Madonna's Super Bowl Half-Time Show was the Definition of 'Phoning it In'

Super Bowl XLVI gave sports fans quite a bit to be happy about. The game came down to a last second Hail Mary pass into the end zone from New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady that ultimately fell short, leading the New York Giants to their second Super Bowl victory over the Patriots in recent years. The players for both teams provided those watching both at the stadium in Indianapolis and at home some with a thrilling time. Sadly, the same can't be said for Madonna's half-time show.

Firstly, let me first say that I am in no way a Madonna hater. She clearly has earned her place among pop music icons and she's someone to be respected for her contributions to the art form. In yesterday's performance though, something seemed terribly "off" about the way in which she meandered through the medley of her classic tunes and her more recent fare. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out if she was under the weather, a little sluggish from all the festivities, or just phoning it in while she went through the motions.

Twenty years ago, a half-time show that featured The Queen of Pop would have insanely intricate and crisp choreography from both her backup dancers and from Madonna herself. The Super Bowl show she put on seemed slightly out of step and there were several steps and moves that she did that seemed slow, laborious, and lacking in full commitment. To my eyes it looked more like a final dress rehearsal than the actual performance for millions of viewers worldwide.

If the lackadaisical footwork wasn't bad enough, the whole pretense that she was actually singing through most of the performance was so ludicrous that I found myself wishing she'd drop the act and just commit fully to dancing so that at least one element of her performance would have been of the caliber we've come to expect from her over the years. In years past, the Super Bowl has featured shows from artists like Paul McCartney and The Who, both whom were clearly playing and singing live. I'm no fool, I know that the dance work of the numbers require Madonna to do some lip syncing, but even that seemed to be half-hearted; resulted in very obvious moments of the singer just not finishing the phrase and exposing the man behind the curtain, so to speak.

Watching her performance, one possible reason for the sluggish performance could be the fact that 20 years ago, Madonna was barely into her 30s and maybe she just simply had more spring in her step. Perhaps at 53-years-old Madonna has had to shave a little bit of the pace and crispness of the dance routines in order to pull them off at all? Upon further deliberation of this theory though, it has to be tossed out. Mick Jagger is almost twenty years older than Madge and he's still singing and gyrating with the best of them. No, it's not Madonna's age that did her in.

Ultimately it was Madonna herself who is to blame for this performance looking so terrible. Not 2012 Madonna though; it's 1992 Madonna that the world has to blame. You see, since she broke into the mainstream in the early 1980s, Madonna continually impressed her fans the world over with ever-increasing production values and impossibly high caliber performances on some very large stages. It's those early memories of her talents that haunted Madonna yesterday, serving as a reminder of far off her own mark she fell.