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On Behalf of All Americans, I Apologize to the World . . .


Mike

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. . . for last night's Super Bowl pregame and halftime entertainment. If I were paid $100 quadrillion to put on the worst possible show for America's biggest sporting event, I could not have trumped what they did last night. From Christina Aguilera's monumental butchering of the National Anthem, through the horrific, beneath-human-dignity debacle of the Black Eyed Peas' woefully inept and overdone attempt to create music, each passing tick of the clock found it getting more appalling by the moment.

 

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, they somehow managed to find a way. Who, in the name of Our Loving God and Savior, was responsible for this? Surely justice demands that this person should be drawn and quartered. At a minimum . . . and that wouldn't be enough.

 

It was an entertainment disaster of cosmic proportions, enough to make your vomit vomit. The only possible solution is to blow up the Earth, destroying all human life, in the hopes that whatever arises from ooze will one day do better than this.

 

Surely the end is nigh.

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I can never figure out why they select a group that can only "sing" in a studio using auto-tune and then put them outdoors (sort of) in front of 100,000+ people with live microphones and then wonder why they sound so bad. Guess the answer is they're popular, and they attract just the right sets of eyeballs to TV sets that advertisers are looking for. Guess they also figured they'd had enough of the baby Boomer acts like Springsteen, McCartney, the Stones, the Who etc.

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I gotta agree with you mike. That half time show was an embarrasment to any hope of making even a small contribution to

the musical cultural arts. I have never heard any music by the Black eyed Peas and after seeing them at halftime, consider myself pretty lucky if I never hear them again.

But the game was the greatest!

.

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Joe Frickin' Friday

This Superbowl made us glad we have a TiVo. Aguilera is a one-trick pony; every song she sings sounds exactly the same. We knew she was going to stylistically mutilate the anthem beyond recognition, so we fast-forwarded through most of her performance. It wasn't until this morning that I learned she had blown her lines.

 

And then the BEPs. Yeah, we FF'd through them, too.

 

The commercials, OTOH, were great. :grin:

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Nice n Easy Rider

I predict that someday someone at one of these major events is going to do a great job singing the Star Spangled Banner the way we all grew up hearing it - and they'll get a tremendous round of applause.

 

I say enough of this "artistic" styling.

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Danny caddyshack Noonan

I thought is was great! The puppies all played well, were cute and ran their tails off. The penalty flags, as usual, were hokie but that's cool. Falling into the water bowl is good for laughs too.

 

On a serious note, it takes a few years of forgetting to remember that the people that put this stuff on tend to be morons. They put on a hideous show to try to cater to what they think is a popular desire. Then, they either have a bad review or "malfunction" and go back to the tried and true for a few years until they forget again.

But, seriously, I did watch the puppy bowl.

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Mike,

Your age is showing.

:P

 

From the Washington Post

 

 

Well, it wasn't the worst Super Bowl halftime show in history. (This was. Let us never speak of it again).

 

It wasn't even the worst halftime show recently (how could you, Edward James Olmos in Super Bowl halftime show XXXIV?).

 

The Black Eyed Peas delivered exactly what was expected of them: high-octane, space age ridiculousness, rendered with enough aggressive good cheer to make Up With People seem like Radiohead.

 

In a way, the Peas were just right. The Super Bowl halftime show is no place for the decent (Bruce Springsteen, 2009) or the tasteful (U2 2002). It's custom-fit for marching bands, exploding things and mindless spectacle. Super Bowl halftime shows are like governments: We get the ones we deserve.

 

Fergie rocks.

:lurk:

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I predict that someday someone at one of these major events is going to do a great job singing the Star Spangled Banner the way we all grew up hearing it - and they'll get a tremendous round of applause.

 

Jim Cornelison sings for the Chicago Blackhawks, and performed the Anthem at the NFC Championship game, in which the hateful Packers beat the righteous and beloved Bears. For us Bears fans, the highlight of the game was Cornelison's stirring rendition of the National Anthem. It kind of went downhill after that.
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Now that I think of it I just remembered. Last week I was

sitting at the piano getting ready to write, and I started

to play the national anthem. The way I did it was with the most beautiful jazz voicings on the keyboard. I really enjoyed it.

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I sort of watched it, between pauses (DVR) and doing more interesting stuff. I had another guy over, my age. His comment was that he now understands what our parents were saying about our music, way back in the day. I told him he was a geezer, and GET OFF MY LAWN!

