a music critic. But in that moment, he was participating in a cultural conversation that was unfolding, second by second, across North America (and beyond).
I can’t remember the last time I watched a live musical performance with my family, but while Madonna was Cirque du Soleil-ing her way through a career-spanning medley, we sat in front of the TV, transfixed—and we weren’t alone. Twitter was a flurry of instantaneous responses to the Madonnathon, from pop aficionados and football fans alike. Opinions ranged from praise for the 53-year-old’s assisted cartwheels to quips about the “contractually obligated” gospel choir that appeared onstage to tallies of the Material Girl’s racial and cultural appropriations to nostalgia for halftime shows past (“I miss Prince”). And really, when was the last time that 111 million people simultaneously thought about Madonna? But for approximately 13 minutes this past Sunday, a cross-section of people with little in common were rooting for (or at least tracking the movements of) the same team—Team Madonna.
It’s rare that a musical performance cuts through the divergent politics and preferences of a fragmented popular consciousness and becomes a truly collective event. A similar quality can be found in the Grammy Awards, which, this year, take place almost a week to the minute after the halftime show. For all the eye-rolling and allegations of out-of-touchness that the Grammys inspire, the annual ceremony invariably generates demographic-crossing ripples of anticipation. Since we spend most of our time locked into our own iPod playlists and streaming television off the network grid, it’s comforting to remember that—to borrow a line from Madonna—music makes the people come together. It’s a flashback to a simpler time in popular culture—like when the Beatles had their breakthrough moment on The Ed Sullivan Show.
More often than not, musical performances during live broadcasts go at least somewhat pear shaped—consider Lana Del Rey’s disappointing turn on Saturday Night Live—which is what makes these instances so exciting. The Grammys, the Super Bowl halftime show and other real-time extravaganzas of their ilk inject a much-needed zing of unpredictability into the same-old, same-old world of mainstream pop music. Given how meticulously choreographed most pop performances are, it’s humanizing when we get to witness shit going awry. And sure, sometimes “unpredictable” translates as M.I.A. flipping the bird to the camera (zzzzz…), or Mumford and Sons strumming alongside a creaky Bob Dylan, but it also leads to memorable moments like a nine-months-pregnant M.I.A. outshining Jay-Z, Lil Wayne and T.I. onstage, or the indelible weirdness of Radiohead featuring the USC Marching Band.
Granted, those unpredictable moments are themselves choreographed—which is one reason Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon turned down a chance to perform at this year’s Grammy ceremony. “We wanted to play our music,” he told Billboard magazine, “but we were told that…we had to do a collaboration with someone else.” It’s a good point, but it means Vernon and co. miss out on something special. Ultimately, live televised performances are also one of the increasingly rare moments when most consumers can experience the thrill of discovery that comes from stumbling upon an unknown pop-cult curiosity without having to seek it out. My dad’s worries about Madonna’s lumbar issues were unfounded, but he also had his first encounter with the bewigged, fast-talking Nicki Minaj during her cameo on the former’s new “Give Me All Your Luvin’.” Last year’s Grammy Awards created a new Tumblr-ready meme. “WTF is an Arcade Fire?” represented Rosie O’Donnell and the many mainstream music fans who still hadn’t been exposed to the indie-famous Montreal band, at least some of whom, one assumes, liked what they’d heard.
