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Prince's challenge: provide family-friendly half-time thrills |
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Written by Evelyn McDonnell, MCT
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Saturday, 03 February 2007 |
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When Prince sat down with the producers of Super Bowl XLI entertainment to make his pitch for playing the half-time show, he had done his homework. The singer/songwriter with the roller-coaster career had analyzed past performances.
He knew what he liked, and he knew what he didn't like. And he had ideas.
Half-time at the Bowl is perhaps the most-watched musical event of the year. It's the ultimate gig: an in-person audience of 70,000, an expected 140 million TV viewers. It pays zilch in dollars, but the promotional rewards can be priceless.
And of course, a "malfunction" can cost a career. Just ask Janet Jackson, the singer who has never recovered from '04's breast-baring fiasco. (Co-performer Justin Timberlake, on the other hand, has fared just fine, proving showbiz sexism is alive and ugly.)
The Super Bowl is the ultimate mass cultural event. And with Prince, the mercurial, mysterious musical genius who once threw away a superstar recording contract to make an artistic statement, half-time will likely be about as edgy as it gets — without, presumably, provoking more FCC fines.
Like the Rolling Stones, Gloria Estefan, the Dixie Chicks, Aerosmith and dozens of other stars before him, Prince will walk a delicate tightrope act between the need to appeal broadly and make a mark.
"We look for acts that resonate with the largest possible demographic, from 8 to 80 years old," says Charles Coplin, vice president of programming for the NFL. "We want artists where their catalog is familiar but at the same time they're culturally relevant. They're very understanding of the nuances of doing the Super Bowl as opposed to doing their own concert. They're innovative and spectacular. We want a show that raises the bar on cultural performance and at the same time is as appropriate and diverse as possible. It's the most watched show in the world. That makes it challenging."
But how does a show be both spectacular and innovative? The biggest names in music have played the Super Bowl. But only a few have made it rock.
Coplin is football's man in charge of entertainment. With producers Don Mischer and Wild Cherry, he picks the acts for the pregame show (Cirque du Soleil with artist Romero Britto and DJ Louie Vega), the singer of the National Anthem (Billy Joel), and the half-time act (the artist formerly known as a glyph). Coplin's also Miami born and bred, a graduate of North Miami Beach High who attended every Dolphins game he could.
"I'm from South Florida," he says. "My view is very different than someone else's. I know how demographically diverse the region is. Just go through the radio dial; there's such a diverse level of entertainment."
Coplin and his cohorts have tried to reflect local flavors in the lineup: Gloria Estefan will introduce the pregame show, Britto has a home in Pinecrest, Joel's a sometime Miami Beach resident, and Prince used to own South Beach nightclub Mansion, back when it was called Glam Slam. In some ways, it's a daring lineup for the most all-American of TV nights: It will be interesting to see what the jocks make of Cirque du Soleil's dancers contorting in Britto's colorful costumes to Vega's house track.
Britto is proud to be the first visual artist ever asked to participate in football's big day. "They thought my colors would represent the vitality of the city," says the painter known for his pop-art figures in bold, bright hues. "It's a great opportunity for me as an artist to be able to share my work with so many people around the world. How many times can an exhibition be seen by so many people simultaneously?"
Joel, on the other hand, will probably soothe any ruffled feathers, although he was hilariously brusque at an NFL press conference Thursday. "It's kind of a slog, actually," he said of the anthem. "It's not the greatest song ever written."
Prince is certainly the NFL's most-daring choice since Breastgate. The 48-year-old Minneapolis singer and guitarist came to fame in the '80s as a skillful songwriter, bridging funk and rock, and an androgynous pusher of sexual buttons, singing about incest, masturbation, and sex, sex, sex. He named an early album "Controversy" and came under fire by the Parents Music Resource Center.
In '93, he launched a public revolt against his record label, Warner Bros., accusing them of exploiting artists. He changed his name to a glyph, painted the word "slave" on his cheek, and eventually got out of his deal and began releasing albums on his own New Power Generation label. People thought he had indeed, as one of his hits urged, gone crazy. But in fact, he was the first pop artist to realize and make use of the Internet as a marketing and distribution tool.
Still, at first, releasing albums of varying artistic success that were not always easy to obtain, it looked like Prince was slated for a "Where Are They Now?" episode. Then in '04, with the album "Musicology," he began a comeback, returning to the top 10 and getting a Grammy nomination. He's become a majorly successful touring artist, in part because he's a musician's musician who usually puts on a tour-de-force show. Prince is Prince again, and working with major labels. His '06 album "3121" is up for five Grammys.
Prince is not likely to rely on the usual spectacle-making tools — fireworks, flashy technology, almost-naked dancers — to make a half-time splash. He does come with his own cheerleaders, the "Twins:" two hyperkinetic dancing, singing girls. He believes in "real music by real musicians," as he said at his Hard Rock Live concert on Wednesday. He's not likely to pull a Janet, since he became a Jehovah's Witness a few years ago. Although he still has, as he once put it, a "dirty mind": on "3121" track "Lolita," he sings about having a pretty young thing "on the tip of my tongue."
Even though he now keeps his Edwardian jackets buttoned up, Prince is still a showman. Instead of flashpots, expect a drumline: the FAMU Marching 100 will be joining his Purple Majesty in Dolphin Stadium, according to drum major Phillip Solomon Stewart, a Miami native.
"He's very musical," says Stewart, who spoke to the Miami Herald before the drumline had come down to rehearse with Prince this week. "His band is amazing. It's cool he's incorporating the marching band in his music. It's going to give his performance a whole other sound."
Prince offered a blistering taste of what might be in store when he played live for a room of reporters at the Miami Beach Convention Center on Thursday. He showed off his hard-rock guitar chops with Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode"; covers were a theme of his Hard Rock show too. Which is strange, since one of the reasons Coplin says they hired his Purple Majesty is because of his amazing song repertoire. He dove into that catalog for "Anotherloverholenyohead" and "Get on the Boat," an `06 track with a swinging salsa break.
That song's theme of inclusiveness — "We've got room for 100 more," Prince sang — captures why Prince, despite the odd turns he's taken, was a natural half-time choice. He's a unique individual who has fans of all types, as was evident at the sold-out Hard Rock: Black, white, gay, straight, old, young, and everything in between.
Prince took no questions at the press conference. Coplin likewise refuses to divulge details of the performance. He did say that the show's producers knew all along that Prince was their man for '07.
"He's a tremendous performer: The guy is Jimi Hendrix and James Brown rolled into one," Coplin says. "Like `05 performer McCartney, he has this tremendous legacy. He appeals to rock fans and R&B, he skews to that large demographic. Also in early meetings with us he got what the Super Bowl is. He wanted to create a show that was unique to the Super Bowl."
There are people who only watch the half-time show. Acts including U2 and Michael Jackson have created career milestones on this stage. Having almost disappeared from sight at one point, Prince could become the ultimate comeback act tonight.
Don't watch it expecting Great Art. But it could be a Pop Moment for the history books. Britto looks at his moment during TV's biggest night with warm, fuzzy optimism, envisioning a utopian tableau — before a bunch of oversized men go out and try to smear each other into the ground over a ball: "The world, we're going so long with so many despairs, so many people killing each other: I think at the end of the day we want to have great moments, to bring people together in a playing field to forget about suffering. I want my art to be like an instrument that brings moments of peace and love and positivity." | Only registered users can write comments.
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