"The Star Spangled-Banner," musically speaking, is not a good song.Why do I say this?
Did you hear Christina Aguilera's version before Super Bowl XLV? She is the latest talented singer to maul the tune. Not only did she forget the words at one point, but she also mangled the melody in an attempt to win style points and/or recover from the lyrical error.
Our national anthem has clunky lyrics that don't exactly roll off the tongue. Frank Sinatra wouldn't be able to smooth out the words. To make matters worse, the melody isn't, well, much of a melody. When compared with "America the Beautiful," the SSB is melodically challenged. If it weren't our anthem, and symbolic of something larger than just a song, it would be difficult to sit through without covering your ears.
Sports stadiums aren't great venues for artists to showcase their vocal abilities. Recent halftime shows at Super Bowls have been peppered with production problems that make the performers sound off. The anthem in particular is almost always on the brink of disaster. The only exception I can recall is Robert Merrill at Yankee Stadium. For whatever reason, the opera singer nailed it almost every time. Or at least nailed it as much as it could be nailed, and did so before countless games and other events in New York.
Every time someone botches the anthem, there is a group of people who thinks they did it intentionally out of some kind of ego-driven need to be disrespectful. In most cases, I don't think that is true. I do think, however, that the song is a lemon that needs to be replaced.
