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Sam Robeson - February 5, 2018
Those questioning Justin Timberlake's fashion choices during last night's Super Bowl 52 halftime show should probably know that the pants were made specifically for the occasion, and that the odd shape was necessary for including a special flap that conveniently opened to allow Timberlake to take a huge, piping hot deuce on Prince's grave. No muss no fuss. Just a heinous Coachella getup that only added insult to injury in Timberlake's butchering of Prince's legacy.
People speculated throughout the weekend that Timberlake would pay some sort of tribute to Prince, seeing that he passed away this year and that he hails from this Super Bowl host city, Minnesota. But prince once vehemently objectified to the posthumous usage of singers on stage, telling Guitar World in 1998:
That's the most demonic thing imaginable. Everything is as it is, and it should be. If I was meant to jam with Duke Ellington, we would have lived in the same age. That whole virtual reality thing... it really is demonic. And I am not a demon. Also, what they did with that Beatles song [‘Free As a Bird’], manipulating John Lennon's voice to have him singing from across the grave... that'll never happen to me. To prevent that kind of thing from happening is another reason why I want artistic control.
He was specifically referring to the use of holograms, and while that would have cost more than the apparent fifteen dollar budget Timberlake allowed for his brief Prince tribute mid-show, he did project Prince's image on a gigantic sheet, which isn't necessarily going against Prince's wishes, but isn't exactly abiding by them either. It's more like being a douchebag. And taking a shadoobie on Prince's face.
Timberlake is rumored to be a major diva in the industry, and I can't imagine he was even all that excited to distract from his catalog of monotonous indecipherable mind-numbing Skate Town USA tunes to celebrate someone else in the first place. I honestly have always been skeptical about the unwavering praise heaped on Prince, because I find it hard to believe that a true visionary would come in the form of a hyper-lucrative chart-topping Internationally-adored Thumbelina, but if there's any silver lining to Timberlake's performance (which was also derided for botched audios and a lack of spontaneity and literally anything exciting) it's that I looked up Prince's 2007 Super Bowl performance. And damn. It definitely lives up to the hype. To go from this (video at bottom of page) to being strung up on a crumpled sheet while the world's oldest twink bangs out your lyrics with all the finesse of a chimpanzee is pretty tragic. But we all know when Timberlake dies, a fourteen-year-old YouTuber named Mikie Dizaster (sounds legit right) will belt out SexyBack to commemorate some random old singer he's never heard of. And so on and so forth. The Circle of Fame Whores.
Photo Credit: Splash News / Pacific Coast News
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