Christina Aguilera flubs National Anthem at Super Bowl

[aaaaaa5a]

Christina Aguilera messed up the words to the National Anthem at the Super Bowl. Personally, I think some singers try to put so much into the anthem, they forget the most important part of the song…. the words and melody. This was not a great rendition even if she HAD remembered all the words.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/twitter-explodes-christina-aguilera-messes-97008


Video of her singing the National Anthem here.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/06/super-bowl-2011-national-anthem-singer-christina-aguilera_n_819311.html

[ChazII]

1. Good obervation. n/t

[hlthe2b]

2. ugh ... can't anyone just sing it relatively "straight up" anymore?

I am really tired of singers adding so much ad lib affectation that it becomes either unrecognizable or just plain irritating.

[aaaaaa5a]

4. Agreed!

I honestly think she was trying to put so much "soul" into the song…. she forgot the words. I'm hoping the recent criticism singers have been taking for greatly altering the words and melody of the anthem will lead to a change.

[tammywammy]

5. +1 n/t

[boobooday]

6. Not to mention

Just singing it well, straight up requires a really good singer.

[NYC Liberal]

10. Agreed. These over the top renditions don't make it better.

[Marr]

11. OOOhh ho haahhhahhhh- OOOHHHA hhahahwiwiwi WOWOWoooohh...

...say can you seeeEEEEEEEEeeeaaeaaaaaahhha-oooooohwowoowowwwooooo....


I agree.

[Union Scribe]

19. Lol!

[FreeState]

37. That's how she sings, its her style n/t

[hlthe2b]

38. I have heard her sing on occasion with minimal elaboration...

Granted, the Star Spangled Banner is hard to sing for most. But, it was not meant to be a soul, jazz, r&b or gospel song. Someone else pointed out earlier that "instead of putting her performance in the service of the song, she instead put the song in the service of her performance."

That was a fatal error. Better to have a non-memorable but perfectly serviceable performance than a truly horrid one that everyone will talk about for years to come.

[Le Taz Hot]

40. Someone needs to tell her

that vocal gymnastics are ornamental, and as such, need to be used sparingly otherwise they lose their impact and just become annoying. (I taught voice for 20 years.) Additionally, there needs to be subtlety and contrast and she has neither. Screeching is not singing and she has not developed her head voice -- an indication that she hasn't spent one second trying to hone her craft. It shows.

[markpkessinger]

46. The mark of a professional musician is ...

...the ability to adapt his or her "style" to the music at hand, not to virtually rewrite the music to suit one's customary style.

As I said elsewhere in this thread, the national anthem simply doesn't lend itself to the embellishment style of black gospel music. The excessive embellishments enhance neither the general feeling of the piece nor do they enhance the meaning of the lyrics; if anything, the excessive ornamentation distracts from both.

[Codeine]

56. And her "style" is has all the subtlety

of getting a pillowcase of bricks upside the head. She's just awful.

"Caterwauling" is too nice a descriptor.

[thereismore]

3. Good lord Jesus that was painful. nt

[Jack Rabbit]

7. I've heard worse.

David Brinkley once posed the question why the world's oldest democracy doesn't have a national anthem that everybody can sing.

I have heard many professional singers defeated by the high notes. Keep in mind that the British soldiers who burned Washington in 1814 sang a drinking song called To Anacreon in Heaven while helping them selves to free ale at the local tavern. The revelers would raise their glasses as the notes got higher and then brought them back down as the motes got lower. At the end of the song they'd quaff it all down. This leads to my own observation of our national anthem, that one must be stone drunk to sing it right.

Of course, Star Spangled Banner was made our national anthem in 1931 the only way it could have been, by an act of Congress. If you wonder about a decision that is really fucked up was made, that's a good place to start looking. The movement to make it the national anthem must have been funded by ancestors of the Koch Brothers, who must have bribed congressmen to pass the legislation after importing carloads of paid off Dust Bowl farmers during the Great Depression to make it look like the idea had popular support.

Forty years before she sang the anthem very well at President Obama's inauguration, Aretha Franklin sang it very poorly at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, 1968. Perhaps it was an omen of things to come that week. Like Christina Aguilera, Aretha couldn't get the words straight.

Later that same year, José Feliciano gave his Latin soul rendition of the anthem before a World Series game. This offended many, although I kinda liked it. It was different and unusual.

I will not include in the litany of poor performances of the national anthem the one offered by Rosanne Barr before a baseball game in San Diego in the eighties. She couldn't sing, so she tried too hard to be funny, and failed.

[Turbineguy]

8. It was

bloody awful.

[Horse with no Name]

9. I didn't hear it

but I've forgotten things too.
Not to mention she is still pretty young.
I'm going to give her a pass on this. There's worse things she could have done.

