The World Cup Halftime Show: When Everything Is Important, Nothing Is

I am someone who genuinely enjoys watching football. I particularly love the World Cup season, the collective excitement, the joy, and that very distant feeling that, for a month, the entire world is watching the same thing. (Truly, it feels like the GoT finale was the last time we were all tuning into the same thing.) And perhaps above all, I love music, the music industry, and pop culture. So, despite all the controversies surrounding the no-one-asked-for-this first ever World Cup Halftime Show, I, for one, considered myself the specific target audience for this, and was actually excited to see what it would all be about. Then, my internal hype only grew when it was announced as a show “curated by Coldplay’s Chris Martin”. So when minute 45 of the final arrived, you best believe I was sat, as my Gen Z coworkers love to say.

What follows is the play-by-play of my brain as I watched the halftime show:

“OMG, Madonna!!!! God, she’s SUCH an icon… oh! Is that…? Ronaldinho! And Ronaldo Fenómeno!! Bahaha, they look silly, but what a vibe. Is this pre-recorded? Oh, those dancers are killing it! Alright, now the show begins! Oh, is that… a Muppet? Huh. It IS a Muppet. Actually, THREE Muppets, playing in a Muppet band. Being conducted by… Dudamel? Did I see that correctly? And a choir? And an orchestra? And… again… Muppets? Damn, they really are rocking out. This is strange. Ruh! Ruh! Is Dynamite playing in my head? Wait, I think it’s coming from the TV… wait, those ARE BTS RIGHT THERE! Oh but the lyrics are… those are cool outfits. Man, they can dance! They can definitely put on a sohow! Must be tough following the Muppets, tho. Alright, this is actually FIRE! I wonder what other song they’ll… TED LASSO AND COACH BEARD!?!? JUSTIN!?!?!?!?!??! This is a LOT. Oh, hey, I like this song. Nice. It’s the World Cup, hallelujah. Yeah, actually the World Cup does bring people together… in… New Jersey. THE WORLD CUP QUEEN IS HEREEEEEE YES. She looks INCREDIBLE!! She’s officially had more World Cup appearances than her idiot ex. WHO ALLOWED BURNA BOY ON THE STAGE WITH JEANS AND A T-SHIRT. In the most culturally relevant event of the year!?!!??! And WHY does he keep getting in the way of Shakira! Literally, did he not go through this choreography once? GET OUT OF THE WAY! Gosh, male artists really do have it easy. Oh, it’s a children’s choir now, of course. The ONLY thing possibly missing. MORE MUPPETS!?! This is officially a melatonin dream. Chris Martin really HAD to throw himself in there, of course. Is it over now…? Is it…? Please be over. Goodness… finally. Maybe I should switch to drinking water….”

As you can probably infer, the problem was that this didn’t feel “curated” at all. It felt more like a list of big-name artists who were available to perform that day: Madonna! BTS! Justin Bieber! Shakira! Coldplay themselves! THE MUPPETS!?!?!? This is proof of concept number one that a headline full of big names does not equal a great show. Curating is not calling the music industry Avengers!! Curating is having a point of view. A unique vision and taste (and not necessarily “good taste” at that). Curating is deciding what is included and why. And, perhaps more importantly, curating is knowing when to say no. Instead, this “curated” show tried to squeeze everyone in and create world peace in a span of 12 minutes.

The problem with making everything important

The halftime show tried SO HARD to fit everything into such a small amount of time that it felt like every 20 seconds there was somewhere new to look, or just enough time for your brain to catch up with what was happening on screen before the show decided it was time to cut to something completely different. And in the age of AI slop, sadly, the show occasionally felt like it had been spat out by ChatGPT: “To create an entertaining World Cup Halftime Show, you should add K-pop, a children’s choir, and the Muppets. Yes, the Muppets. Also, the narrative thread should be about love and global unity. And honestly? Everyone will love this.”

By definition, something curated, be it a playlist, and exhibition, a festival, or a World Cup halftime show, will NOT be for everyone. Because something curated is not supposed to be a people pleaser. A curator has to make choices, and that inevitably means exclusions. That’s the whole point. You cannot have everything. But Chris Martin insisted we did.

Perhaps surprisingly, the moment I liked the most was the least “spectacular” performance of all. Coming out of a recent, highly celebrated stripped-down Coachella performance as headliner, Justin Bieber walked into the biggest stage of the year with only a guitar and a Britney-type mic. No dancers, no pyro, no elaborate outfit or set design, no Muppets. Only then did the very loud bar I was in went quiet. The show stopped jumping from thing to thing. Suddenly, we could breathe. For the first time in (has it been 5 minutes? 5 seconds? 5 years?) in the show, we were allowed to take in one and only ONE thing. For me, THAT was the moment in which I finally understood the narrative Chris Martin had apparently been trying to build front he beginning. With everything else that was going on, Madonna’s opening line “music makes the people come together” flew right over my head. This time, the production finally alowed the message to land: the World Cup makes the people come together.

