Aerosmith frontman and American Idol judge Steven Tyler performed his version of the national anthem before Sunday’s AFC Championship between the New England Patriots and Baltimore Ravens, and most of Monday’s Internet has been about how terrible it was. The L.A. Times has a post up called Steven Tyler’s national anthem: Worst ever? [Poll], comparing it to similarly-awful versions by Roseanne Barr, Carl Lewis, Christina Aguilera and, worst of all, Scott Stapp. What could Tyler have possibly done in this lifetime to be compared to Scott Stapp? That’s like being told you’ve got 24 hours to live.

To recap, Steven Tyler:

1. is 63-years old.
2. is dressed like a lady hobo.
3. has more or less sung exactly the same song since he decided he wanted his voice to sound like a descending hawk circa 1975′s Toys In The Attic and has topped the popular music charts with at least 100 #1 singles in said voice since said album.

So, to reiterate … what exactly were you expecting from a Steven Tyler national anthem, America? He’s Steven Tyler. He sings like that. He is an old lady hobo. Did you expect him to bust out a Josh Groban-ass Ave Maria? I’m surprised we got through it without him going WHACK-ACK-OW, WHACK-ACK-ACK-ACK-OWWW and a pelvic mic stand thrust.

Video of the performance is below. Compare and contrast it to any Aerosmith video on YouTube, especially the ones with teenage Alicia Silverstone and/or Liv Tyler in leather pants.

Read the rest of this entry »

Former “American Idol” contestant Lauren Alaina became the show’s latest singer to be shoe-horned into a NFL broadcast for the sake of synergy, as she sang the National Anthem before yesterday’s game between the Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers. And as we have come to expect from today’s pop singers, she screwed it up.

Granted, Alaina didn’t complete botch it like some of the other derps we’ve seen in recent history, but she did pause and hesitate for a few seconds before finally remembering the words to the song that we all learned in elementary school. And much like today’s stars, Alaina took to Twitter to clear it all up.

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s a pretty standard feature, the collection of the worst national anthem performances of all-time, and most sports and pop culture blogs usually start running them out around Super Bowl time, unless there’s a surprise craptacular performance at an all-star game, NASCAR race, or drunken 4th of July party. But they’re just all so damned classic that we love re-living them every time.

That’s why I can’t believe that it took someone this long to finally put together a spectacular mash-up of the worst anthem performances in history. This new mash-up, brilliantly assembled by the fine folks at Popdust, has everything, like a Tosh.0 special episode – Roseanne, Carl Lewis, Christina Aguilera, the spectacular R. Kelly performance that is almost always excluded, and thank Francis Scott Key, they even included Fergie’s vocal disaster from last week’s Miami Dolphins game against the New England Patriots.

It is the perfect storm of patriotic suck and we salute it.

Read the rest of this entry »

My job as a sports blogger is to be snarky and judgmental about everything, but earlier today I posted a video of a grateful kid being happy about baseball so I might not have any idea what I’m doing. Looking around for stories to close out the week, I browsed through cheerleader slideshows and BMX failz until I came across Lily Anderson’s performance of the Star-Spangled Banner during Thursday’s “Rally Night” at Turner Field. She has cancer (stage 4 neuroblastoma) and received the longest standing ovation Braves reliver Peter Moylan has ever seen.

I thought to myself, “oh, this would be nice” and figured I’d close out the weekend with that, instead of the NASCAR lady who used to model bikinis.

And then I started looking for a picture for the header.

[Lily] thinks peace signs are really cool, loves turtles and playing with her friends. She loves to ride dirt bikes with her Dad, and looks forward to the weekly Sunday visits with her Grandma and Grandpa. Lime green is her very favorite color and as with most girls her age, clothes are really special; in fact she is often known by her nickname “Style Anderson.”

I browsed through her Facebook fan page to see if there were any high res pictures of her performing at the game. That’s sorta my job. I’ve been on the Internet a long time, and nothing really gets to me. I looked at her wall photos, and down at the bottom is a dimly-lit picture of her in a hospital bed, losing a little bit of her hair, holding a big sign that says “I made millions of stem cells!” She’s smiling so big, and it just sort of hit me, right in the middle of my chest, in the part of the heart that gets the brain’s credit for feeling the weight of things.

I typed something, then deleted it. Stared at the screen. Typed, deleted.

I’m not sure what I want to tell you. Just … show this video to people. “Like” her Facebook fan page, if that matters, and visit her website. Let her know goddamn stupid life is, and how awesome she is for being okay with it. I don’t know how to say it, but I want to, and am going to spend the rest of the day figuring out how.

Eight-year-old Elizabeth Hughes became the biggest name in the world of Virginia hockey last week when she began singing the National Anthem at a Norfolk Admirals game, only to become the victim of a crappy PA system. In the meantime, as her tiny voice continued to sing, the crowd picked up the volume for her and the country bellowed a collective, “Awwwwww.”

Fortunately, Elizabeth’s 15 minutes of Internet fame live on, as Fox 43 in Southeast Virginia had her on yesterday to once again sing the Star-Spangled Banner, this time with no interruption. Still, wouldn’t it have been fun if the Fox crew went ahead and cut her mic anyway, and then finished singing the song for her? Sure, she probably would have cried, but it would have given her a gimmick. And she’d still be a million times cooler than the “You dun goofed up” chick.

Video of Elizabeth’s redemption after the jump, as well as the original performance…

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been a rough week for America, what with that stuff that we won’t talk about right now (Duke losing, of course) and it always helps to have something inspirational fall into our laps. And while my greatest inspiration, Rachel Bilson, has yet to fall into my lap, we were lucky enough to stumble across this video of 8-year old Elizabeth Hughes performing the National Anthem at a Norfolk Admirals hockey game on January 7.

As Elizabeth was nailing it – just crushing that Star Spangled Banner – her mic cut out, leaving her tiny-yet-powerful voice without the benefit of amplification. That’s when the crowd collectively shouted, “To heck with your faulty sound system! To heck, we say!” and they lifted Elizabeth up with their voices and gave a giant middle finger to this country’s enemies.

Strap a cassette player to your leg and fly a jet into your heart, video after the jump…

Read the rest of this entry »