Unholy Badness: Why Demi Lovato shouldn't sing the National Anthem
If you tuned in to read my thoughts of peace and goodwill on Thanksgiving or perhaps enjoy a welcome "attitude of gratitude" from me, please skip to the next item in this blog because you'll likely be offended by this screed, which was sparked after I listened to "national recording artist" Demi Lovato obliterate the National Anthem before the Dallas Cowboys game.
THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER IS NOT AN INTERPRETIVE MUSICAL ADVENTURE. IT'S THE NATIONAL ANTHEM OF OUR GREAT NATION. IF YOU CANNOT SING IT IN A STRAIGHT-FORWARD AND RESPECTFUL MANNER, DON'T BOTHER.
I promise you, singing the National Anthem is not a star-making turn - unless your name is Whitney Houston, and when she sang the National Anthem at the Super Bowl, she was already a star and she showed how to move a nation to tears at her gorgeous rendition of our national song.
After watching Demi "Who the hell are you?" Lovato bitch-slap the opening bars of our National Anthem, I wanted to kick in my TV screen. After I listened to her go all vibrato on "the rockets red glare," I was seeing enough red that I wanted to kick in her head instead. And when she attempted to hit a "money note" on the "ramparts we watched," I wanted to climb behind the ramparts and watch Agent Orange rain down on the stage-parents that thought they were doing us all a favor when they brought her into this world.
Now as my buddy Cliff will tell you, I can sing only one note - and I don't do it very well - but even I could bark out "the bombs bursting in air" without bursting anyone's ear drums. Oh, and I manage not to make gasping inhalations while I'm doing it.
"Beautifully done," said announcer Tim Buck, and I must say, describing Lovato's "performance" as "beautifully done" is like saying that Roseanne Barr's rendition was "emotionally moving." Yeah, if you're moving your bowels, because after both Roseanne and Demi's verbal projectile diarrheas of the Star-Spangled Banner, I for one, wanted to vomit.
Because we at the stacy b-log try to be educational as well as inspirational, we are going to conduct a little compare and contrast exercise for your intellectual stimulation. Here is that banshee's version of the National Anthem. Warning: You may want to turn down your volume levels just a touch as I do not want to be responsible for any hearing loss - or damage you may do to your monitors. Don't say you weren't warned.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbB4rCn4Sd0
To rectify this situation, I am linking to the most inspirational National Anthems ever to cleanse your audial palettes of the degradation they just suffered. Here's Whitney Houston (before she defiled herself with a sham marriage to Bobby Brown - but try to block that from your minds and allow her goodness to block Demi from your inner ear)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qciWEufZ2xA
Finally, if you're old school, here's the United States Air Force band's version. I can't link directly to the song, but if you look under "Most Requested Recordings" on the homepage, you can click on the Star-Spangled Banner and hear it:
http://www.usafband.af.mil/recordings/
This has been a public service of the stacy b-log.