She started with “Bitch Better Have My Money” - the jauntily threatening classic that lost its edge by being upstaged by the lowering of those floating platforms - and “Only Girl” and then closed with powerhouse chunks of “Work,” “All of the Lights,” “Run This Town,” “Umbrella” and Diamonds.” What Rihanna did was work her way through a catalog that’s pretty absurdly full, especially for a singer who’s only 34 and hasn’t realized an album of new material in years. But if anybody was wondering, “OK, so now how will she top that?” the answer was, “She really didn’t.” ![]() That question probably had tongues wagging, as did Rihanna’s entrance on one of several unidentified floating objects that we should all be relieved the military didn’t shoot down. (Disclaimer: I am not a music critic or a fashion critic, but I am a geek.) It was a versatile outfit, capable of hiding a support cable and of causing roughly 85 percent of viewers to Google “Is Rihanna pregnant again?” (It turns out she is.) Rihanna only wore one costume, a red number with a shiny rubber or plastic bustle, designed, I have to assume, by the same tailors who made the very similar Imperial Royal Guard outfits from Return of the Jedi. Given how many of the songs Rihanna performed had some collaborative element, this was still probably a minor surprise. ![]() That means no unexpected chorus of children and no Kanye West when Rihanna sang “All of the Lights.” I believe we can all be eternally grateful for the latter. What were REALLY the odds that Tom Holland would show up to dance along to “Umbrella” in homage to his eternally viral lip-synching cover of the song? Low! But would it have made people happy? Some! More important, would it have contributed directly to a spike in social media responses to the show? Heck yes. Some of the speculation made sense and some was just delirious wish-casting. The pervasive narrative leading up to the Super Bowl was about this being her “comeback,” with secondary narratives relating to which of her myriad collaborators would make the trip to Arizona to offer onstage support. The winner at the end of Rihanna’s halftime performance was…anybody at home who wanted to watch a 10-minute snippet from a Rihanna concert, a wholly reasonable desire given that Rihanna hasn’t done a live performance in over five years. It was ambitious and all over the place to the degree that I constantly felt like I was pitting one act against the others, as if there would be a winner crowned at the end of the performance. Paak - entailed rearranging pieces of the stage and ushering in and out different groups of dancers, and then there was whatever was happening with 50 Cent’s entrance. ![]() Blige and Kendrick Lamar, plus guest appearances by 50 Cent and Anderson. Last year’s halftime show, which featured five headliners - Dr. Orchestrated chaos is a good way of making everybody in the year’s largest TV audience feel invested, of working as many genres as possible into one 10-minute performance. ![]() Sometimes it can include a dynamic costume change (or failed costume change) or a wild stunt or technological innovation. Sometimes it can involve a huge mid-performance stage change or influx of new background singers or dancers. Sometimes the orchestrated chaos of the halftime show doesn’t require a guest or 10. Met Gala 2023: Rihanna Closes the Carpet in a Valentino Cape of Iconic Chanel Camellia Flowers
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