That would be me. Shows like American Idol are worthless to me. Sure, it can be entertaining to laugh at the bad singers who think they are good enough to get a recording contract and probably even sadder when some of them actually do get one.

Many times, I keep my snobbery to myself, but during baseball season, it rears its ugly head with plenty of snarky comments. It always happens with the national anthem.

I don’t think people realize just how hard that song is to sing. On a good day, I can count on at least three key changes in the singing of the song. I might chalk those up to creative license, but usually it is because the person who is singing it truly thinks he is staying on key and thus what was done is proper.

Years ago, there was massive push-back when people started to put their own creative spin on the singing of the national anthem. I don’t mind creative spin. In fact, for some, putting a unique stamp on the song makes the performance better. BUT, it has to be done well. Today, the problem is, it isn’t done well most of the time.

I know some people hate the singing of the song in general for various reasons other than the bad performance of the song. But for me, it is all about the performance. Guess that is what happens when you studied music for a vast majority of your life and therefore are extra-tuned into good and bad performances. When the performance is good, great. But when it is badly performed, all I want to do is make fun of it relentlessly. Fortunately I can keep it to myself, but sometimes, it gets to be absolutely awful.

Unless all stadiums can get a good live singer every time, I’d *almost* be in favor of having a recording do the anthem. Sometimes, those recordings can get old as well. Oh well. At least I have a few friends who aren’t as big of music snobs who can appreciate my snarkiness when it comes to criticizing the singers of the national anthem at games or the singing of God Bless America on downer Sundays.