Is Singing ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ A Sure Recipe For A Backlash? Go Ask Alicia

When it comes to celebrity renditions of the national anthem, examples of “what so proudly we hailed” seem a lot less common than examples of “the perilous fight.” Just look at the backlash against Alicia Keys’ version of the tune before the Super Bowl if you want a good example of bombs bursting in air.

Alicia Keys… creative anthem champ or dirge singer? (Getty Images)The immediate reaction to her languid and jazz-influenced take on “The Star Spangled Banner” from fellow singers as well as critics seemed almost universally positive. “One of the great renditions,” tweeted Elisabeth Hasselbeck. “Yes lawd,” gushed Spike Lee, suddenly getting religion. Keys “killed it,” declared Idol judge Randy Jackson.

But then the general public had its say… and there were plenty of naysayers to complain that Alicia Keys had somehow betrayed Francis Scott Key.

Suddenly Keys found herself joining a not-so-exclusive club of stars who’ve been excoriated for tackling The Anthem, whether they were similarly polarizing, a la Christina Aguilera and Beyonce, or universally alienating, a la Steven Tyler and Roseanne Barr.

Reader responses to Yahoo! Music’s initial positive coverage of Keys’ anthem were more dismissive, or angry, than laudatory. “Stop trying to make the national anthem ‘your own’,” said one of the most popular reactions on the site. “It’s not yours. It’s ours collectively. Sing it the way it’s supposed to be sung.” Later, the same user added, “I never meant to imply she wasn’t a great musician or that she butchered the song in any way. I just feel the National Anthem is one song that should be performed the way it was written and artists shouldn’t try and use it as an opportunity to top the iTunes charts the next morning.”

Within five hours, that diss had 1,098 thumbs-ups on Yahoo!, and only 225 thumbs-down.

Another reader wrote: “One of the worst anthem renditions I have ever seen or heard. What a funeral durge. Too slow.” Hours later, this slam had a similarly imbalanced ratio of 1,058 thumbs in agreement and 248 in opposition.

Dissenting pro-Keys commenters responded in kind: “So…you are basically saying, ‘The song belongs to all of us— now do it the way I want.’”

But some would just as soon take the anthem out of the hands of celebrities in general, to end the alleged showboating. “Forget having all these music industry celebrities sing the national anthem from now on,” wrote a commenter. “Let’s have our military personnel sing it. They will sing it the proper way, and not will all the other b.s. added to it.”

The too-many-notes criticism is a common one, with no one getting more brickbats on that score than the pathologically melismatic Christina Aguilera, who never met a syllable she couldn’t make span several seconds and octaves. Of course, muffing the words to the song two years ago didn’t help… although maybe that cautionary case helped Beyonce opt to go with a pre-recording at last month’s inauguration.