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Celeb News: Bruno Mars Super Bowl Performance | Reviews Thread
Member Since: 8/31/2013
Posts: 695
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Bruno Mars Super Bowl Performance | Reviews Thread
The guardian pressed about Bruno's performance.
Quote:
in a GQ interview last year, Bruno Mars’ most lucid moment came when he was asked what the secret to a good song was. He answered: “Hypnotize me in the very first three seconds, wake my ear plate up, give me something that I haven't felt before … and then punch me in the ****ing face."
It was an uncharacteristically pithy and astute response. Mars, a former child Elvis impersonator, knows how to write a watertight hit but tends to evince a genial cluelessness about everything else – the world, his place in it, how not to get arrested, etc. His mugshot from last year, following his arrest for cocaine possession, is painfully telling. There’s the uncertain smile and vacant gaze of someone who doesn’t quite know how he found himself here, but suspects that they must, nonetheless, persist in attempts at ingratiation.
That might also describe the way he felt about playing the Super Bowl halftime show, the most illustrious gig in pop, so enormous that its organisers didn’t even pay Mars for that 12-minute performance – they know and he knows, that this is multi-million dollar exposure for him.
It’s a slot that demands an established star with epic wattage. Last year it was the truly peerless Beyoncé; in 2012 it was Madonna, and 10 years ago and most infamously it was Janet Jackson and her wilfully errant right nipple. Mars – diminutive, Fedoraed, a kind of Stepfordian pop-bot with all dials permanently set to “Inoffensively Entertain” – seemed a mystifying choice.
Many, in fact, were more than mystified – they were plain mean. The Puppy Bowl is an annual TV programme on the Animal Planet channel which features dogs messing around instead of men kicking footballs and this year’s halftime show was keyboard cat, the 2011 meme that functions as a coda to online failure. Dressed in a tiny Fedora, the cat bashed out Mars’ Locked Out of Heaven with his paws and from that moment, the sentiment “keyboard cat playing Bruno Mars was better than Bruno Mars playing Bruno Mars” became almost a tweet-cliché.
Mars may not be interesting, but he’s certainly a lot more talented than an animated cat. He began the 12 most important minutes of his career with a paean to a vagina: Locked Out of Heaven is his Police-indebted 2012 hit about “swimming in your water” being “something spiritual”. This didn’t feel like a spiritual experience but, sonically at least, the song seemed appropriately cavernous – a stadium belter that Mars and his fellow gold-suited Hooligans went for, accompanied by all the obligatory son et lumiere.
They followed with last year’s spry disco track, Treasure, in which Mars’ footwork was so fancy and so faultless that it was a little exhausting to watch. No dance move quite yells “I am trying as hard as I possibly can right now to entertain you” the way the splits does.
Bruno Mars
No need to look so scared, Bruno. Well – some need. Photograph: Rob Carr/Getty Images
And then, like a bullying big brother and his fratty friends crashing Mars’ recital, the reassuringly shirtless Red Hot Chili Peppers burst into proceedings to stomp and shout their way through Give It Away.
Throughout, Mars’ grin was tinged with bewilderment, as though he wasn’t quite expecting this, but was going to go along with it and be a good sport anyway. His 12 minutes ended, as everything decreed they must, with, Just The Way You Are, his Grammy-winning, non-biodegradable cornball of a hit about an insecure girl being pretty.
The lack of worldly nous so painfully obvious in that mugshot of his might just be the thing that makes Mars so good at what he does. He was exactly like you – and indeed the anxious, family-friendly organisers of America’s most watched television event – thought he would be: perfectly professional, slick as his pompidour and almost as dull as the football himself.
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/201...-chili-peppers
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Pressed! 
not sure what his arrest years ago had to do with anything. and lol most people were saying Bruno should have did the whole thing himself imo.
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Member Since: 1/4/2014
Posts: 31,029
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The guardian was absolutely right. The performance is forgettable and his songs were not suited for this. As if a football fan wants to be sang to with the lyrics "girl you're amazing just the way you are" and then he talks about her hair in one of the verses.
