The 2012 Super Bowl halftime show is over, and here’s to Madonna, who, like Paul McCartney after the Janet Jackson incident, had an incredibly easy job of currying public favor after a disaster the year before. All Madonna had to do was not be the Black Eyed Peas, and although bringing LMFAO in was a dangerous shot at being worse than the Black Eyed Peas public opinion immediately afterward suggests this is the most popular Super Bowl halftime show since—well, The Who in 2010, I guess?
Madonna—how she looks, the songs she sings, the people she chose to collaborate with—will receive mixed reviews wherever she goes, but the stagecraft and special effects at the halftime show were extremely impressive; if you look at the wardrobe malfunction show the most striking thing isn’t Janet Jackson’s nipple so much as just how cheap it looks by comparison. This was the halftime show equivalent of the Beijing Olympics in 2008. Or the Arirang games in North Korea, depending on what you think of “Like A Prayer.”