The Pepsi Super Bowl 41 Half-time Show.

Welcome to the New York Times Popcast, you're, let me find out you're a

businessman of music news and criticism. I am your host John Caramonica. I never meant to cause you in your solid

I never meant to cause you in your solid

I never meant to cause you any pain.

I don't want to one time to see you laughing,

baby. one time see you laughing,

babe.

Only want to see you laughing, yeah.

In the purple rain,

purple rain, purple rain,

you are listening to a thing that was very special when it happened,

and certainly in the rearview mirror seems even more so.

2007 Prince played the Super Bowl halftime show.

Super Bowl halftime show, certainly in the decade or so leading up to the Prince

performance could be a bit of a weird old person slash new pop star grab bag

without a particular aesthetic position. The Prince show was maybe the most focused sharp and musically astute

exponent of what the halftime show could be. Many people maybe just will remember

it solely for the image of the shadow of the guitar,

demonstrated in a particularly phallic way that he somehow got past the NFL and

the censors, but really it was about how good the music was. In the decade plus since then the

halftime show has been a bit more... hmm... How do we put it? It's been sloppy. There have been some good moments and certainly in the last couple of years

...