How nice. What a beautiful sentiment. So sad it only lasted one second. Because, surprise surprise, context matters. When you curate an artistic experience that will be watched by BILLIONS of people around the world around a concept like global unity, you are no longer simply curating an entertaining show. You are making a cultural declaration. And there is a fairly unmissable irony in delivering a message about how “love and football has no borders” in a stadium in the United States during a politically contentious moment around borders and immigration. We will leave it at that.

What about Mexico?

In the midst of everything that was going on, one thing I kept waiting for that never arrived was a Mexican artist. If the goal was representation, where did we leave Mexico, A HOST COUNTRY? Canada had Justin, The USA had Madonna. So, unless there was something I completely missed because I was looking somewhere else on the screen - which, to be fair, was happening aprox every 12 seconds - I don’t believe Mexico was represented at all. And that feels like a VERY significant omission.

Who is the show actually for?

One thing that annoys me deeply about these “will be viewed by millions on TV” kinds of performances is precisely how catered towards the cameras they have become over the years. For real though, you could have the BEST seat in the stadium and still the people in another country watching from their couch WILL get a better experience o the show than you. A live music performance is, as the name implies, for the moment. And in that moment, the audience right there should matter.

It’s been a strange evolution. Increasingly, I get the feeling that the people watching on the screen are the ones actually getting the show, while the audience in the stadium is watching a live filming of the show. I’ve been feeling this for years with the Super Bowl halftime shows, and I felt it here too. Even Madonna’s pre-recorded appearance took away a little bit of that magic for me. Part of what makes a live performance special is precisely the fact that it is happening right now, in front of you, and nowhere else.

Shakira and Burna Boy

There are many branches we could hang on to from this halftime show. For example, the difference in the amount of effort female artists are expected to put into these performances versus their males counterparts is certainly one of them.

I will be fair with everyone: Madonna pre-recorded her part. You could say that Justin’s performance was underwhelming but, like I said, it felt like the most necessary one of them all. BTS, obviously, are another level, but that is also what K-pop culture demands. They would never in a million years get away with a stripped-down performance like Justin’s because K-pop is synonyms with looks, choreography, precision, and spectacle. Those boys KNOW how to put on a damn good show.

But I am DYING to talk about Shakira and Burna Boy, the two artists who dominated the World Cup soundtrack with their duo “Dai Dai”. Shakira looked literally perfect. Hair was giving, makeup was serving, and she ATE (is it obvious I hang with Gen-Z a lot?). She performed in couture by Cavalli, she hit her marks, and danced like she invented dancing, in perfect connection with her dancers, taking complete control of HER stage. And then Burna Boy, who is JUST AS RELEVANT TO THAT SONG, shows up in jeans and a T-shirt???? In the most watched performance of the year????? Only to rap his verse and then proceed to look… lost for the rest of the song?? Like, get OUT of Shakira’s way! Was he aware he had a performance that day or was he informed last minute!?

And no, I am not saying he should have put on a skirt to shake his hips, but at LEAST wear something coherent! Magenta linen trousers. A bright orange guayabera-style shirt. Some patterned accessories. Something. Anything! Like, Burna Boy is not an artist who shies away from color! Instead he showed up dressed like he came to pick up groceries to the biggest stage of the year AND looking like he had accidentally wandered into the wrong rehearsal meanwhile Shakira next to him is giving World Cup Final Boss.

This is of course a small example of a phenomenon that has been widely discussed in the music industry: female artists being expected to arrive perfectly packaged, choreographed, styles, rehearsed and camera-ready, while male artists can sometimes just… show up.

Everyone was great. And that was the problem.

Now, I do want to clarify something and say that I loved each individual performance. Madonna is the definition of a legend, the BTS boys were electric (the fits! The looks! The choreography!), Justin Bieber and a guitar are enough to make the world shush and, obviously, Shakira is to the World Cup what Mariah Carey is to Christmas: meaningless without her.

Everyone killed it. Everyone did amazing. And THAT was the problem for me. Because when you try to make everything important, nothing really is.

A great curator doesn’t necessarily choose the biggest names, or the most jaw-dropping set design, or the fiery-est pyro. A great curator decides what the experience needs. That WILL mean adding things, taking away others, or maybe, MAYBE, it means letting one artist have five minutes instead of giving five artists one minute.

And sometimes it can mean saying: The Muppets might be too much.

So, Chris Martin, if this was thoughtfully curated, what the hell did you leave out?