The Super Bowl used to be a super bust.
At least it was when it came to the musical performances during the halftime show at pro football's biggest game of the year.
Artistically negligible performers would be trotted out – Take a bow, Up With People and the Los Angeles Super Drill Team! – and the more the better.
They would engage in smarmy song-and-dance routines so insipid they almost made Lawrence Welk seem like Eminem by comparison. Then there was the over-the-top staging, which made even the most bombastic Las Vegas shows appear urbane and understated.
But that was then and this is now. And thanks to last year's electrifying performance by U2 and the lively 2001 appearances by Aerosmith, Nelly, Mary J. Blige and several other young pop stars, the Super Bowl halftime show is bangin'.
So bangin', in fact, that the days of Up With People seem a century – if not another reality – away.
Goodbye, hokum, hello Shania Twain, No Doubt and special guest Sting, who will perform here at Sunday's Super Bowl halftime show at Qualcomm Stadium, following a pre-game set by Santana, with guest singers Michelle Branch and Destiny's Child mainstay Beyoncè Knowles.
"I didn't want to name any names, but that was the inspiration for this (shift) – let's get away from Up With People!" said Jimmy Iovine, the executive producer of this year's Super Bowl halftime show. "I couldn't stand it anymore. That didn't represent this nation."
Iovine is the chairman of Innerscope Geffen A&M Records and the man who built Innerscope into one of the most successful labels of the past decade with such acts as Eminem, Limp Bizkit, Nine Inch Nails and Enrique Iglesias.
A former producer of albums by Dire Straits, Patti Smith and others, Iovine, 49, was personally responsible for getting U2 (two of whose albums he produced) to perform at last year's game.
He and halftime show producer Joel Gallen (the creator of the MTV Movie Awards) also persuaded the NFL to devote the entire halftime show to U2. The legendary Irish rock band performed on its own touring stage, with the lights at the Superdome in New Orleans turned down, to create an authentic rock-concert ambience.
"I think we've gotten a little more relevant with our musical partnerships in recent years," said John Collins, the NFL's senior vice president of marketing and entertainment programming. "The Super Bowl has always been big as an entertainment opportunity. But we've gotten more focused."
Breaking convention
That focus began sharpening in 2001, when the Super Bowl was held at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa Bay.
In a bold break with convention, MTV was asked to produce the halftime show. It responded by bringing on Aerosmith, along with such guests as Nelly, Blige, Britney Spears and *NSYNC. (MTV should be back on board when the halftime show is telecast next year by CBS, which shares the same parent company, Viacom, as MTV, VH1 and BET.)
"MTV did a good job in 2001," said Iovine, who came on board last year with Gallen to oversee the U2 halftime show.
"But that still felt a little 'Super Bowl-y' to me, (with) a bunch of people jumping on stage," Iovine continued from his Los Angeles office. "It was like: 'How many tomatoes can we fit in this itty-bitty can?' "
The real turning point came last year with U2, then on tour with the expressed goal to reclaim its position as "the biggest rock band" in the world.
"U2's performance is the first time a single artist did a halftime show that reflected what they had out on their tour, and they delivered a really powerful, relevant message of unity," Collins said from NFL's New York office.
That message included the highly symbolic use of an American flag sewn inside U2 singer Bono's jacket, as well as the projection on large white sheets behind the band of the names of all the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Iovine hopes Sunday's halftime show will deliver an equally relevant, albeit more subtle, message to the game's 130 million-plus television viewers across the nation and up to 800 million viewers worldwide.
Coming at a time when the United States is on the brink of war, that halftime show message will at least indirectly addresses the world's precarious state. It will be conveyed in song by Sting, who will join No Doubt to perform "Message in a Bottle," the classic 1979 song by Sting's former band, The Police.
"The message," said Iovine, who then quoted the song's refrain, "is: I'll send an SOS to the world. This is a funny time for the world right now, and our country is viewed by many in a very dubious way.
"We have a great message to send to the world, and who better to deliver that message than Sting? Even though he's not American, he's part of our popular culture."
Was the NFL, not usually known for making sociopolitical statements (however broad and nonspecific), receptive to this concept?
"They were great, and so was ABC-TV, which is airing the game," Iovine said. "All I can say is, that's where we feel our responsibility is. That's the mark we have to hit, and the NFL wants to use that. You've got to reflect the country's mood."
The teaming of Sting and No Doubt is a prelude to The Police's upcoming March induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Gwen Stefani, No Doubt's perky lead singer, will induct The Police, a band that shared No Doubt's penchant for Bob Marley and the rock-steady music of other Jamaican reggae pioneers.
Not coincidentally, Sting and No Doubt each fall under the domain of Iovine's chairmanship of Innerscope Geffen A&M Records. Such synergy is good business for both the music industry and the NFL.
"If we've been successful over past few years, it's been in making the halftime show relevant to the music community," said the NFL's Collins.
"(It's) great entertainment that adds to what is already a phenomenal day. And for the artists who perform, it promotes them. For a band like U2, which had amazing success, it certainly extended the selling period of their album, which had been out for almost a year and a half when they played the Super Bowl."
The contemporary sheen of music at the Super Bowl also extends to the Dixie Chicks, who will perform the national anthem just before the start of Sunday's game.
But if the NFL is happy to no longer firmly be entrenched in the middle of the road, artistically speaking, don't hold your breath waiting for Eminem, Ozzy Osbourne or Slipknot to perform at next year's Super Bowl.
"Everybody wants to be called hip, but we don't have to be edgy," the NFL's Collins said.
"When you think of the Super Bowl, it's the one time of year where most of the people you know will be getting together to do the same thing at the same time, and that's to watch the Super Bowl. We try to deliver the moment with as broadly appealing artists as we can. You're hitting Middle America in Iowa and the Midwest, and East Coast hip and the West Coast, so you have to find the right balance.
"But we've only gone too far when people start forgetting there is a game to be played, and that hasn't happened yet."
