Some of you probably watched the Superbowl yesterday. My husband, he did, he usually does. He didn't have a strong favorite this year, but sort of favored the Seahawks, so was happy with the results.
I could care less about football, so I didn't watch the game. But I was curious about how Bad Bunny would sound, so I watched the halftime show. Full disclosure, there are very few people as ignorant about pop music and pop culture in general as myself. My choice to watch Bad Bunny might have had something to do with the fact that Trump dislikes him so intensely.
I mentioned my intention to watch the halftime show when I was talking with some friends after church. One of them said, "Well, his lyrics are pretty gross if you translate them. He once dressed up as a nun on SNL, and another time he wore some kind of woman's clothes. He says he's straight but kissed a man on stage after someone basically dared him. He's pretty immoral." All of which sounded to me like he is a bit of a provocateur rather than immoral.
Anyway I watched Bad Bunny, and for a rocker I thought he wasn't half bad. The show seemed happy and joyful. We need more happy and joyful. And I like Lady Gaga, who also appeared with Bad Bunny. Overall, I give it a good rating.
I watched it (both the game and the halftime show). At the risk of going full Archie Bunker, I wish he would have sung in English, at least a little bit. Had no idea what he was singing/saying. At least a translation crawl along the bottom of the screen? Although I have seen a few comments that his lyrics are too filled with forbidden-to-broadcast words to show them on-screen. So for me it was mostly something to be endured. But in fairness: I'm told that a couple of the songs he sang have been monster hits (1 billion+ views on the videos on YouTube), but I was not familiar with them. And I dislike the Super Bowl halftime show every year.
ReplyDeleteI think it was one of those things where you just listen to the music and the beat. And Lady Gaga did sing her song in English.
DeleteI don't know, did anyone see any good commercials? My husband did say there was a cute one with the Budweiser Clydesdales. We saw them in person one time.
Katherine, I’m as clueless about current pop music culture as you. I watched the game with my husband until the end of half- time. I too wanted to see Bad Bunny since trump hates him so. I imagine some lyrics were suggestive - they always have been, at least since the 60s. This is a copy of my comment on the Salt and Lightt thread.
ReplyDeleteOpinions on Bad Bunny? The rap- music isn’t to my taste, but I loved the joy, love and hope his performance embodied. Only very subtle criticisms of trumpism. The emphasis was love not hate. I think it was far more powerful than open criticism of this administration, which, from the first speeches in 2016 , reeked of hate and now has gone far beyond just words.
I watched part of the halftime show live, and I have the rest of it on my DVR. I'm still stuck in the 1960s as far as popular music goes, and I am not a fan of rap, but the show was a lively spectacle, and iI think it was absurd that there was such a negative reaction even just to the idea of it. Anybody who thinks it's bizarre to listen to vocal music in a language you don't speak is missing out. I have attended the opera and vocal recitals for the last several decades, and I loved Linda Ronstadt's albums of Mexican songs.
ReplyDeleteBack in the days of my youth, older folk came by their disdain for young people's music honestly. They were old fuddy duddies. Now it's political.
David,The music of the 60s and early 70s still gets my husband and I singing along. In my public high school choir we sang Latin and Italian as well as English. We listened to Latin at mass during my growing up years, so music in Latin was normal.
DeleteSince I spent a year in Paris in college I listened to French singers and still play some of the records (vinyl) I acquired then. I don’t mind listening to music in other languages. I like music with a Latin beat and Spanish guitar also. Very never listened to music in the Eastern European languages or Russian so I don’t know if I would enjoy them. Music isn’t only lyrics - it can create a mood no matter what the words mean.
I liked the part where he fell through the roof of the house.
DeleteI see that the wedding scene actually was a real wedding. That will be a story that the couple's friends can't top!
ReplyDeleteI readn an analysis earlier today that Taylor Swift's high-profile skybox appearances the last couple of years at Kansas City Chiefs games (she is engaged to their star tight end) have earned the NFL ~$1 billion in incremental revenue, primarily by piquing the interest of Swifties who otherwise wouldn't be NFL fans. The analyst's thought was: having Bad Bunny (reportedly the most-played YouTube star ever, in any category) on during the halftime show is intended to do the same: try to extend the brand to viewers who otherwise might have taken a pass on the telecast. As a target market, they're sort of the inverse of me: I watch the NFL but don't follow Bad Bunny, whereas they would be Bad Bunny fans who don't tune into the NFL.
ReplyDeleteIn case anyone's interested: I don't listen to Taylor Swift, either, but I do find her easier to listen to than what I saw of Bad Bunny yesterday. I wish him nothing but the best, but the show didn't turn me into a fan.
Have to admit, I was blissfully unaware that Trump was on an anti-Big-Bunny tirade. I read that Turning Point USA mounted its own counterprogramming halftime concert, featuring Kid Rock. As the valley girls reputedly used to say: Whatever.
I do kind of like Taylor Swift. There was a song of hers, "Safe and Sound" that I heard when I was in a store shopping one time. I found out that it was featured in the first Hunger Games movie. And I suffered through watching that miserable movie to hear the song. It never played until they were rolling the credits at the end. I was so mad. So it is true that they can get people to watch something they wouldn't ordinarily watch to hear a singer that they like.
DeleteI was invited to dinner and SB by friends. I’m not a sports fan but I am a good food and alcoholic beverage fan. We were all of us enthusiastic Trump and ICE haters but, being almost all of my age cohort, passed on Bad Bunny. Just not tuned in. And we pretty much agreed, following the anti-antisemitism commercial, that the best thing to fight antisemitism would be for Israel to stop dropping bombs on children and militarily helpless people.
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