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+1

Aguilera & the Half Time SHow both simply spectacle and no substance....:thumbsup:

 

OTOH what a good game!

That is, except for the endless breaks (commercial and otherwise!) which ruins the flow of the game! Which is a whole 'nother subject :eek:!

 

Being a football (soccer to you plebs ;)) aficionado, I can appreciate college ball so much better now!

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I gotta agree with you mike. That half time show was an embarrasment to any hope of making even a small contribution to the musical cultural arts. .

 

Sometime during the later portion of the BEP's so called performance there appeared some people with boxes on their heads. I have no idea what this special costuming was supposed to convey but all I could think about was the fact that Fox's signal is going out into space. Somewhere out there are millions or billions of aliens and all I can hope for is that they aren't advanced enough to interpret said signals or we'll become the laughing stock of the universe. :eek:

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I thought it was a great game. Costco and Best Buy were both empty, and we had them to ourselves. No lines, and we actually were able to get knowledgeable and un-rushed help at Best Buy. Even the halftime was just fine, in fact we couldn't even tell when it was halftime, which was about as good as it gets.

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Good thing I blew it out and hit my favorite local canyon roads, I had a blast up on Glendora Mountain Road and Glendora Ridge Road. Stopped into Buck Horn lodge, Mt Baldy for a couple bloody marys in the afternoon sitting outside at a table in the sun 7o degrees looking up through the trees at the snow listening to the creek running by in the background. Epic day riding nobody on my roads thanks to the superbowl :)

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I predict that someday someone at one of these major events is going to do a great job singing the Star Spangled Banner the way we all grew up hearing it - and they'll get a tremendous round of applause.

 

I say enough of this "artistic" styling.

 

Sorry, but after hearing this version, I just don't agree with you on this... Thanks José for starting the trend in a good way:

 

 

 

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I mentioned at the time that I'd rather have some old Marine Gunny singing the National Anthem than the way it was disrespected yesterday and he'd probably have a tear in his eye....Sing it straight....It's not a popular song, it's our National Anthem....I'll stop there but agree whole-heartedly with Mike about that mess yesterday....

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I love Superbowl Sunday. It is the best day of the year to be somewhere that you want to enjoy but normally is too crowded... :)

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Sometime during the later portion of the BEP's so called performance there appeared some people with boxes on their heads. I have no idea what this special costuming was supposed to convey but all I could think about was the fact that Fox's signal is going out into space. Somewhere out there are millions or billions of aliens and all I can hope for is that they aren't advanced enough to interpret said signals or we'll become the laughing stock of the universe. :eek:

 

This is the kind of thing that constantly amazes me about the entertainment industry. There are rooms full of people having meetings, planning and studying the half-time show at the Super Bowl, a new TV series, a $200 million film production, and nobody says "People with boxes on their heads? This is really stupid. It sounds like something out of Spinal Tap." Or, if somebody did say that, everybody else then said "nahhh, people with boxes on their heads sounds really cool."

 

Somewhere in California right now there is some guy looking at a big paycheck, sitting in a fancy restaurant with a silicone blonde bimbo across the table from him drinking Moët, saying, "those people with boxes on their heads? that's right baby, that was my idea!" :eek:

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I'm pissed. Not only did the Steelers not cover on my massive $5 bet but Fergie did not cooperate and pi$$ herself on stage so I could cover my prop bet that she would.

Then there was the performance.

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Something that drives me nuts about the butchering of the National Anthem is that they surely rsehearsed it. Must have been a bunch of Lackies and Yes Men (or Persons) at the rehearsal.

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Lets_Play_Two

One thing Chicago can do right is the National Anthem. If you ever had the chance to listen to it in Chicago Stadium, as the building vibrated, you would never, ever forget the feeling!!!

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. . . for last night's Super Bowl pregame and halftime entertainment. If I were paid $100 quadrillion to put on the worst possible show for America's biggest sporting event, I could not have trumped what they did last night. From Christina Aguilera's monumental butchering of the National Anthem, through the horrific, beneath-human-dignity debacle of the Black Eyed Peas' woefully inept and overdone attempt to create music, each passing tick of the clock found it getting more appalling by the moment.

 

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, they somehow managed to find a way. Who, in the name of Our Loving God and Savior, was responsible for this? Surely justice demands that this person should be drawn and quartered. At a minimum . . . and that wouldn't be enough.

 

It was an entertainment disaster of cosmic proportions, enough to make your vomit vomit. The only possible solution is to blow up the Earth, destroying all human life, in the hopes that whatever arises from ooze will one day do better than this.

