On September 26th, the National Football League announced that Jennifer Lopez and Shakira will be the half time performers at Super Bowl LIV.
After hearing the news, Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider took to his Twitter account to air his frustration posting:
“WTF!? @shakira and @jlo for this year’s @nfl halftime show!? Once again the great heavy music that rocks the stadiums week after week, game after game is completely ignored. I guess we don’t shake our ass enough!!”
He later clarified his views, adding, “My point about this years @NFL halftime show isn’t a slight on @shakira or @JLo, it’s frustration that week after week rock is the go to music during games but gets no respect when it comes to the Super Bowl! And I don’t think I’m popular enough for that slot. But @Metallica…”
“To add insult to injury, Jay Z is promoting this year”s @NFL Super Bowl half time show (no problem with that) and his company is called …ROCK NATION?! [spelling incorrect] “
“What about @acdc? What about @gunsnroses? What about @foofighters? Any of this bands would bring any house down!”
According to blabbermouth.net, this is not the first time Snider has taken a shot at the NFL for failing to secure rock acts for the Super Bowl halftime show. Back in February, Snider observed that the playlists at NFLstadiums everywhere for decades have played music by a number of hard rock and heavy metal acts, yet no metal band has ever performed at the halftime show. He proceeded to list songs by Metallica, Ozzy Osbourne, Guns N’ Roses, Twisted Sister and Queen as some of the ones that are often blasted over the PA at NFL games.
“Hey @NFL! Your go-to songs at EVERY game are metal: Enter Sandman, Cum On Feel the Noise, Thunder, Crazy Train, We’re Not Gonna Take It, We Are the Champions, Final Countdown, I Wanna Rock, We Will Rock You, Welcome to Jungle. NONE of those bands have EVER played half-time show!” he wrote at the time.
According to Sportscasting.com, the NFL considers popularity, music genre, and the artists’ overall performance value choosing the performers for the halftime show. However, it’s not the NFL that chooses who takes the stage. The league comes up with a short list, but the host cities pick the Super Bowl halftime performers.
16 Responses
A SMF calls out the NFL…good for you, Dee. I absolutely love football, it is one of my passions since I began playing it as a kid. And that passion continues to this day. The NFL is bigger than just football, it’s an entertainment industry. The NFL is one giant corporation, and each individual NFL player is an individual corporation. IMO, the NFL’s failure to have rock or metal bands perform at the half time show is nothing more than a financial decision. The decision could be about television ratings, selling commercials, viewership, etc….but I believe whatever adds to “the bottom line” is primarily what drives the decisions made by the NFL, including who performs at the glorified TV production better known as the half time show.
My favorite show ever performed at a Super Bowl was when the original KI$$ performed the pre-game show at Super Bowl XXXIII in 1999.
As much as it pains me to agree with anything Dee Snyder says, I have to admit Dee raises a good point…
….However, the metal songs that get played during regular-season games are little snippets on B-roll or coming in and out of commercials. Those songs aren’t going to affect ratings. On the other hand, the Super Bowl ultimately is about ratings revenue – honestly, even the football is secondary. To get high ratings, you have to appeal to the most people possible. In other words, the act has to have generational appeal or universal appeal or just popular appeal. For that reason, you do occasionally get the Rolling Stones or Springsteen or Red Hot Chili Peppers…but you also get a lot of lowest-common denominator acts like the Black-Eyed Peas and Beyonce and Bruno Mars (who is legit talented)…and now Shakira and J-Lo.
I call for Heavy Metal Puppy Bowl !!!!
When is Mr.Snider going 2 do another Strangeland film ?
I was once a fan of the NFL (the only sport I really watched), but I think this game is rigged. Just to add Bronco’s were my favorite team (John Elway, Ed McCaffery, Terrell Davis, Shannon Sharpe) 2 super bowls. Also, the NFL is full of rape, and in metal you’ll find lyric’s about rape. So, many will question that metal is like watching a sports game for toxic beer loving men. If people did experiment’s on how ant’s build hill’s, beaver’s build damn’s, Hornets make a nest, and bee’s make honey, let’s look above and see what homo sapiens do with ourselves. Destroy this habitat of getting drunk at a football/baseball game freeboy attitude (a example of this would be Scott from the 1988 movie “the blob”). One Last this I will include to mention, I fall in sacrilege when it comes to politics.