Oh say can you sing?

So, I'm sure that all two of you heard or (if you were lucky) have heard ABOUT Christina Aguilera's Super Bowl snafu, in which she  disrespected the land of the free and the home of the brave by messing up the lyrics to the Star Spangled Banner. I thought she pretty much disrespected America in 2001 with those STD riddled assless chaps, and that stupid single "Dirrty", but whatever. Americans are serious about their national anthem. I think that's nice.

So before I get to what I want to talk about, I have to say, that sometimes when you are singing you DO forget your place. Granted, the times  that I lost my place when I was singing, i was in a bar and no one was paying attention to me. I was NOT in front of hundreds of millions of people singing the most famous song in America. But anyway-there have been occasions mid-song where I start thinking about what I'm going to do tomorrow, did I remember to turn off the stove, is that weird ugly guy that comes to every show a stalker or is there just one like him in every bar? And all of a sudden I'm like "Damn, I lost my place." Now with THAT said-if I were singing the national anthem at the Super Bowl, I really wouldn't try to think about anything else. I would concentrate on the lyrics and concentrate on what I was doing.  Because I'm paranoid like that. Christina was probably like, "I got dis, you vocally challenged mortals"

I am really convinced that most singers don't know what the fuck they are singing about when they sing the SSB.  The only thing they know is that they have to make the note "free" " REALLY long, and  add that interval that everybody adds on the melody.  I don't know what it is-even though 13 years ago I did get an A in my sight singing and ear training class, and could recognize the intervals when they were played. But-yeah that was a long time ago, and I haven't used those types of skillz  in forever. I'm sure if I took a refresher course, I would be a star student again (haha-sarcasam) but anyway-I'm talking about when the singer sings " O'er the land of the free-EEEEEEEE"  and the audience goes all crazy, and claps, and screams and wooo-hooos. Yes-THAT PART, to a lot of singers, is the most important part of the song.

Lyrics? What lyrics? Oh, there are lyrics?  Yes, dumbasses. There are lyrics, and if you actually took a minute to read them, and become familiar with the actual story you are singing about, I don't think people would lose their place. And did you look up "rampart" before you sang it? That is another thing-I would never sing a song unless I knew what the hell I was singing about. If I was going to sing a cover song, I would at least try to get some background on the song to see where the writer was coming from, and if I could somehow relate and interpret it to my own life and experiences. Like, I love the song Creeque Alley by the Mamas and the Papas, but I would never sing it, because it has nothing to do with anything I've ever experienced. It's about how they made it to LA. Why would I sing about that?

So my point is, if singers took the time to think about what Frances Scott Key was actually saying, I think they would sing the song differently. Oh and a rampart is like a protective wall for defensive purposes.  I know this because I sang the SSB once in high school and I was like 'what the fuck is a rampart?" so I looked it up in the tablets of stone dictionary. Listen to the story, and THEN interpret the song. Don't just go for the money note.

Which brings me to my next subject. Melisma. I one hundred and fifty thousand percent blame Mariah Carey for the overuse of melisma in pop singing.  First of all-yes, I am a fan of melisma. Yes, I have done it before when appropriate. Yes, it's really fun to do. But Jesus Christ, you don't do it for every freaking note in the song. Just do it sometimes. Or how about just ONCE at the end for dramatic effect?  Aretha Franklin and Janice Joplin are two of my favorite singers. While they do use that style in their songs, they never sounds like the melisma fairy flew in and barfed all over their melodies. They do it for subtle, but impressive dramatic effective. It works.  One of my other favorite singers, Judy Garland, did not use this style at all and I am convinced she is one of the greatest vocalists of the century. I'm pretty sure she does not have a three octave voice, but she can emote so much in her straight forward style of singing that she doesn't need to have one. it isn't about the notes for her ( well, I mean of course she wants to hit the right notes, but I'm talking about how emotional she is when she sings) Frank Sinatra probably never covered two octaves in any of his songs-but it is  his turn of phrase that I think drew people to his voice.  Does anyone do this anymore?

Singing, to me, has become a lost art (thank you American Idol) and now has turned into a big melisma screaming  crap festival, where people don't care  what they are singing about, they just want to be the highest and the loudest.

I didn't mind so much that Xtina messed up the words, everyone screws up sometimes. But I really hated HOW she sang the song, and I'm surprised that more people didn't comment on that.