 

Surely the end is nigh.

 

Classic post. :thumbsup:

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This guy can sing! After hearing the botched National Anthem, I would like to share our local hockey team singer. While not the best recording, Johnny Walker is a hometown favorite. In the youtube video, for you Canadians, scroll over to 5:18. To hear the US National anthem, scroll over to 6:24. Hope this helps.

 

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I predict that someday someone at one of these major events is going to do a great job singing the Star Spangled Banner the way we all grew up hearing it - and they'll get a tremendous round of applause.

 

Jim Cornelison sings for the Chicago Blackhawks, and performed the Anthem at the NFC Championship game, in which the hateful Packers beat the righteous and beloved Bears. For us Bears fans, the highlight of the game was Cornelison's stirring rendition of the National Anthem. It kind of went downhill after that.

 

He was great. It's the crowd that was an embarrassment yelling and screaming throughout the Anthem. Should have shown more respect.

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Not the National Anthem...but

 

 

I just got an amazing education on the song in your post.

God Bless America really was up for a congressional vote to

replace the National Anthem. Do you know where he got the

title (God Bless America) from. He got it from his mother, who would say it everyday as a way of being greatful that she and Irving and their entire family had escaped from Russia. Although his father died in the USA when Berlin was 8 years old, Irving quit school to work and help bring money into the family who lived in the lower east side of New York. His dream was to become a singing waiter. What a great song and a great country we have. The recording posted with Kate Smith is a Tear Jerker, and incredibly beautiful.

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Very disturbing. Very disrespectul. When I hear the national anthem, I have visuals of our past - every time. The folks at Normandy, Omaha Beach, my Dad's time fighting in the Pacific,my father in-law as a foot soldier, and the many other wars and soldiers who have served.

 

The national anthem is not for entertainment. It should not be butchered. It is a way to honor all of those before us and all of those after us who gave us this great country. As said for many years all gave some, some gave all.

 

Listen to the words. Understand them. They mean something. Don't forget them.

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The national anthem is not for entertainment. It should not be butchered. It is a way to honor all of those before us and all of those after us who gave us this great country. As said for many years all gave some, some gave all.

 

Listen to the words. Understand them. They mean something. Don't forget them.

 

It's about time someone said that, thank you. :thumbsup:

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The national anthem is not for entertainment. It should not be butchered.

 

To cut Christina Aguilera and the others some slack: The Star Spangled Banner is one of the all-time most difficult songs to sing because of the vocal range. You're thinking about the myriad ways you can hit a wrong note, you walk out on stage by yourself in front of something like a billion people, and probably the last thing anybody says to you is, don't screw this up. Playing the football game is easy in comparison to this performance. Personally, in that situation, I would walk out there, wet myself, say "Thank you!", and walk off.

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Will all respect I doubt the world really cares.....and a billion people watching! Yeah right. Its not like itsa global phenomenen

http://articles.cnn.com/2010-02-05/us/super.bowl.viewers.profit_1_global-audience-super-bowl-european-championship?_s=PM:US

I would suggest the upcoming one day cricket world cup will attract more of a world wide audience and hardly anyone in the US will care or even know it is on :grin:

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nobody[/i] says "People with boxes on their heads? This is really stupid. It sounds like something out of Spinal Tap." Or, if somebody did say that, everybody else then said "nahhh, people with boxes on their heads sounds really cool."

 

 

 

it might have been the same group who said, "sure, what would be more appropriate entertainment for the final show of the 100th anniversary of Harley-Davidson than Elton John?"

 

BEPs are successful so they're doing someting right but I think this the wrong gig for them or it was managed wrong. That said, we didn't have the sound turned up during halftime so I didn't hear them. It was interesting with the sound off.....glowing people, Usher, descending from above, Slash ascending from below (is there a meassage there?) and then the block-headed people. We all kinda looked each other with a "WTF is this?" look. Someone mentioned the show would be better if we'd taken acid.

Part of the problem I think is that they always try to pack way too much into 12 minutes.

 

The Darth Vader kid was cute. The Timoty Hutton thing was odd.

 

The game was good. My guys won, and the wife pulled the right football pool numbers for a Q1 payout. woo-hoo!! Hope I live long enough to see GB do it again. :grin:

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Joe Frickin' Friday
This is the kind of thing that constantly amazes me about the entertainment industry. There are rooms full of people having meetings, planning and studying the half-time show at the Super Bowl, a new TV series, a $200 million film production, and nobody says "People with boxes on their heads? This is really stupid. It sounds like something out of Spinal Tap." Or, if somebody did say that, everybody else then said "nahhh, people with boxes on their heads sounds really cool."

