"Agreeable blandness" makes Maroon 5 the perfect Super Bowl halftime act

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https://www.theringer.com/music/2019...-liii-halftime

"Maroon 5 were designed for precisely this moment," says Rob Harvilla. "They are one of the few remaining major rock bands and pop hit-makers prominent enough to qualify for the Super Bowl gig, but also inoffensive and apolitical enough to risk taking it. They are one of the few remaining major rock bands, period. Apolitical is, to be fair, a relative term. Stringy-heartthrob frontman Adam Levine was an outspoken supporter of gay marriage, and the band’s done a goodly amount of charity work in the past 15-plus years, including this week’s extra-conspicuous $500,000 donation, alongside the NFL, to Big Brothers Big Sisters of America. But rock band is a relative term, too. The sociopolitical noise will likely drown out Maroon 5’s actual music on Sunday. This band is not quite bad enough for that to qualify as a blessing, but not quite good enough for it to be a travesty. They’ve got some jams. They’ve even got some guitars. But their genre designation is just as muddled as the rest of their impersonal persona. They’re big enough to take that stage, definitely. But they’re also small enough to still be dwarfed by it."

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Maroon 5's Super Bowl halftime show: "Bland mediocrity in all its tatted, half-naked glory"

Without any stagecraft, Maroon 5's halftime show was pleasant and inoffensive, says Kevin Fallon. "It was exactly like the experience of a Maroon 5 song playing on the radio: nothing you look forward to, but, in the end, you liked it enough, sure, you guess," he says. "But in 2019, and given the impressive, bar-raised modern history of the halftime show, fine enough is tantamount to disaster. More, with the show this year doubling as a political referendum, it hardly justified the injustice, let alone silenced the debate, that has raged for the last year over the league’s treatment of Colin Kaepernick, National Anthem protests, and the responsibility of athletes, artists, and fans to stand up for something—in this case, by sitting out." Fallon adds: "It’s instinctual to compare the show to past productions. Beyoncé put on a relentless, meticulously crafted song-and-dance spectacular unlike the Super Bowl had ever seen. Madonna, at age 53, literally cartwheeled through the most elaborate stage sets that had ever been built for halftime. Katy Perry entered on a 16-story lion and exited on a shooting star. Bruno Mars danced so hard, I got tired just watching. Lady Gaga reaffirmed once and for all that pop stars are among our greatest athletes. Prince was legendary. Maroon 5 stood still on stage, and one of them took off their shirt."

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