[Mojorabbit]

12. I felt bad for her.

I have a migraine and left for the quiet of the bedroom shortly after it started. I hear hubby hollering in the other room which means the Steelers must be losing

[Bonobo]

13. I like what Vonnegut said about the US National Anthem:

Listen:
Trout and Hoover were citizens of the United States of America, a country which was called America for short. This was their national anthem, which was pure balderdash, like so much they were expected to take seriously:

O, say can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thru the perilous flight
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof to the night that our flag was still there.
O, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

There were one quadrillion nations in the Universe, but the nation Dwayne and Hoover and Kilgore Trout belonged to was the only one with a national anthem which was gibberish sprinkled with question marks.
Here is what their flag looked like:

[spanone]

14. loved that book...

vonnegut was the best

[Bonobo]

16. He was. He was.

So it goes.

[northoftheborder]

15. Why.....why......why.....

Do they get these pop stars who cannot sing the National Anthem????????????? And jazz it up to cover up for the fact that they can't sing??????? I hate- hate -hate to hear this beautiful, (though difficult to sing) song just ruined. The most beautiful singing of the Anthem I've ever heard was the Marine, or maybe it was the Naval mens chorus. Absolutely beautiful.

[Bonobo]

17. She can sing.

She has great pipes but horrible taste in music and no sense of convention or history or style.

[jmowreader]

35. You know why they "jazz it up"

Whitney Houston got a platinum record for her rendition of the National Anthem, so obviously everyone who stylizes the anthem is going to get a platinum record out of it.

Unfortunately, Christina Aguilera's version can best be described as "extraordinary rendition."

[cherokeeprogressive]

36. Rendition LOL

She sent the Star Spangled Banner to another country to be tortured, then brought it back to show us what happens when no one's paying attention.

I say we should nominate her for the Nobel Peace Prize!

[pokerfan]

18. Maya Rudolph performing the National Anthem

on SNL a few years ago.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImCWjbAOXKo

[FormerDittoHead]

51. +1. I consider this required viewing for anyone discussing this topic. n/t

[hlthe2b]

59. Oh, gawd... If only CA had seen that before she did her rendition...

:rofl: I love when they cut to the two "news anchors" and their reactions. They are almost identical to the service men listening to Christina's performance. Gotta bookmark that one. Maya Rudolph NAILED it! LOLOL

[cherokeeprogressive]

20. The Glee Girl fucked up America the Beautiful as well.

"Purple Mountain... Majesties"

[cbdo2007]

21. Even at our local MLS soccer games they pre-record it and just lip synch....

I don't know why they don't do that for the super bowl when it's so much more important for them to get it right.

[Codeine]

24. Who's your team?

We still have live singers at Galaxy games, but luckily they tend to play it pretty straight.

[Missy Vixen]

27. The National Anthem audio has been pretaped as a rule for the past

several years at the Super Bowl. I was wondering why it was not today.

I also wondered why there was no Teleprompter or even someone holding cue cards, if they were going live with it.

It is a VERY difficult song to sing under the best of circumstances; I think the National Anthem should be changed to "America, the Beautiful". IMHO, YMMV.

[charlie]

22. That wasn't Cyndi Lauper? n/t

[Codeine]

23. Someone needs to train her to sing.

It's like deep down inside there's some great basic potential but it's been tainted by a lifetime of listening to nothing but shitty low-brow corporate pop music and by a complete disregard for the actual mechanics and art of singing.

Also, learn the lyrics, you fucking imbecile. You're only singing one stanza -- even a subliterate like you can cope.

[GSLevel9]

26. hehehehe... well said, nt

[cherokeeprogressive]

33. I fucking love you. n/t

[DonCoquixote]

25. One thing

Everyone forgets about this song, every modern performer performs it in 4/4 the march time which became Rock and roll time. It was Written in 3/4, as a waltz! It is supposed to be sung slower, with less emphasis on high notes!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Star-Spangled_Banner

I had the chance to hear an old recording of it from 1910. When you hear it played in it's proper time signature, the whole song makes a lot more sense.

[ManiacJoe]

31. Are you sure about that 4/4 thing?

I don't recall anyone having tried it that way.

[markpkessinger]

47. Bonobo is right about that . .

You can tell by the way she sustains "say" for two beats -- twice as long as "can you," which she sings on one beat each, making 4 beats to the measure. The same thing with "dawn's" (2 beats) and "ear - ly" (1 beat per syllable). If she were singing it in its original 3/4 time, "say, can you" would each be sung on one beat, meaning 3 beats per measure.

[Bombero1956]

28. this is by far the best version ever

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePOe99DVDOQ

[ManiacJoe]

30. Very nice.

For an instrumental-only version, it is hard to beat the Marine Corps Band.

[FormerDittoHead]

52. Outstanding. Did you catch some of the players SINGING ALONG????

That's what I don't like about "styling" the anthem. One should be ABLE to sing along.

[Kablooie]

29. Higher a diva and you're gonna get it showboated all to hell of course.

[upi402]

32. She was fine, she made my wife cry.

A non issue in this house.