 

Groupthink?

 

William H. Whyte coined the term in 1952, in Fortune magazine:

 

Groupthink being a coinage—and, admittedly, a loaded one—a working definition is in order. We are not talking about mere instinctive conformity—it is, after all, a perennial failing of mankind. What we are talking about is a rationalized conformity—an open, articulate philosophy which holds that group values are not only expedient but right and good as well.

 

Irving Janis, who did extensive work on the subject, defined it as:

 

A mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when the members' strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action.

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I predict that someday someone at one of these major events is going to do a great job singing the Star Spangled Banner the way we all grew up hearing it - and they'll get a tremendous round of applause.

 

Jim Cornelison sings for the Chicago Blackhawks, and performed the Anthem at the NFC Championship game, in which the hateful Packers beat the righteous and beloved Bears. For us Bears fans, the highlight of the game was Cornelison's stirring rendition of the National Anthem. It kind of went downhill after that.

 

He was great. It's the crowd that was an embarrassment yelling and screaming throughout the Anthem. Should have shown more respect.

 

My thoughts exactly. I watched both games that day and the Pittsburgh crowd was much more respectful during the National

Anthem. I couldn't believe how disrespectful the fans in Chicago were that day.

 

Regarding Aguilera and the half time show. Ugh! All I can say is thank God for TiVo. I started the game an hour late and finished at the same time and missed nothing. There's an app called AutoTune (I think) that can make any spoken words sound like a song - that's apparently all the BEP's do to create music.

Here's proof

that anything can sound good (well, better) with AutoTune. Maybe they should have put this on the halftime show.

 

 

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skinny_tom (aka boney)
The national anthem is not for entertainment. It should not be butchered.

 

To cut Christina Aguilera and the others some slack: The Star Spangled Banner is one of the all-time most difficult songs to sing because of the vocal range. You're thinking about the myriad ways you can hit a wrong note, you walk out on stage by yourself in front of something like a billion people, and probably the last thing anybody says to you is, don't screw this up. Playing the football game is easy in comparison to this performance. Personally, in that situation, I would walk out there, wet myself, say "Thank you!", and walk off.

 

Anyone ever notice how the people who mess it up are usually the one's trying to add whatever it is they think it doesn't already have?

 

Sorry, no slack for her. Spend the time to learn the song and sing it as it should be. Forget the self aggrandizing vibrato mid-note pitch change check-me-out stunts.

 

It should be considered an honor to sing it in a public place, not an opportunity to show off your skills.

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I am not American but, there are not many national anthems as stirring as the American, I am surprised that the sense of national pride allows this crap to continue,

 

i think that audition sessions and pre-event run through would be a basic requirement for such a high profile part of the program...

 

my respect for the organization that put on the event is so low that they'd have to look way way up to get to the gutter....

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Will all respect I doubt the world really cares.....and a billion people watching! Yeah right. Its not like itsa global phenomenen

http://articles.cnn.com/2010-02-05/us/super.bowl.viewers.profit_1_global-audience-super-bowl-european-championship?_s=PM:US

I would suggest the upcoming one day cricket world cup will attract more of a world wide audience and hardly anyone in the US will care or even know it is on :grin:

 

You silly Man!

 

It is, quite simply, the BEST IN THE WORLD game and EVERYONE watches it...

 

Funny, my professional music friends are all losing their minds over the butchering of it too!

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Yes, I watched it on Youtube to see what you guys were talking about. It wasn't good but, do we not leave room for interpretation any longer?

 

I didn't like it, but did I have to? And, why does anyone expect anything other than crap from the Black Eyed Peas?

 

In any case, Lewis Black (my favorite comedian) says that half time at the Super Bowl was ruined when MTV got involved. He also says that, rather than watch it, he prefer to shove a spoon up his a*se. Maybe he has something there.

 

Linz :)

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The poem, "The Star Spangled BAnner" existed before the song. But the tune is from a drinking song that is older than the poem.

 

The tune is not sacred, and I don't have a problem with a certain degree of interpretation. But over-the-top is just disrespectful. The worst ever was

.
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As a life long Patriot's fan, would like to take a moment to thank the Jets for saving us from that horror show.

 

Pitchers and catchers report on Monday.

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