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The Athletic has live coverage of Chiefs vs Eagles in Super Bowl LIX, and Kendrick Lamar’s halftime performance.
On Sunday, as the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs head to their locker rooms, crews will rapidly set the stage (literally) for what has become one of the most high-profile music performances of each year: the Super Bowl halftime show.
This year, headlining will be Kendrick Lamar, who — let’s admit it — has had himself a year. Fresh off five Grammy Award wins for “Not Like Us,” Lamar is a consummate showman with a keen eye for detail.
I have no idea what to expect, but I will be locked in when the lights come up.
The big question: Where will it rank all time? In advance of this year’s performance, I watched every Super Bowl halftime show. (I do not recommend doing this.) There are some brilliant performances — by all means, rewatch those — but there are also a few that are … well, you’ll see.
Here’s the rubric I used for the ranking. The most a show could score is 50 points.
In 1992, organizers had yet to learn that the Super Bowl could have much better production value. This one was so bad that it prompted organizers to shake things up the following year — bringing in Michael Jackson and changing the halftime show forever.
Gloria Estefan’s performance was fine, but she didn’t even appear until late in the 13-minute show, after a snowflake army’s rendition of something called “Winter Magic,” followed by children rapping about Frosty the Snowman.
Imagine that the only halftime shows you’ve ever seen involved marching bands or children rapping about snowmen. And then, one of the most transformative artists of all time starts his performance by defiantly posing on the stage in silence — for a minute and a half.
It’s incredibly rare for something from 1993 to hold up more than 30 years later, but this performance does. The production value (by 1993 standards, anyway), the musicianship (bonus points for guitarist Jennifer Batten’s glam-rock hairstyle adding to the message that this was something different) … it absolutely changed the Super Bowl halftime show forever. And even though it’s clearly dated, it holds up.
The only real deduction comes from shifting gears to an overwrought rendition of “We Are the World” when “Thriller,” “Bad” and others were right there for the taking.
I’m going to get roasted for putting this ahead of Michael Jackson, but with points for stage presentation and set list, that’s how it shakes out. Beyoncé’s vocals were flawless, and the stage and lighting were immaculate, with video screens allowing Beyoncé to serve as her own backing dancer(s). Oh, and Destiny’s Child reunited after a seven-year (!) hiatus. From beginning to end, this was a flawless halftime show: a megastar, a reunion, a high-energy set and a beautiful stage.
Also, it wasn’t until Beyoncé asked the crowd to put their hands together that I realized there hadn’t been much crowd participation in these shows. It’s a small thing, but it played well.
This one had it all, with one exception: a moment that transcended the performance and elevated beyond greatness and into magic.
There were no guest stars for this one, which felt exactly right. I’m hard-pressed to think of any other band that could handle the emotional gravitas of a Super Bowl that came less than six months after 9/11. U2 managed to pull off the impossible — performing a touching tribute to a moment that was, at the time, still too big and too new to fully process … but doing so without sacrificing an ounce of showmanship or delving into jingoism.
The band opened with “Beautiful Day” before going into “MLK” as a large banner featuring the names of those who died in the attacks rose behind them to the top of the stadium. They wrapped with “Where the Streets Have No Name.” I remember audibly gasping as the banner fell at the end.
It was the one halftime show where it was perfectly fine to be emotional.
This lineup, in Los Angeles, had Dr. Dre kicking off proceedings sitting behind an all-white mixing board as a hat tip to the number of hits he has produced. It had a stage that was a map of the city, replete with vintage cars and houses with rooms. It had Anderson.Paak and band members playing along with the tracks. It had dancers. This is the greatest stage design in halftime show history, hands down.
But a great stage is nothing without a performance to match, and among these legends, there were more than enough hits to make a set list that featured no weak spots. The spectacle was surreal perfection. Kendrick Lamar delivered a sharp performance with memorable choreography that contributed to organizers booking him as the headliner in 2025. The staging and upside-down 50 Cent were the most tweetable images of the night, but Lamar’s performance was underrated.
Finish it with Dr. Dre playing the piano on “Still D.R.E.,” and it’s the second-best Super Bowl halftime show of all time.
“ (The stage) was slippery to begin with, and when it rained on it, it was treacherous. ”
The deluge began about 30 seconds before Prince took the stage, and organizers asked Prince if he wanted to cancel the performance due to safety concerns. Prince, per Super Bowl halftime show producer Don Mischer, answered the question with a question: “ Can you make it rain harder? ”
When he launched into the guitar solo of “Purple Rain” as the heavens poured forth, it was one of those moments that nobody ever could have planned. Not just an all-time halftime show, but an all-time rock and roll performance.
It was transcendent, and it’s a halftime show many have watched on multiple occasions since.
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