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Madonna · S9 E4
Super Bowl XLVI
The most-watched halftime show in American television history — what went into it and why it worked
Lucas Oil Stadium, Indianapolis, February 5, 2012. Madonna stands on a platform beneath the field, waiting for a golden throne carried by Roman centurions to lift her into a stadium of 70,000 people and a television audience of 114 million.
Madonna's Super Bowl XLVI Halftime Show (2012). The actual performance, all twelve minutes of it. She enters on a golden throne carried by Roman centurions, performs a medley spanning three decades, and closes with "Like a Prayer" while "WORLD PEACE" lights up the field. 114 million people watch this. It is the most-watched halftime performance in history at that point.
The Biggest Stage
The Super Bowl halftime show is the single most-watched live performance on American television, and Madonna treats it like a coronation. She opens on a golden throne, performs a medley spanning three decades, and closes with "Like a Prayer" backed by a gospel choir while the words "WORLD PEACE" light up the field. It is twelve minutes of controlled spectacle, and the only thing anyone talks about the next day is M.I.A.'s middle finger.
“I am building a show and putting it in 12 minutes.”
— Madonna, on preparing for the Super Bowl XLVI halftime show (2012)
TAP TO REVEAL: What did M.I.A.'s one-second gesture cost her?
Lucas Oil Stadium, Indianapolis
The site of Super Bowl XLVI on February 5, 2012, where Madonna delivers the most-watched halftime performance in history at that point. The stage fills the entire field and is assembled in minutes by hundreds of volunteers during the halftime break. 114 million people watch from home.
The Super Bowl Show
Falling Free
From MDNA (2012). The closing track of the standard edition, and the emotional counterweight to everything else on the album. After eleven tracks of EDM bangers and stadium anthems, "Falling Free" strips everything back to a piano, a vocal, and a lyric about surrendering control. It is the most vulnerable moment on an album that otherwise refuses to show any weakness. If the Super Bowl was about proving she could still command the biggest stage in the world, this song is about what it feels like when nobody is watching.
Falling Free, Madonna (2012)
Read the lyrics while you listen. After an album of defiance and spectacle, Madonna closes with a song about letting go. The lyric reads like a prayer written by someone who has finally stopped performing.
Which album did Madonna release shortly after the Super Bowl XLVI halftime show?
The Super Bowl proves she can still command the biggest audience on earth. But the album she releases two months later will expose a growing contradiction: Madonna the touring artist is unstoppable, while Madonna the recording artist is losing ground.
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