Bruce Springsteen’s Super Bowl gig

Is it smart for The Boss to play the halftime show, or hypocritical?

“Bruce Springsteen and stadiums go together like football and apple pie,” said Joe Bosso in MusicRadar.com, so it makes perfect sense that the NFL picked The Boss and his E Street Band to play the 2009 Super Bowl halftime show. It’s about time Springsteen was invited—we can’t wait.

Does anyone else see the “irony” in this? said Amy Phillips in Pitchfork. At least it will be “funny” if he plays “Born in the U.S.A”—a song that’s actually about “the crushed dreams of Vietnam veterans”—while confetti is falling, fireworks are exploding, and everybody’s all “‘Woo! Go America! U.S.A.! U.S.A.! Woo! Best country ever!’”

“Politically speaking,” said Sean Daly in TampaBay.com, “the Boss and the NFL’s corporate powers-that-be are strange bedfellows.” But then again, by the time February rolls around, Springsteen will likely have a new album to promote, and who in their right mind would turn down the “exposure of 150 million-plus viewers”?