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Member Since: 1/1/2014
Posts: 1,315
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Quote:
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It’s a slot that demands an established star with epic wattage. Last year it was the truly peerless Beyoncé; in 2012 it was Madonna, and 10 years ago and most infamously it was Janet Jackson and her wilfully errant right nipple. Mars – diminutive, Fedoraed, a kind of Stepfordian pop-bot with all dials permanently set to “Inoffensively Entertain” – seemed a mystifying choice.
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I agree with them. I was surprised that he got the gig.
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Member Since: 10/10/2009
Posts: 10,662
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Quote:
Originally posted by LoveTheWayILie
The guardian was absolutely right. The performance is forgettable and his songs were not suited for this. As if a football fan wants to be sang to with the lyrics "girl you're amazing just the way you are" and then he talks about her hair in one of the verses.
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What?
Curious, do you think they'd rather sing along to Single Ladies or Like a Prayer?
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Member Since: 12/1/2011
Posts: 394
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They're not pressed at all, the performance was boring
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Member Since: 1/1/2014
Posts: 1,315
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Quote:
Originally posted by HeavyMetal****er
They're not pressed at all, the performance was boring
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Only had one good part, imo
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Member Since: 8/6/2012
Posts: 2,594
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The hate is ridiculous, he did good.
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Member Since: 5/1/2012
Posts: 5,525
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He did great, don't get the hate.
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Member Since: 1/11/2012
Posts: 14,421
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Quote:
Originally posted by TheBronxGirl
The hate is ridiculous, he did good.
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It was inoffensive but nothing special and very underwhelming. He basically does the same thing for every performance, and it's never been entertaining. Talented songwriter but I just don't use him as a pop star.
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Member Since: 8/6/2012
Posts: 2,594
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Quote:
Originally posted by ethan
It was inoffensive but nothing special and very underwhelming. He basically does the same thing for every performance, and it's never been entertaining. Talented songwriter but I just don't use him as a pop star.
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Reminds me of an artist with the first letter B in her name. 
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Member Since: 1/6/2014
Posts: 6,717
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He did as good as he could.... Which is quite boring and forgettable as always.
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Member Since: 1/1/2014
Posts: 1,315
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Quote:
Originally posted by TheBronxGirl
Reminds me of an artist with the first letter B in her name. |
such clever, much shade
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Member Since: 8/31/2013
Posts: 8,684
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Review: Bruno Mars shines in his big moment
Quote:
Super Bowl halftime review: Bruno Mars shines in his big moment
By Chris Richards February 2 at 9:02 pm[/URL]
(...)
So on Sunday night in New Jersey, Mars sang for the biggest audience of his life alongside the Red Hot Chili Peppers when he should have – and easily could have — done it on his own.
(...)
That made their choice to book Mars feel both risky and refreshing. Closing the set with his croony ballad, “Just the Way You Are,” Mars wore a triumphant smile, seemingly aware he was a risk well worth taking.
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Full Review: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2014/02/02/super-bowl-halftime-review-bruno-mars-shines-in-his-big-moment/"
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Member Since: 8/31/2012
Posts: 13,110
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I liked his performance a lot more than Madonna's or Bey's. It felt like it fit the game better, and was better rehearsed overall.
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Member Since: 5/14/2007
Posts: 25,912
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Member Since: 11/13/2009
Posts: 25,902
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The Chili Peppers were such an odd match for him. They should have had each had their own halftime show in different years.
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Member Since: 10/28/2008
Posts: 22,771
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Member Since: 1/1/2014
Posts: 5,133
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He's so talented but I feel it was TOO soon for him to headline it. He doesn't have a strong music catalog like Prince, MJ and Madonna.
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Member Since: 10/10/2009
Posts: 10,662
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Let the (well deserved) praise begin. 
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Member Since: 9/1/2013
Posts: 22,540
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Congratulations Bruno. You killed it.
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