The Super Bowl halftime show format doesn’t do justice to artists. They have to quickly perform without mistakes all of their greatest hits in under 25-30 minutes with garbage acoustics, audio, sound effects and technology. People don’t hear their voices that much. That’s why they look like they’re boring and lacking energy. To compensate for it, they are overdoing with the choreography, dancers, fireworks, visual effects and other gimmicks to save the show but it’s not enough.
I will never judge the entertainment value, quality and talent of artists on their performances in the Super Bowl half time show. It’s tough for them to be at their best on the Super Bowl stage.
Kendrick is a talented artist but his music /biggest hit songs aren’t ubiquitous/pop/up tempo/energetic enough for the Super Bowl show. Super Bowl is watched by everyone from silent generations/boomers to generation alpha, his most successful songs aren’t widely accessible and universally recognizable like that outside of many Millenial/gen z folks. His music is too smooth/slow/ down tempo. You listen his music when you’re a chilled mood in a lowkey and more intimate environment like bars and clubs, not in football stadiums. Usually the SB halftime show is given to more popular/marketable artists with more recognizable songs. Even an artist as big and successful as Kendrick Lamar is not a pop culture icon known by the majority of people in North America outside of certain circles. At the end of the day, you just can’t please everybody and there’s no artist on earth who appeals to everyone. Kendrick fans are happy meanwhile the rest of the population out there is not.
Overall I give Kendrick the average mark of 5/10. His show performance was not the best but okay. The show got better and more energetic as it went on, he saved his best stuff for the end