Patrick T. Fallon / AFP via Getty Images Share on Facebook Share on X Google Preferred Share to Flipboard Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Send an Email Print the Article Post a Comment Logo text There's a reason Bob Dylan has never played the Super Bowl halftime show. OK, there are several dozen reasons Bob Dylan has never played the Super Bowl halftime show. But one of the reasons is simple: Nobody watches the Super Bowl halftime show for the lyrics. People watch the Super Bowl halftime show for the spectacle. For the energy. The sonic component is not an afterthought, but it's a delivery system. Even if the halftime act is an act you love, I'm gonna posit that nobody's favorite version of anybody's favorite song is the version as it was performed at the Super Bowl. Don't be a weirdo and attempt to give me counter-examples. Related Stories Music I Watched Turning Point USA's Kid Rock Halftime Show So You Don't Have To Music Bad Bunny's Super Bowl LX Halftime Show Was a Star-Studded Affair With Lady Gaga, Pedro Pascal and More Think back on the Super Bowl halftime memories you have and unless they relate to that really special 12-layer dip that your ex once made - the extra layer was "granola" - they're probably 95 percent related to imagery. I'm talking Prince's ginormous shadow/silhouette or Michael Jackson's magical teleportation act or Rihanna's pregnancy reveal. (Or Nipplegate or Left Shark, because memorable halftime images don't have to be positive.) In fact, one of the very rare lyric-based halftime memories I have relates to last year's show, with Kendrick Lamar leading an entire stadium to shout "A minor!" So if you want to make an argument that only acts that publicly humiliate Drake should play the Super Bowl, I find your point to be very compelling. But if you are making, or have attempted to make, the argument that Bad Bunny was a bad selection as halftime performer because the Puerto Rican superstar's songs are primarily in Spanish? Nah. Even you don't sincerely care. We live in a country that is now largely bilingual (or trying to be), and it isn't my fault you took French in school. Serge Gainsbourg's Ghost can perform next year. And who did you want playing this year's halftime show instead of Bad Bunny? Lee Greenwood? Don't be a clown. Metallica for vague regional connections? Sure, I'd have been happy with that, but don't pretend Metallica is a magical elixir binding every demographic together. Plenty of reasonable and respectable people hate Metallica. You just don't care about them. Taylor Swift? If booking Taylor Swift were that easy, everybody would do it. So here we are. Trumped-up controversies aside, Super Bowl LX - gotta love Roman numeric simplicity - featured Bad Bunny, and his only mandate was to deliver 10 to 12 minutes of diversion between concussions and commercials - period. Diversion. Distraction. Even "entertainment" is a bonus. To expect anything more from an event that used to employ Up with People is folly. (Common Sense Disclaimer: This is, of course, all disingenuous. Bad Bunny represents, and is beloved by, a huge portion of AMERICAN music fans, many of whom have never seen or heard their culture or language represented like this on a stage like this. The words and how they're delivered are hugely representatively potent. But that's nuance, and any argument that Bad Bunny, a music superstar with a vast film and television footprint and recent top-tier Grammys wins, didn't belong on this stage is inherently devoid of nuance. Words matter. Representation matters. Diversion in a difficult moment matters.) So did Bad Bunny succeed? (Yes. By being there, Bad Bunny succeeded.) More than two hours after Green Day energized the pre-show with the rather pointed "American Idiot" - clearly everything I said about lyrics not being Super Bowl-ian was a lie - Bad Bunny brought Super Bowl LX to life. And good gracious this Super Bowl needed an injection of whatever it was that Bad Bunny brought to the game. Coming after one of the worst halves of football in Super Bowl history and a slate of commercials that represent the largest waste of money since Melania, there was an astonishing lowering of entertainment expectations leading into halftime. But I don't think "lowered standards" had much to do with my reaction. Put simply: This was the most impressively conceived and executed Super Bowl halftime production I've ever seen. That's not the same as "best straightforward, concert-style Super Bowl performance I've ever seen"; sometimes you really DO just want a familiar artist to stand on a stage and play five of their hits with a group of dancers on the field in front of them while everybody at home sings along. Plenty of people were singing along to Bad Bunny, too, but there was also a whole narrative, one that celebrated Puerto Rico and the Americas, capturing every aspect of life, from hard eve