Since its inception in 1967, the Super Bowl Halftime Show has featured some of the best musical performances in American history. However, few if any of them can compete with Michael Jackson’s iconic showing at Super Bowl XXVII.
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Jackson’s death in 2009 coincided with what many believed to be the death of the celebrity, as no musician or pop culture sensation has yet to reach his level of fame since. During a recent discussion about the King of Pop on his Nightcap podcast, NFL Hall of Famer Shannon Sharpe was asked for his opinion on the late legend.
When asked what would be the one question that he would have for Jackson himself, the former Denver Bronco quickly responded, “Why wasn’t Thriller enough?”
“He drove himself crazy trying to replicate Thriller. At the time, 35 million hard copies sold, but everything that came after that, even though it was doing diamond… How many artists today would kill to have a diamond album? He had it… but it wasn’t Thriller.”
In noting that Jackson had plenty of other major successes, such as Bad and Dangerous, Sharpe surmised that no one thought any less of the artist despite his failure to replicate the numbers behind his greatest hit. In an attempt to help the audience better understand, the NFL legend turned podcaster put it into football terms.
Likening Jackson to Patrick Mahomes, Sharpe laid out the following idea,
“For the sake of the argument, he goes to the Super Bowl, he wins, and he throws for 300 yards. Now, the next two Super Bowls he throws for 150 and he’s like ‘Oh my god.’ Those are great performances. Thriller is the biggest album commercially, but you go back and look at Michael’s Off the Wall, it’s a masterpiece. But that’s not what he thought.”
Prior to Kendrick Lamar’s appearance at Super Bowl LIX, Jackson’s performance held the record as the most viewed halftime show in history, with reports stating that he drew in more than 133 million American viewers. However, thanks to a rap beef with Drake that dominated the 2024 music charts, Lamar’s live performance of Not Like Us netted a grand total of 133.5 million viewers.
The viral track hosted an onslaught of disses and innuendos directed at the Canadian recording artist, taking Lamar’s career to unseen heights. Nevertheless, Lamar’s modern-day spectacle is unlikely to display the same staying power as Jackson’s sunglasses.
Seeing as it took more than three decades before someone was able to surpass the viewership numbers of the gloved one, Lamar’s record-breaking performance potentially marks a shift in American culture. As hip-hop continues to dominate the airwaves, more and more artists from the discipline are likely to see opportunities to host the coveted halftime slot.
Lamar proved to be the first-ever hip-hop artist to headline the event on his own, paving the way for future artists to do the same. Given the principles on which Jackson founded his career, he’s likely smiling down on the accomplishments of Lamar to this very day.