She's gifted as hell.

And I couldn't remember my own name if I were up there.

[Duer 157099]

34. Maybe Daniel Tosh will give her a Web Redemption n/t

[ProdigalJunkMail]

39. oh hell yeah...THAT would be some funny stuff right there!

I love his show...so over the top and offering her a web redemption would be perfect!

sP

[Dont_Bogart_the_Pretzel]

53. LOL

http://tosh.comedycentral.com/blog/

[Codeine]

57. "Let's put twenty seconds on the clock

because that's as much of this shit I can possibly stand."

[trusty elf]

41. I like this version...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKCVS57j284

[NYC Liberal]

42. Watch this and hear how the anthem SHOULD be sung:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ETrr-XHBjE

[tanyev]

43. You'd think a product of the Disney machine would have it embedded in her DNA.

[SammyWinstonJack]

45. ...

:spray: :evilgrin:

[markpkessinger]

44. The problem wasn't the lyrics flub

Speaking as one whose degree is in opera performance and choral conducting, the problem I had with Ms. Aguilera's performance was not the lyrics flub -- that stuff can happen to anyone -- but with her actual singing.

Ms. Aguilera made the mistake a lot of folks make these days when it comes to singing the national anthem. That is, instead of putting her performance in the service of the song, she instead put the song in the service of her performance. She used the national anthem as a vehicle to display her own vocal acrobatics, with a lot of absurd (and meaningless) embellishment that served no other purpose than to0 draw attention to herself -- highly inappropriate, IMO. It seemed as if she couldn't sing a single sustained tone without embellishing it with some kind of flourish of about eight other notes before finally settling on the target note. That kind of thing is fine when singing music that is of a style for which it is appropriate, but the national anthem is not a gospel, R&B, blues, etc. composition. The excessive ornamental flourishes make no musical sense and neither do they in anyway enhance delivery of the text. And her overly breathy opening, on the words, "Oh, say, can you see," brought to mind for me nothing so much as Marilyn Monroe's suggestive singing of Happy Birthday to President Kennedy; and reflected about as much taste.

Refashioning a piece music of one style into a totally different style is extremely difficult to do, and still more difficult to do well. In most cases, it's a practice best avoided. I say "most" here instead of "all," because there are both pieces of music that better lend themselves to stylistic make-overs, and performers who are considerably more skilled at pulling off such transformations. Ray Charles' rendition of "America, the Beautiful" certainly stands out as one of the few examples of that kind of stylistic make-over; so much, so, in fact, that his rendition has become a classic in and of itself. But as I say, there are very few who can pull that off at the level of a Ray Charles.

Everyone is entitle to his/her own opinion about Ms. Aguilera's relative singing talent. I would say she is an excellent example of her kind, but that kind is not necessary well-suited to singing the national anthem.

[progressoid]

48. Well said.

[demodonkey]

49. Yes, indeed, absolutely!

:patriot:

[Zax2me]

55. I think this is where much of the criticism is born...

People are using the lyrics flub as a vehicle because they detest what you so perfectly explained.
I don't think most would have been as harsh if she didn't have a reputation for - and then going out and proving that rep - of a style that can just be obnoxious at times.

[Zoeisright]

50. Who cares??

I mean, this country is falling apart and people's panties are in a twist over a SONG? This really is how Rome fell.

[ChiciB1]

58. THANKS! Glad SOMEONE Is Thinking Like I Am!! Not Into Football... Tennis Is My

game, but went with my husband to our neighbor's house so the men could watch the game. What surprised me about MY reaction was that I felt such a lack of "pride" when the song was sung... done well or not!

Once there was a time in my life when I felt patriotism hearing the words, but sadly now I WEEP! Oh America, where have we gone??

JMHO!

[Zax2me]

54. I think people should give her a break.

Sure it is the national anthem, but lyrics can be forgotten in a big moment just like any other song.
I think people reject her singing style so much that this flub is being taking advantage of to trash her.
Can't say I totally disagree - the constant up and down the scale is over the top singing that most people could do without. It just gets overwhelming and tiresome. At its best it can be impressive, most times it is just plain ANNOYING!
Even so, I don't discredit her for forgetting lyrics.
Just don't, doesn't really bother me.
I think she is getting extra 'hate mail' due to her abrasive singing style, which is misplaced criticism.

[hlthe2b]

61. Of course... I doubt anyone cares about the messed lyrics...

that isn't what this is about at all. But as per my post below, it is her totally over-the top style that fell so flat. Too bad, someone didn't clue CA into Maya's epic "performance" prior to CA deciding to all but mimic it.

[hlthe2b]

60. and before there was Christina Aguilera, there was:

Maya Rudolph Sings the National Anthem - BEST QUALITY.MP4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImCWjbAOXKo




Oh, if only all of these pop stars would watch Maya before deciding exactly how many vocal "flourishes" to add to make it their "own." :rofl: