I caught about an hour of the Super Bowl. The only reason I tuned in was for the commercials. I could care less about football. I caught a couple funny commercials, but gave up after awhile and went to bed.
I did catch the halftime show, which was vastly unimpressive to me. Sparkly costumes and auto-tune do not take the place of talent. I understand a football stadium would be a difficult venue to perform in, acoustics wise, but still, it was not so great. Overly showy, shouting, and just not good.
I did fortunately miss the national anthem. I have heard enough to know that it might have made my ears explode. I thought about pulling it up on Youtube, but just don’t want to put myself through that. I feel sorry for Christina, for missing the words. I have sung the national anthem in front of maybe 50-75 people. The minutes preceding the solo, I was sweating off to the side, hoping I would start on a note low enough that I wouldn’t get too sky high at the end. Then I began to panic, hoping that I wouldn’t forget the words. Sure, I know the words to it. If I’m just singing along at a baseball game, no problem. Stick me in front of people and all of a sudden I might have a brain fart. I have fumbled through words of enough other solos to know it happens. Luckily, it didn’t happen to me on the national anthem. But I can’t blame Christina. Being in front of thousands of people would be enough to make me mix up a phrase or two.
Why I don’t feel sorry for Christina is that apparently she did the diva thing to make up for it. A friend of mine posted a great article on Facebook the other day that I loved. Our American Idol generation cannot simply sing. We have to belt out, yodel, warble, and turn a one syllable word into about a fourteen syllable word. Unfortunately, great songs like our national anthem are suffering because of it. Why does it have to turn into a chance to show off our vocal talents? Why can it not simply be a song to honor the great country we live in? Keep it simple.
I sang for a funeral last weekend, and one of the requested songs was His Eye is On the Sparrow. I had heard the song, but had never sung it, so I googled for words, melody lines, and youtube videos to get a feel for the melody and rhythm. I was dismayed to find that it is one of those songs that people love to record a cappella in their living room, as they ignore all melody lines and rhythm. It was painful. I finally found a version sung by a high school choir, with correct rhythm and just enough flair thrown in to still make it listen-able. My goal when doing such a song, especially at a funeral, is to keep it simple and let the well written melody speak for itself. Not show off.
So I do not feel sorry for Christina trying to show off her great vocal gymnastics. I am tired of hearing diva after diva. It’s one of the reasons I never watch American Idol. I’m tired of diva type singing creeping into everything, including worship. It’s getting ridiculous.
This is my plea to vocalists everywhere. Please stop showing off. Just sing.
