11 Year Old Girl Sings The National Anthem
Is it the best? No. But, I think that sites that are calling it the worst ever should remember the girl is 11 years old; was singing in front of 22,000 people;, and is singing The national Anthem which is one of the hardest songs in the world to sing. She remembered all the words and had confidence.
Sorry Ent but that was very painful to sit through
ReplyDeletePoor girl. I think in a normal setting she has a decent voice. She just tried WAY WAY too hard.
ReplyDeleteHoly. Shit. I hate her more because she's only 11 and has the balls to sing like she's as important as a grown ass diva. I also hate her parents and her vocal coach. This is where the graduates of Toddlers and Tiaras go to die.
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't great, but it wasn't the worst thing I've ever heard. That said, who screens these people?
ReplyDelete2:30 "Torture" lol
ReplyDeleteI stopped at 0:24. When its bad that early on, it won't get better. Poor girl.
ReplyDeleteA few thoughts:
ReplyDeleteThe US national anthem is a RIDICULOUSLY hard song to sing. That octave and a half range, with the particular high notes, is a bastard.
Who lets their 11-year-old be open to the kind of abuse this girl is getting? (Maybe it's time we stop holding out "being famous" as the be-all-end-all aspiration for everyone, and yes, I get how weird that is posting this on a gossip site.)
And to quote strawberrygirl, who screens? Part of being a good screener is to protect kids like this from the garbage they're going to get for being less than prodigy-like.
they all think they are Christina Aquilera, it was creepy she was dragging it out in a weird way. You put yourself in the spotlight you gotta expect to take your lumps no matter what the age if you think you're a professional singer.
ReplyDeletecomical.
ReplyDeleteWhat pisses me off the most is that she hit all the notes and could have a beautiful voice if she loses the frightening 11 year old ego which at that age is fed to her by adults.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite part was the audience's "wtf???" reaction.
ReplyDeleteProbably not the worst performance ever, but it was pretty damn bad. How do you get chosen to sing in front of 22,000 people when you can't sing for shit?
is it allowed to boo her singing the national anthem?
ReplyDeletei love the girl in the red shirt at 2:20
ReplyDeleteWhy does this girl think she can sing? This was the worst rendition EVER!! I hate her and her parents. How do people get chosen to sing the national anthem? Her dad must own the stadium or something.
ReplyDeleteThis girl will grow up to be Lana Del Rey...smh
Horrible. If not the worst then definitely one of the worst. Made much worse by her pretension.
ReplyDeleteI'm torn between "it's not cool to mock a child" and "someone needs to say no to this kid once in a while". If her parents are telling her she's good enough to sing in front on that crowd then they need a kick in the crotch, to stop any future infractions if for nothing else.
ReplyDeleteShe has a website too, which is equally painful. It's like watching the birth of Godzilla and not being able to look away... Please, parents, for the love of God, stop doing this to your kids!
Obviously she knew someone that let her do this. Unless she's a Make-A-Wish child there is no excuse for letting this girl sing the song. This also reinforces to this girl that she has talent. She may, but singing isn't one of them.
ReplyDeleteI just wonder if the girl realized it wasn't her best work and just pushed through it. It's hard enough to sing the national anthem, let alone in front of so many people. When you mess up, there's just not a lot you can do to get back on the ball.
ReplyDeleteShe actually reminds me of a local girl who sings just about everywhere she can. People tell this girl how good she is, so she's gotten the idea that her voice sounds much better than it does. Hopefully, the real world doesn't knock too much wind out of her sails when she finds out her talents are pretty average.
Oh, dear...I had to stop this at 1:21. *shakes head* She has a decent enough voice to start with, but she's adding all those trills and frills that everyone seems to think is necessary these days to "prove" that you're a Real Singer--I blame American Idol for this whole notion that you HAVE to sound like Mariah or Xtina to have any worth as a singer. If she picked this up on her own, someone needs to kindly but firmly set her straight; if someone actually taught her to sing like that, they should be ashamed of themselves. (Her family should definitely be ashamed of themselves for throwing her to the wolves like that; I don't care if she wanted to do it--there are plenty of things you don't let your kids do until they're older, and pushing them into the kind of spotlight where they'll be subject to a lot of crap is one of them.) Honestly, she would have sounded young but otherwise fine if she'd just sang it straight and not tricked it out like that. *sigh* I'm not going to hate on her--she IS still just a kid, after all--but if she really does have a gift, she'd be better off if her parents let her develop her skills privately and not encourage her to run a marathon while she's still just learning to walk. (And yes, that song IS a bitch to sing...)
