Justin Timberlake Underwhelms at Super Bowl LII Halftime Show
- thesmartone
- Feb 5, 2018
- 2 min read
For the all the rumors that lead up to Justin Timberlake's return to the Super Bowl halftime stage tonight - 14 years after he exposed Janet Jackson's right breast to the world - none of them panned out, leaving the audience with a collective shrug of 'Huh? I guess that was it.'
*NSYNC reunion? Nope. A surprise visit from Janet Jackson? Only if she showed up in full body armor to protect herself from another sexual assault (which didn't happen). There was a rumor that Timberlake was going to pull a Tupac at 2012 Coachella and use a hologram version of Prince during the performance. Sheila E. talked some sense into him and instead, we got a Prince projection in the Purple One's hometown of Minneapolis, which elicited the biggest cheers of the performance (you know things are going badly if you're being out-cheered by a guy who's been dead for almost 2 years).
Timberlake's mediocrity shone through while his stage band, marching band and back-up dancers (which resembled an Up With People reunion during 'Can't Stop the Feeling') did the heaving lifting. There was a decent dance break on the field, proving that Timberlake is, at the very least, a better dancer than Katy Perry. But the averageness of Timberlake's milquetoast pop songs (which ranged from "Sexyback" to "Rock Your Body") was so apparent when put up against a ballad version of Prince's 10th best song "I Would Die 4 U." It's also no surprise that when Timberlake sat behind the piano for the Prince duet, the angle to show the keyboard was often hidden to prevent the audience from seeing his piano playing skills (which consisted of just banging out chords).
Maybe Timberlake's lack of surprise guests was his musical version of a slight of hand. If you don't have any guests, there's no one to outshine you, no one to point out your elk shirt and camo suit accessorized with a bandana looks ridiculous and no possible comparison in songwriting and musicianship. Timberlake started his performance with "Filthy" by singing "Haters gon' say it's fake." No, we're going to say it's below average.