Sting, Styx Join Super Bowl Extravaganza

Fourteen-time Grammy winner Sting and multi-platinum rockers Styx have been added to the high-voltage show for Super Bowl XXXV, which will take place Jan. 28 at Tampa's Raymond James Stadium and be broadcast on NBC.

The two will perform before kickoff as part of a show called "Life's Super in Central Florida." In a paean to the state that gave us Tom Petty, Collective Soul, and most of Lynyrd Skynyrd -- and more recently the hanging chad -- Raymond James will be transformed into Daytona Beach complete with a bathing suit contest, volleyball nets, hula hops, sumo wrestlers and eye-patched swashbucklers, who will sail into the stadium on their pirate ship to the sound of Styx's "Come Sail Away." That portion of the pre-game show will not be televised nationally, however.

Most of the viewing nation won't be able to tune in until Sting arrives on the field to croon his new hit "Desert Rose" and a new version of the Police's "Roxanne." If that's not entertainment enough, Ray Charles will sing "America the Beautiful," and the Backstreet Boys -- whose member Nick Carter grew up in Ruskin, Fla. and lives in Apollo Beach -- will croon the national anthem.

'N Sync and Aerosmith, who will preview material from their forthcoming album, will headline the halftime show.

• 
  MUSIC 100 Greatest Debut Albums
• 
  MOVIES 'Star Trek' Is Crazy Good
• 
  TV 10 Shows to Watch This Summer
• 
  POLITICS No Price Big Banks Can't Fix

Song Stories

“I'm Yours”

Jason Mraz | 2008

Jason Mraz re-emerged after his disappointing second album with this lead single, a Jack Johnson-esque ditty about giving yourself fully to someone else. The success of the reggae-tinged song (it earned two Grammy nods and a spot on the Billboard singles chart for well over a year) was something the folk-pop singer never predicted when he wrote it in 15 minutes at home. "I played a happy-hippie chord progression that would probably work without 50 different Bob Marley songs," he told Rolling Stone. "I thought, 'It's too novelty. This is a nursery rhyme,'" concluding that "you can never guess what's gonna be a hit."

More Song Stories entries »

Twitter