A Guide to Halftime History

For over five decades, the Super Bowl has been synonymous with musical spectacle. To prepare for the next halftime show, take a look back at the evolution of this unique pop-culture tradition—and the legendary performers who have defined it.

Since 1967, the Super Bowl halftime show has become just as big as the big game itself, regardless of who’s playing. During the early years of the NFL’s championship game, intermissions were modest by today’s standards, featuring musical tributes to jazz legends performed by the premier university marching bands of the day. But Super Bowls need superstars. So in an effort to keep audiences who may have been tempted to explore alternative programming during such a long break in play, the NFL began delivering them consistently in 1991, when the halftime show featured one of the biggest acts of the time at the height of their powers: New Kids on the Block. Names like Michael Jackson, Boyz II Men, and Diana Ross soon followed, all of whom helped usher in the contemporary era of the Super Bowl Halftime Show playing out as the biggest televised concert of the year.

The Super Bowl Halftime Show has always been fertile ground for musical collaboration. Though everyone who’s graced that stage has been more than capable of rocking it by themselves, the early 2000s brought about an era of once-in-a lifetime groupings like Aerosmith, *NSYNC, Britney Spears, Mary J. Blige, and Nelly; Shania Twain, No Doubt, and Sting; and in one particularly diverse year, Phil Collins, Christina Aguilera, Enrique Iglesias, and Toni Braxton. These were lineups expressly curated to satisfy everyone, which makes the most sense when you consider the other ways we maximize the game-watching experience.

For a long stretch between 2005 and 2010, the Super Bowl was really feeling its imperial phase, bringing out nothing less than the biggest surviving titans of classic rock for career-spanning, crowd-pleasing mini-sets. With no disrespect to Mick, Macca, or The Boss, it was Prince’s 2007 virtuoso performance in Miami that became the standard-bearer—proof that a true megastar can dominate the biggest stage on the planet, even if they’re playing in unrelenting rain, armed only with a glyph-shaped guitar and limitless charisma.

Starting in the 2010s, the Super Bowl made a concerted effort to keep the star power up—just not so much with elder statesmen primed to evoke rock nostalgia. Starting with the Black Eyed Peas in 2011, artists such as Madonna and Beyoncé and Katy Perry and Lady Gaga brought modern pop—and less testosterone—to center stage, taking the Super Bowl well into the 21st century, kicking and dancing. Cut to 2022, when, after a nearly five-year hiatus from performing, a pregnant Rihanna took the halftime stage in front of a record-shattering audience of more than 121 million viewers. She belted 12 of her biggest smashes (“Umbrella,” “Diamonds”), at times standing on a giant platform suspended high above the field—as close as you can get to the definition of a star.

Gloria Estefan’s 1999 performance paid radiant tribute to salsa music. A year later, Enrique Iglesias and Christina Aguilera joined Phil Collins and Toni Braxton for a millennial celebration called Tapestry of Nations, replete with puppets, interpretative dancers, a choir, and a full orchestra. Both shows reflected football’s—and pop’s—increasingly global scale, but it was Shakira and Jennifer Lopez’s co-headlining stint in 2020 (which included guest turns from Bad Bunny, J Balvin, and Lopez’s daughter, Emme) that gave Latin music’s dominance the massive stage and recognition it had long deserved.

In 2022, the Super Bowl celebrated coming to Los Angeles with a show that not only showcased three of the city’s icons in headliner Dr. Dre and his former protégés Snoop Dogg and Kendrick Lamar, but put hip-hop front and center more than it ever had been in years past. Dre brought along three other guests and collaborators—50 Cent, Eminem, and the queen of hip-hop soul herself, Mary J. Blige—for a show with so much star power it was a miracle the players didn’t sneak out of the locker rooms to catch a glimpse themselves. Rap music had only featured in the halftime performance as recently as 2001, when Nelly delivered a verse from his breakout single “E.I.” (Queen Latifah only sang in 1998). But the lineup for 2021’s show made good on all the years the league had politely sidestepped hip-hop. Superstar MCs like Missy Elliott, Nicki Minaj, and Travis Scott had, of course, already etched their own names in the halftime show record book, but 2022 was the year they let gangsta rap on the field.