Why are we really watching?

TV audiences are funny. Last year more people watched the halftime show than they did the actual Super Bowl. During awards show season, the red carpet coverage is often the same length as the awards show itself. There’s even a one-hour special of the best commercials – a show of commercials. I love that viewers want more of the stuff that isn’t the actual event.

With the Super Bowl, everyone was eager to see if Beyonce would lip sync her way through a reunion with Destiny’s Child because weeks earlier she was busted mouthing the national anthem at the presidential inauguration.

At a press conference days before the Super Bowl, Beyonce admitted to faking her way through the Star Spangled Banner and said timing, weather and pressure were the reasons, adding lots of artists do it (lip synch or use a pre-recorded track).

When asked by a reporter if she would sing live at the Super Bowl, Beyonce said she would and had been rehearsing for a long time. It should be noted that the Super Bowl had just as many viewers as the presidential inauguration – if you want to talk about pressure.

So Beyonce took to the stage and seizure-danced her way through her hits before being joined by Destiny’s Child, whom we could barely hear during the medley of songs. But many people are still saying there wasn’t much live singing during the performance, anyway.

Thankfully during the chorus of many of the songs there was a dance routine, limiting the amount of time Beyonce would have to move her mouth. Rarely did she sing the main parts of the song, relying on a backing track as the words were still heard.

So yes, there were times she was singing live but she tried to distract us with her body shaking and shimmying her way through the parts she didn’t trust herself to nail vocally in front of the year’s biggest TV audience.