Every year, the folks at the NFL announce they've reeled in some megastar musicians for the Super Bowl, either to sing the National Anthem or to perform a mini-concert at halftime. This year, we got two divas to kick off the game: Glee's Lea Michele performing “America the Beautiful” and Bionic woman Christina Aguilera tackling “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
Every year, the folks at the NFL announce they've reeled in some megastar musicians for the Super Bowl, either to sing the National Anthem or to perform a mini-concert at halftime. This year, we got two divas to kick off the game: Glee's Lea Michele performing “America the Beautiful” and Bionic woman Christina Aguilera tackling “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
Michele did her thing, and it was a fine, if corny, rendition. Xtina, on the other hand, was all kinds of wrong. She looked bad, sounded pitchy and committed the only cardinal sin of National Anthem singers: screwing up the lyrics.
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She somehow skipped “O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming” and mixed it up with an earlier line. She ended up singing, “What so proudly we watched at the twilight's last gleaming.” Admittedly, this makes about as much sense as the original lyrics, but it was a pretty big error, and we're sure she made a lot of money for this “performance.”
The halftime show was as big, expensive and hollow as Cowboys Stadium in the off-season. The Black Eyed Peas performed a medley of their biggest hits, which served the important function of reminding us all how truly atrocious their music has been for the past eight years or so. It was a nonstop crapfest, and they didn't even bother to trot out “My Humps.”
Slash showed up to play some lead guitar with “Sweet Child O' Mine” for about two minutes, and I hope he is enjoying a new house somewhere for his troubles. Usher rappelled in from the roof as if he were there on a mission to save us from the dire proceedings, but he really just showed off his dancing skills to his song “OMG.”
The headliners played “The Time (Dirty Bit),” which borrows from the Dirty Dancing theme song “(I've Had) The Time of My Life” and “Pump It.” Both songs were terrible, and “Boom Boom Pow” and “I Gotta Feeling” were almost as bad. The best part of their performance (other than the fact that they never played more than half of any of these monstrosities) was the choreographed dance team of hundreds. These troopers were decked out in TRON-inspired luminescent costumes, and they made it easier to not pay attention to the junk coming through the TV speakers. Can we start a petition to get Prince back for another go-round, please?
The headliners played “The Time (Dirty Bit),” which borrows from the Dirty Dancing theme song “(I've Had) The Time of My Life” and “Pump It.” Both songs were terrible, and “Boom Boom Pow” and “I Gotta Feeling” were almost as bad. The best part of their performance (other than the fact that they never played more than half of any of these monstrosities) was the choreographed dance team of hundreds. These troopers were decked out in TRON-inspired luminescent costumes, and they made it easier to not pay attention to the junk coming through the TV speakers. Can we start a petition to get Prince back for another go-round, please?
