Allhands: No, Fergie's national anthem rendition isn't the worst
Joanna Allhands: Why does the internet hate Fergie's version of the national anthem? Because she broke a cardinal rule of singing it.
Joanna Allhands
The internet was not kind to Fergie’s national anthem rendition at the NBA All-Star Game.
There were clips of NBA players laughing during her performance. And lots of people calling it the worst. Rendition. Ever.
Why?
Well, for one, you don’t mess with the national anthem. People want to hear it like it goes, with the classical instrumentation. No lyrical gymnastics. Just sing it nicely, with some passion, and get out of the way.
That’s why Whitney Houston delivered one of the best renditions of all time and Fergie … didn’t.
Fergie’s great sin wasn’t necessarily that she sang it jazzy. Or maybe it was supposed to be sultry. I don’t know what she was going for, honestly.
MORE:5 performances that were worse than Fergie's
But it sounded like she was performing. And the performance came across as a wholesale promotion of Fergie, the artist, not America, the greatest country on earth.
Which – news flash! – tends to turn people off.
Is it the worst performance ever? Well, no. Fergie may have warbled way too much, but she generally stayed on pitch. That's more than we can say for Roseanne Barr’s yelled, crotch-grabbing, legitimately worst-ever version in 1990 (though even Roseanne said she sang it better than Fergie).
In fact, in the pantheon of patriotic slip-ups, from President Trump's possible forgotten words to Scott Stapp's repeated mangling to R. Kelly's strange choreographed version, Fergie's sultry act may not even be in the top 10.
Reach Allhands at joanna.allhands@arizonarepublic.com.
READ MORE FROM ALLHANDS:
How do you raise a boy right? Understand how his brain works
Let's clarify why ammo dealer Douglas Haig is in trouble
Why those FBI memos on Trump aren't as big as everyone says