This Sunday, breasts will heave, hearts will warm, arms will be muscular, letters will be omitted, and socks will probably be mismatched. We’re not talking about the Super Bowl — we’re talking about the Super Bowl halftime show! Madonna has been hired to entertain us for twelve minutes with the help of M.I.A. and Nicki Minaj. She’s expected to perform her new song, the unremarkably titled but appropriately letter-omitting “Give Me All Your Luvin’” from her new album MDNA, along with three other old hits. MDNA is pun enough to get us super excited about the show, but in case you need additional reasons to get pumped, here is a list — because this game doesn’t have to be entirely boring.
1. It’s a diva trio. M.I.A. and Nicki Minaj are the modern-day amazing equivalent of that other performance Madonna did with two pop stars nearly ten years ago (so yes, you are that old, congrats!) at the VMAs. You know, where she kissed Britney with tongue during a “Like a Virgin” performance, and she also kissed Christina Aguilera but you couldn’t see the tongue, so Christina didn’t get any attention for it? Well, now that Madonna’s already done that, and she is the mother of reinvention, she’ll have to put fake lesbianism aside because it’s such passé, low-hanging fruit for a pop star nowadays. Maybe they can do a highly choreographed hand clap, or something.
2. Just think of the Joan Rivers jokes. When reviewing Golden Globes dresses on Fashion Police, Joan astutely noted that Madonna’s looked “like a disco ball that had sex with a quilt.”
3. “Reductive.”
4. It’s a slate-cleaner. Remember last year’s halftime show? With the Black Eyed Peas doing something Tron movie–themed with a random appearance by Slash that couldn’t even save it because the Peas were wearing suits that lit up in the most embarrassing way, and most of the cheering and clapping came from a flash mob of dancers dressed in white jumpsuits, like painters? And all you could think was, “Ugh, TOOLS”? Well, Madonna has the chance to undo some of that.
5. It’s all a big drug reference. In case you thought MDNA was just about doing that trendy naming thing restaurants like BRGR and STK do while simultaneously making a clever biology reference, Madge explained on Leno recently that it was also a play on the drug MDMA.
6. Do you remember the eighties? (Again: congrats on being old.) We assembled a slideshow of Madonna from 1984 to 1987 to help you recall.
7. The clothes. Madonna, especially in her heyday, M.I.A., and Nicki Minaj are some of the most creatively attired people in the world. The one thing they’ll have to avoid to live up to their reputations as amazing, innovative dressers is wearing costumes that are just slutty riffs of football uniforms, as past diva halftime-show performers Britney Spears and Fergie have done. (Though one might argue that look is kind of a staple of Fergie’s style.) Having worn one glove to the Golden Globes, Madonna wore two gloves to her halftime show press conference with her sleeveless top, for no other reason than it is on.
8. It’s MADONNA.