The Super Bowl Halftime Show is one of those things I care way too much about. I could tell you who performed at each of the last ten without looking it up, and each year I wait with eager anticipation to see who gets the honor of performing. Last night that question was answered far earlier than usual when I learned on Twitter that the sacred duty would be given to Bruno Mars.

Now, I'm not sure what the pulse of the rest of the nation is on this choice, but I think it's a great pick. Admittedly, after the glorious spectacle that was last year's Beyonce performance, just about anything is going to seem underwhelming, but I feel like Mars is more than up to the challenge. He's one of the greatest showmen in music, and every time I watch him live, I get the sense that he's giving it everything he has.

What I wonder, though, is how this performance will affect Mars' career. See, I've had this theory for about a year now that pop music fans take him for granted. They've sent his singles to the top of the charts over and over again, but there doesn't seem to be that much appreciation for Mars himself. People don't connect him with the way they connect with Tayor Swift or Adele, and he has yet to become an icon on the level of Justin Timberlake, as evidenced by the video begging JT to return to music that included the line "I don't know how to jerk off to Bruno Mars!"

It seems like lately, Mars' songs are bigger than he is. This may be an unpopular opinion, but I feel that ,as far as sad songs of the past three years go, "It Will Rain" and "When I Was Your Man" can totally hold their own against the Adele instant classic 1-2 punch of "Rolling In The Deep" and "Someone Like You." But the connection with listeners isn't there. Listeners feel like they know Adele, and that her problems are their problems. Bruno almost comes off as too professional for his own good. Like somehow his sad songs come from a Sad Song Processing Plant, even though he wrote them about real concerns in his own life just like Adele did.

So, how could the Halftime Show change that? Well, it'll be hard for Mars to share any deep, dark personal secrets in a 15-minute halftime show, so perhaps he can go the other route by giving us a grand spectacle that launches him from Pop-Star-Of-The-Moment to one of the best of all-time (OF ALL TIME!). Until recently, Beyonce had the same problem Mars has now, the disconnect between her and her songs. People could relate to the message of "Irreplaceable" or "Single Ladies," but Beyonce always seemed disconnected from them. The way she remedied that was by embracing the larger-than-life aspects of her personality, and becoming beloved because she was a more-famous-and-rich-God-Jesus-and-Wonder Woman-combined force of nature that none of us could touch.

So, how does this relate to Bruno Mars? Well, he too is the larger-than-life force of nature that Beyonce is, but he could still take a page out from her book. Mars will have everyone in America watching him on the Super Bowl, so this is his biggest chance to make a lasting impression. I would recommend going all out, going for the biggest spectacle he can possibly put together. Have seizure-inducing lights flash across the stage while an army of gorillas terrorize the audience! Bring Sting out to sing that fake Police song you wrote like you did at the Grammys! Do whatever you can to prove to the world that Bruno Mars is more than Justin Timberlake's non-Union Hawaiian equivalent! As someone who's been a fan since day one, I cannot wait to see what you come up with.

Well, that's another Super Bowl in the books, and like many, I for one am glad it is over. This de facto unofficial American holiday is generally a mixed bag, but this year's edition turned out to a bigger turd than usual, with a wildly uneven game, lackluster commercials, a wildly over hyped half-time show, and a 35 minute long power outage that quickly became taken as a metaphor for modern America. To be honest, I'd take the whole event as a metaphor for modern America, but I'm here to talk about the music, so I'll try (and probably fail) to leave that alone...

• I so wanted to Tweet something about the Alicia Keys rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner" vis-a-vis Beyonce that would've shamelessly fed into gender stereotypes, but in an effort to keep my liberal karma pure, I refrained. Yes, Alicia Keys sang it live; in fact she sang the hell out of it, and I can't say anything bad about it.

• The Flaming Lips got their moment in the sun with their Hyundai ad airing at the start of the game. Unfortunately, amidst so many lame ads it looks like it went largely unnoticed by the general public, a shame considering it was one of the more interesting ads of the whole night.

• Audi used a track from Hanni El Khatib (produced by Dan Auerbach) for their big Super Bowl ad, and while the commercial is largely ludicrous, the song is pretty damn good, so good in fact that I'll be keeping an eye out for this Palestinian American artist.

•  Peter, Bjorn, and John should not have allowed their song to be used for this odious Budweister Black ad campaign. Wasn't 2 Broke Girls enough for these Swedes? And speaking of 2 Broke Girls, we need to find something better for national treasure Kat Dennings to do. That admittedly spicy Super Bowl ad couldn't have gotten any more blatantly sexist. Shame on us.

• I had to laugh at the geriatric network CBS unironically using T-Rex's "20th Century Boy" for their commercials for that cliche riddled new Chi McBride cop show.