Charles Sykes/Invision, via Charles Sykes, via Invision, via Associated Press Bruno Mars performed at MTV’s Video Music Awards ceremony in August.The Grammy award-winning pop artist Bruno Mars has been chosen by the National Football League to perform the Super Bowl XLVIII halftime show in February. Mr. Mars appeared in Times Square during a live broadcast of Fox’s “N.F.L. Sunday†to make the news official. He described being named as “an honor.â€
The selection of Mr. Mars, 27, whose debut album, “Doo-Wops & Hooligans,†was released in 2010, is something of a departure for the N.F.L., which in recent years has tapped long-established acts for the Super Bowl, like Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, the Rolling Stones and Madonna. Even the most recent halftime artist, Beyoncé, 32, has been a star since the late 1990s.
The Super Bowl is scheduled for Feb. 2 at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J. Mr. Mars’s second album, “Unorthodox Jukebox,†has sold over four million copies worldwide since its release in December.
“He is the most formidable synthesizer of styles going in pop today, taking in doo-wop, lovers rock reggae, torch songs, 1950s rock, 1970s funk, 1990s R&B and more, making for a sound that’s both pan-stylistic and, in a way, panracial,†Jon Caramanica wrote in The Times in a review of Mr. Mars’s performance earlier this summer at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
