One of the greatest American cultural spectacles will take place this weekend. More than 100 million people will tune in to watch and expectations are already incredibly high. For some inconvenient reason, it’s stuck right in the middle of about three and a half hours of football.
It’s the Super Bowl halftime show, of course.
At this year’s Super Bowl, Lady Gaga will take the stage and perform during what has been one of the most-watched programs in television history. She’s already familiar with the event, as she belted out “The Star-Spangled Banner” before last year’s Super Bowl between the Denver Broncos and Carolina Panthers. But now, after releasing her fifth studio album, Joanne, Gaga is preparing to truly bask in the ultimate spotlight.
She’s up against some impressive predecessors, of course. I can still remember watching Prince performing his heart out as rain poured down during the 2007 Super Bowl. More recently, memories of Bruno Mars killing it on the drums during the 2014 Super Bowl come to mind, or Beyoncé practically ascending to a different plane as she danced her way through the 2013 Super Bowl. Who could forget left shark, or Diana Ross’ exit via helicopter? Janet Jackson’s boob, for crying out loud! The Super Bowl halftime show is the place for spectacle, and Gaga will have to arrive with guns blazing.
The fascinating thing is that Gaga has taken this job in the midst of trying to distance herself from the “human spectacle” label. Joanne is easily one of her most stripped-down albums. The album is named for her late aunt, and the work is more lyrically heartfelt and honest than anything she has previously recorded; the influence of country music makes it seem like a black sheep when compared to her predominantly pop albums of the past.
If this was 2009 and everyone was listening to the newly released The Fame Monster while sipping the Vitamin Water they still think is healthy, it would be much easier to predict Gaga’s Super Bowl strategy. She would probably descend out of a giant egg or out of the mouth of an enormous Kermit the Frog, sewn from hundreds of other, smaller, Kermits. She would be wearing a suit made of authentic alien skin and shoes that defy every law of gravity.
But now, after Gaga has transitioned through many stages of her musical career and a variety of personas, it’s much harder to anticipate what surprises she may have in store. Will she forgo her newfound Americana vibe in favor of a nonstop thrill ride down pop memory lane with hit after hit from the past decade? Or will she surprise us all by performing newer material? After all, Beyoncé did it last year. Maybe it will be a combination of both.
Gaga hung up her meat suit in favor of a simple pink cowgirl hat. But now, with an audience hungry for a gargantuan show, maybe she should dig that thing back out of the closet. Let’s hope it hasn’t rotted too much.
