I have always been a fan of halftime performances — such as those featuring Chicago and Jon Bon Jovi at Notre Dame this year — but the halftime performance Travis Scott gave at the College Football Playoff National Championship was disappointing.
Travis Scott — the renowned rap artist known for his songs “Goosebumps,” “Sicko Mode,” “Butterfly Effect” and “Antidote” — performed his new song “4X4,” and needless to say, I was not pleased with the two-minute performance because of the poor quality of the video itself, as well as the singing and musicality.
I am going to put it out there — the quantity and quality of the video was bad, with the exception of its beginning. The start of the featured video faded quickly into a shot of the National Championship logo with an effect added to make it look a lot older. This gave me hope for the video, but that quickly changed as the music video continued.
While I can appreciate the fact that it was filmed entirely on top of the stadium (which must take a lot of courage), it was completely dark and Scott was in all black, which made him hard to see. To me, he looked like a dancing shadow — that was not very appealing to me. He was surrounded by what looked to be little lanterns of some sort, but it did not help his appearance in the song’s debut.
Another thing I noticed was the band used in the video. Although it is interesting that Scott decided to add in this feature, I do not believe that the band was given enough time on-screen, making them seem almost irrelevant during the show. On the other hand, one thing that I can appreciate about the band was that near the end of the video, one of the trombones shot fire out of its bell. This was a feature that I enjoyed, and it gave life to the band.
As a singer, one of the biggest things you look out for when watching a performance is the attention to annunciation, and while I understand how rap is sung, this standard also applies to rap to some extent. Throughout the song, besides maybe the first few lines, it was near impossible to understand what Scott was saying, which heavily affected the music and obscured what point he was trying to make in this song. Another thing that heavily impacted the work was the use of autotune. While Scott is known for using autotune in his music, “4X4” uses an excessive amount of it, which covers up his voice and makes it difficult to understand what he is saying.
Overall, this was not my favorite halftime show. It lacked the quality of music and visuals that a halftime show should have.
