​Well! When I went to bed last night I figured I'd be writing about a couple of aspects of Madonna's Super Bowl halftime show, during which she ran through her catalog with the assistance of Nicki Minaj, M.I.A., Cee Lo Green, LMFAO, a marching band, a choir, and gladiators. There was the whole notion of bringing voguing, which she plucked out of the gay underground two decades ago, to the most heteronormative major event America's spectacle has to offer; there was the nitpicking over the set list (sure, it's a relatively minor hit in the Madonna catalog, but "Causing A Commotion" would have slotted into the medley nicely); and there was, of course, the cruel exclusion of Shufflebot from LMFAO's cameo. (Seriously, what?) But this morning all the chatter was about the controversy stoked by the controversy-stoking M.I.A., who flipped off the camera as a way to put a period on her verse on the still-underwhelming new Madonna track "Give Me All Your Luvin." Just when you thought it was safe to bring pop music back into the halftime show... a finger happens. The only way this could have inspired more silly outrage is if her finger had been drizzled with truffle oil first.

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​Chart fandom makes strange bedfellows. Six months ago, if you'd asked me what act I'd root for in a head-to-head chart battle between pop princess Katy Perry and electrodance goofballs LMFAO, I'd probably have picked Perry, whose song catalog includes at least one or two gems. Her current hit, "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)," isn't one of her best—it's nowhere near as well-crafted as "Teenage Dream" or "Hot N Cold"—but it's a charming, goodtime trifle, and marginally less stupid than LMFAO's "Party Rock Anthem."

Now? I'm rooting for the goofballs over the princess all the way.

LMFAO's single (which, to be honest, has kinda grown on me) is the last firewall standing between Perry and her fifth Hot 100 No. 1 from Teenage Dream. Were "Friday" to hit that mark, Teenage Dream would tie a record that has so far only been reached by one album: Michael Jackson's Bad. Perry and her people are trying to hit that mark by cheating... or, to be fair, by taking advantage of a legal but shady tactic.

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MTV turns 30 today. To celebrate, we're running a bunch of pieces on the channel, its legacy, and its future.

Angelina Jolie in a Michael Bay production.

​In the 30 years since MTV first hit the air, the music video has proven itself as a medium able to collapse high and low culture—or, as Chuck D put it in a video of his own, teach the bourgeois and rock the boulevard. Today, music videos have been canonized in art museums around the world, but they are also our generation's pulp fictions, disposable flashes of sex, adventure and cheap thrills. So we thought it'd be fun to compare the best videos made by "winners" of the "Golden Raspberry" for worst feature-film directing with those made by winners (no scare quotes necessary) of the Hollywood's high honor, an Academy Award for best directing. Before we get into the former list, a big dishonorable mention goes to Barry Sonnenfield, who, after botching Will Smith's Wild, Wild West, wasn't even given a shot at directing the music video of the same name.

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​
The Topic
Prince: pop titan, funk master, scary multi-instrumentalist ("You've got to learn your part," New Power Generation bassist Levi Seacer Jr. told Spin in 1991; "Prince can always come over and play your part"), master songwriter, greatest pop star of the '80s, unending inspiration to musicians of all stripes.

The Askee
Meshell Ndegeocello: singer, songwriter, bassist extraordinaire, creator of a solid (and peripatetic) body of albums, most recently 2009's Devil's Halo; a new album is in the works. Meanwhile, Ndegeocello has been keeping her band in trim by salting her live concerts with occasional all-Prince-cover shows. She'll be doing the latter tonight at the Highline Ballroom. To mark the occasion, we asked her five geeky questions about the man (or is that a woman? Or something that we'll never understand?) himself.

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Via Kim's Twitter, of course.

​Well, this is just stupendous. Prince played his final Madison Square Garden show Monday night, with Cee Lo as an opener and a predictably great set list ("Purple Rain" was the sixth song), but as an overall highlight it's tough to beat pulling Kim Kardashian onstage and then kicking her back off when she won't dance. And if Questlove's word isn't good enough for you, here is remarkably high-quality video of Prince doing basically what America has been trying to do for years now. The man is a national treasure. Skip to 1:00 if you like:

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Could be you up there this time.

​Not that you need someone to tell you to go see a Prince concert, but you really oughta go see a Prince concert if you get a chance -- and now you have another one. His bizarrely staggered but absolutely stupendous run of shows here, split between Madison Square Garden and the Izod Center in Jersey, just spawned another date: February 7 at MSG. It's not up on Ticketmaster yet, but tix will go on sale this Saturday, January 15, at 10 a.m. His other remaining date there, Tuesday January 18, is sold out, so jump on this one early. And seriously: "The Beautiful Ones" is superb. Plus there's always a chance that he'll walk through your section, for some reason:

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Look, he's blowing you a kiss. Pics by Nicole Ankowski, more below.

​Prince
Izod Center
Wednesday, December 15

Let's break with format and jump straight to the set list, since that's what you're curious about, right?

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​A brief public service announcement: Prince's NYC-and-surrounding-environs run may begin next week at New Jersey's Izod Center (on December 15th, not 14th, as you recall), but it's stretching on for awhile, and if you've been shut out for tickets thus far, today's perhaps your last chance to avoid Stubhub calamity: Tix for his new January 18 show are on sale right now. If your speed-Ticketmaster.com-navigating game is off then we'll be happy to lend you an expert. Go try your luck, and then hope he opens with this:

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​So Prince is coming to town soon, for a suite of shows at both Madison Square Garden and the Izod Center in New Jersey. First one was supposed to be December 14th at the latter. That show has been canceled. Ticketholders can either opt for "an email notification with a new seat location" for the following night's Izod show on Dec. 15 (look out you're not stuck behind a pole or something), or get a full refund and then priority access to a new show: January 18th at Madison Square Garden. As this is reliably confusing in a Prince sort of way, let's just run the whole release, plus the newly updated show dates below:

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​As you may have heard, Prince is playing five NYC shows in December, as part of his Welcome 2 America tour, also featuring the likes of Maceo Parker, Mint Condition, Esperanza Spalding, Cassandra Wilson, Sinbad (!!), Lalah Hathaway, Sheila E., Graham Central Station, and still-extant SOTC obsession Janelle Monáe. Both his Madison Square Garden shows, on the logical dates of Dec. 18 and 29, are sold out. Your only choice now is to schlep it out to New Jersey -- he's at the Izod Center December 14, 15, and 17. Prince live is the ultimate crapshoot, a minefield of bullshit medleys, "jazzy" "remakes," and general chaos, but Prince he remains, and you don't want to not be in the building when he launches into, say, "Kiss." Just trust me. His Apollo-hosted tour announcement is below; consider this your early Christmas present to yourself.

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