Luke Bryan Is Playing the Cowboys Thanksgiving Halftime Show. We Have 171 Better Ideas.

I don’t expect James Brown live at the Apollo during the halftime show of the annual Dallas Cowboys Thanksgiving game. I don’t expect The Who live at Leeds. I don’t expect a great, or even good, performance.

But Luke Bryan, this year’s musical act, is a new low for a show that’s featured Pitbull not once, but twice, in the last five years. The show, for the 19th year, will tie into the kickoff for the Salvation Army’s Red Kettle Campaign. That’s great, and you can donate online right here. You can also donate to the North Texas Food Bank, or one of many other charitable organizations that have not given their tacit support to Luke Bryan, a man who should be in the Hague for his crimes against country music.

Bryan is probably a lovely guy, and I am willing to acknowledge that his music may just not be for me. However, Thanksgiving is hard enough as is. I am really dreading welcoming Bryan into my home Thursday via my family’s traditional watching of the Cowboys game and our customary awkward chit-chat about the halftime performer. Dreading it so much, in fact, that I just want to get ahead of things for 2016 and make some suggestions for musical acts. In keeping with this year’s country music theme, I’ve stuck with active country performers for the purposes of the upcoming list.

Here are 171 musical acts I’d rather see than Luke Bryan during the Cowboys halftime show. Happy Thanksgiving.