Barker Rant

It always irritates me when music critics start advising bands on the appropriate time to break up. It bothers me for a number of reasons, the most pertinent being critics’ inability to see the most obvious reason why old dinosaur bands choose to keep touring and recording long after they’ve become jokes to all of us sniveling writer types: they actually enjoy playing music. It’s their passion and their profession – it’s what they do. Yet as soon as once-revered bands start showing the slightest bit of rust, or put in a disastrous performance for reasons other than crippling drug use (which would, conversely, make them seem more relevant and worth having around), the crix will go buck-wild calling on them to hang it up. Applied to anyone other than musicians*, of course, this criticism seems absurd — even when it’s deserved. Hell, reading Jim DeRogatis, I often wonder if he has anything interesting left to say about pop music after so many years of savaging my favorite records, but I would never suggest that he stop writing music reviews.

I suppose it’s because so many critics are more interested in fitting musical legacies into neat little packages than in acknowledging the sprawling messiness of an entire career. No one sets out to be a reductionist, of course, but times that’s the nature of criticism, and the continuing existence of a band that critics have dubbed “culturally irrelevant” long past their expiration date makes it incredibly difficult to sum up their legacy. I mean, it’d be easy to hash out a theory on what Bob Dylan ultimately means, if only he would just stop making new music that contradicts all these theories, you know?

Anyway, the Who were pretty terrible at the Super Bowl yesterday, under-rehearsed and kind of sad, and they did themselves no favors by choosing to play an ungainly medley of quick highlights — it was a Vegas cabaret aesthetic, without any of the Vegas cabaret proficiency. But I fail to see how this was really their fault. As far as I know, Pete Townshend and Roger Daltry have made no secret of the fact that they’re in their mid-60s, nor that they’re the only two living members of the group. YouTube has a trove of videos of the two of them performing in recent years, with voices and chops in less than mint condition — in short, sounding exactly like they sounded yesterday**. Yet the NFL still offered them what I assume is a substantial amount of money to play a 12-minute set, and they accepted. So now the chattering classes are blaming the Who for continuing to perform past their prime, instead of the Super Bowl show organizers for picking a “safe” choice that backfired on them. Fuck that — the Who have earned the right to keep playing half-competent shows and releasing half-assed records as long as they fucking want to.

I think a better question than “how bad were the Who last night?” would be where does the halftime show go from here, having exhausted all of the still-living legends that are still reasonably well-known and well-liked by the under-30 crowd? I have little doubt that Jay-Z is lobbying hard to be the first rapper to play the halftime show — Jigga’s whole schtick has always been describing his own triumph over his doubters, and since everyone in the hip-hop world stopped doubting him 10 years ago, he has to keep being “the first rapper to do X” in perpetuum — but I think he’ll have to wait a few years for his shot. Garth Brooks would be an obvious fit, though he doesn’t seem interested in the big time shows anymore. Metallica have the popularity and seeming kinship with the NFL’s core demographic, but they might be seen as somehow too dark for primetime. (Although considering some of the ads that ran last night — particularly this one, a Dodge commercial that seemed to be narrated by Patrick Bateman — I’d be shocked if “One” really prompts too many complaints.) Bon Jovi is still inexplicably popular, of course, but I’d rather not give the NFL any ideas.

In short, there’s only one obvious choice left to play the Super Bowl — and that choice is Devo.

(Come on., how great would that be?)

*It’s also applied near-exclusively to rock bands. Soul singers, jazz drummers, etc. are generally allowed to perform in whatever capacity they can for as long as they want.

**Although to be fair, their Concert for New York performance last year was quite a bit better.