The 5 Best and Worst Music-Related Super Bowl Commercials Of All Time

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Before you settle back into your La-Z-Boy this Sunday to watch the big game, let’s take a moment to recap some of the best and worst music-related Super Bowl commercials ever to grace your TV screen. Let’s just hope that The Flaming Lips don’t embarrass themselves in their much-hyped Hyundai ad this year.

THE GOOD

Who better to talk about the gritty determination that defines Detroit than the poster bad boy of the Motor City, Eminem? This brooding car ad actually instilled a spot of Motown pride amid the general goofiness that usually defines Super Bowl commercials. Good job, Rabbit.

Sure you have to wait until the end, but this Best Buy commercial gives you the chance to see Justin Bieber with a wig and fake mustache, which alone is worth the price of admission. Plus, seeing the Biebster push a characteristically bewildered Ozzy Osbourne to the rear of a set that looks like a mixture between Star Wars: Episode I and the final scene of Step Up: 3D is priceless meta-advertising at its best.

THE BAD

Watching Elton John play a bizarrely punitive king who bestows Pepsi on worthy entertainers will have you sitting dumbstruck, face planted squarely in palm. There are few other appropriate reactions to a commercial that makes as little sense as this one. And the fact that Flava Flav has a completely uncalled-for last-minute cameo makes it even worse.

While this Bud Light spot featuring a horrendous overuse of Auto-Tune that borders on Chris Brown levels may seem funny at first, imagining a world in which everybody talked like this gives you pause for the future of humanity. Hopefully robots don’t discover pitch correction after the singularity.

THE UGLY

Whoever thought that depicting a dog wearing a tuxedo, drinking beer, and playing the drums was an effective way to market a light beer was probably fired the second this unpardonable atrocity aired. At least Spuds McKenzie, Bud Light’s “official party animal,” got a theme song for the ages, featuring weirdly energetic backup dancers who seem way too excited to be partying with¦a dog.

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