Justin Timberlake brings the hits back to the Super Bowl - and Prince?
Last Sunday night, the pop star brought the hits ("Can't Stop the Feeling", "Suit and Tie") but failed to bring any heat
Last Sunday night, there was one televised event that no one could take their eyes off, and it wasn't for a good reason - it was thanks to Justin Timberlake's lukewarm halftime show.
There was a solid start with "Rock Your Body", one of his early aughts hits that hasn't aged terribly, as well as renditions of "Suit and Tie" and "Can't Stop the Feeling." What followed was a controversial cover of "I Would Die 4 U", with Timberlake's own vocals as a projection of Prince performing the track engulfed the purple lights. The city of Minneapolis died and lived again, drenching everything in the color purple in honor of the late Prince. With the two pop singers having an infamous spat in the news, many fans were angered and felt like Prince would've hated the tribute - his sister Tyka Nelson, however, has told TMZ that she was pleasantly surprised and felt that her brother would've enjoyed it. Her brother wasn't one to hold grudges, she said.
Critics have panned this performance, accusing Timberlake of "phoning it in" with a mediocre catalog. To that, I riddle you this - Timberlake's half time show was never going to be great because his discography is, aside from a crowning gem here and there, mostly empty and forgettable. There was nothing of substance being said here. The New Yorker's Amanda Petrusich brought up a good reasoning for this: "As dancers flooded the field, Timberlake eventually made his way into the stands. He cajoled a child into filming a cell-phone video with him. Many more phones turned in his direction. For someone so aware of the way news travels now, his performance was oddly benign—expert, sure (in his decades of pop stardom, Timberlake has never been anything less than expert), but eerily un-self-aware. In 2018, eyeballs do not necessarily equal adulation. It seems fitting that the last thing Timberlake said, before sprinting away, his forehead glinting, was "Super Bowl selfies!" In the end, that was all that mattered."
Vanessa is a music and culture writer. Follow her on twitter.
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