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Quantifying the diva-ness of national anthem performances

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Re: Quantifying the diva-ness of national anthem performances

#21

Post by bongodongobob »

andy99 wrote: post #20
dctoedt wrote: post #4

Relevant Reddit thread: "Why can't singers perform the national anthem without changing the melody? It's not just what happened on Sunday night football, it's literally every time someone performs the (American) national anthem. They go off and add their own notes and change the anthem to make it their own personal showcase. Just sing the damn song the way we all learned it." https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/commen…

As a sort of counterpoint, Jimmy Hendrix's version of the national anthem was incredibly popular and influential. The issue is it's easy to try to do some over-the-top thing with the anthem, it's just very hard to do it well so most efforts flop.

Yeah that was at a counter culture music festival though. Completely different situation than a football game. It was almost ironic.

Re: Quantifying the diva-ness of national anthem performances

#22

Post by dctoedt »

dctoedt wrote: post #4

Relevant Reddit thread: "Why can't singers perform the national anthem without changing the melody? It's not just what happened on Sunday night football, it's literally every time someone performs the (American) national anthem. They go off and add their own notes and change the anthem to make it their own personal showcase. Just sing the damn song the way we all learned it." https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/commen…

Edit to my comment above: I have no quarrel with creative covers and often love them. Example: I like Counting Crows' version of "Big Yellow Taxi" better than Joni Mitchell's original. Taylor Swift's "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" at Carole King's RRHOF induction was wonderful.

But: Call me a chauvinist — the National Anthem is different.

Re: Quantifying the diva-ness of national anthem performances

#23

Post by overstay8930 »

cafard wrote: post #19
Detrytus wrote: post #13

The weird thing is that they even hire all those singers to perform. The way it's done in my country is that there's an orchestra that plays the melody, and the people in the audience are expected to sing, which they always do :) But maybe that's because our national anthem is much better suited to be sung by a crowd than the American one?

The Star Spangled Banner is a strain for most of the population.

It is not that hard to sing unless you want to sound ridiculous on purpose

Re: Quantifying the diva-ness of national anthem performances

#24

Post by fragmede »

overstay8930 wrote: post #23
cafard wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Star Spangled Banner is a strain for most of the population.

It is not that hard to sing unless you want to sound ridiculous on purpose

it's got a wide vocal range, and a bunch of high notes. of course setting yourself up for failure and trying to sound rediculous makes it even harder, but as far as songs go, it's on the harder end

Re: Quantifying the diva-ness of national anthem performances

#26

Post by krisoft »

Detrytus wrote: post #13

The weird thing is that they even hire all those singers to perform. The way it's done in my country is that there's an orchestra that plays the melody, and the people in the audience are expected to sing, which they always do :) But maybe that's because our national anthem is much better suited to be sung by a crowd than the American one?

> The weird thing is that they even hire all those singers to perform.

Where i am from the national anthem is usually sang by a choir, and people in the crowd can join in the singing with them.

What is even more weird to me is why would anyone choose a popstar to sing the anthem? They are known to be show-offs and highly individualistic. It is kind of like hiring a formula-1 champion to drive a hearse and then being surprised that they drive it fast. What were they expecting?

Re: Quantifying the diva-ness of national anthem performances

#27

Post by Waterluvian »

Kim_Bruning wrote: post #5

I'm ok with people trying new UI paradigms from time to time, I suppose. In this case though, I was presented with 2 buttons with no clear way to progress at first (blank page, turns out you have to click on 'continue muted' before even a scrollbar appears, albeit almost unnoticeably thin), and the rest of the content was only available piecemeal. If you unconventional-scroll through this piecemeal content to the ver…

The diva-ness of website design.

Re: Quantifying the diva-ness of national anthem performances

#28

Post by charcircuit »

munchler wrote: post #16
charcircuit wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've noticed this happens with covers of other songs too and it angers me to no extent when they deviate from the original beyond changing the octave and such.

Gotta disagree with you there. The whole point of a good cover is to put your own spin on the song. If it's just a note-for-note redo of the original, why bother? The best covers end up "owning" the song, and the original is sometimes forgotten. Do you think Johnny Cashs's version of "Hurt" would've been better if he tried to sound like Nine Inch Nails?

The point of a cover for me is to see someone else sing the same song.

>If it's just a note-for-note redo of the original, why bother?

People's individual voices are different. It's not like a synthesizer where every note sounds the exact same.

>Do you think Johnny Cashs's version of "Hurt" would've been better if he tried to sound like Nine Inch Nails?

From a quick look it seems like the main difference is that John doesn't mumble as much. I think it's fine to clearly enunciate the words of a song. I don't think that changes the song.

Re: Quantifying the diva-ness of national anthem performances

#29

Post by jltsiren »

cafard wrote: post #19
Detrytus wrote: post #13

The weird thing is that they even hire all those singers to perform. The way it's done in my country is that there's an orchestra that plays the melody, and the people in the audience are expected to sing, which they always do :) But maybe that's because our national anthem is much better suited to be sung by a crowd than the American one?

The Star Spangled Banner is a strain for most of the population.

National anthems usually are, if you try to sing them correctly. But you don't have to. If you have a culture where everyone participates, the crowd version of the anthem evolves into something that works and sounds similar enough.

Re: Quantifying the diva-ness of national anthem performances

#30

Post by dralley »

andy99 wrote: post #20
dctoedt wrote: post #4

Relevant Reddit thread: "Why can't singers perform the national anthem without changing the melody? It's not just what happened on Sunday night football, it's literally every time someone performs the (American) national anthem. They go off and add their own notes and change the anthem to make it their own personal showcase. Just sing the damn song the way we all learned it." https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/commen…

As a sort of counterpoint, Jimmy Hendrix's version of the national anthem was incredibly popular and influential. The issue is it's easy to try to do some over-the-top thing with the anthem, it's just very hard to do it well so most efforts flop.

Whitney Houston did a good job with it too.
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