ReplyDeleteI hope she can't read any better than she can sing or she's in for a painful day. And I can just envision her parents coddling her and making excuses excuses excuses!
ReplyDeleteOn her first note, I seriously thought she was a Make a Wish kid and was ready to be angry at the haters. But then 5 minutes later she sang the second word and I knew.
ReplyDeleteRobin,
ReplyDeleteREALLY good point about the over-singing part. A long, long time ago, singers sang the song. They might embellish it a little here or there, and if they were jazz or Great American Songbook-type singers, they might play even more, but they didn't sing EVERY SINGLE SONG TO DEATH. No trills, no over-embellishment, no hand-waving. What I would give to make every would-be singer have to take a mandatory class in mid-century American song styling. But I am a curmudgeonly old thing.
Her mistake was to schmaltz it up.
ReplyDeleteIn her defense, it is really hard to sing in a stadium with the reverb and no monitor.
I blame Whitney Houston.
no wasn't Xtina the first to really overdo it?
ReplyDeleteYou know, her voice is so raspy throughout that I really wonder if she just practiced too much.
ReplyDeleteI don't know. Whatever. I'm not going to hate on an 11 year old.
Lol @Munch. Some voice in the begining of all of her videos (assumedly her mom) yells, "you go girl." T&T indeed.
ReplyDeleteSadly, she'd probably be decent if she sang songs appropriate to her experience level and to her immature 11 year old voice.
We know Harper, she is amazingly talented. She was not given her ear piece and the fireworks went off to early. Considering how much went wrong beyond her control and the fact that she is 11 she did a wonderful job.
ReplyDeletewell, there are the predicted excuses.
ReplyDeleteno, really March, she did a bad job singing the song. If you really do know her please tell her: simplify, just sing it, don't strangle it.
@Lola I agree. She needs to sing songs appropriate for her level. Old McDonald comes to mind at the moment.
ReplyDeleteThat was awful.
ReplyDeleteOur daughter is tone deaf (like me) but she thinks she is fabulous! She gets up to sing at karaoke (I NEVER go) and thinks she does great. We have always told her she can't sing a lick. Now I have the added fear that she will call me one day and say she is singing the national anthem in front of a crowd!!!!! Thanks for that Enty
ReplyDeleteOkay, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, based on the comments here.
ReplyDeleteHer vocal coach needs to be slapped. Part of singing is not just hitting the notes, it is staying within your capabilities. And learning to deliver the song properly. I don't blame the kid here - she is obviously surrounded by idiot adults who are more intent on creating a 'star' than truly teaching her how to sing properly.
Couple of things - She is 11 and has raw talent that can be nurtured & developed. She didn't have an ear piece, and an experienced singer would have pressed a finger to one ear so they could hear themselves. She is simply too young and inexperienced for this gig. I blame the adults in her life for letting this happen.
This young girl keeps reverting back to using her throat to produce sound, instead of letting the air flow through her vocal cords. She is going to have serious problems with her vocal cords with nodes by the time she is in her late teens if her coach doesn't focus on teaching her how to protect her voice. A lot of vocal coaches won't even take kids because they are still growing & developing, and the risk of permanently damaging their vocal cords if far greater than an adult.
It was bad cause she was taking a loooong time with each word!
ReplyDeleteDoes she have a vocal coach? Because the one thing I really noticed was the deep breaths she kept taking. My (in)expert opinion is her mother is her coach and her mother knows nothing about vocal training.
ReplyDeleteBut seriously, that was terrible. I don't care if she's 11, we can't keept encouraging this nonsense. So what if she got the words right, that's the equivalent of applauding someone because they didn't drink and drive. We can all get the words right but we can't all sing, let alone that particular song. Her parents are too blame for allowing that to happen, this coddling has to stop.
Good point, Anita. The breathing is semi-correct. But she hasn't learned to quickly dip the microphone before inhaling so we don't hear it. And she's taking deep breaths in the middle of phrases - I chalked that up to nervousness, but you have a good point. If it is her mother training her, then that kid's vocal cords are toast and she won't have a career when she gets older.
ReplyDeleteThe adults in her life failed her. She is nowhere near the level she should be to perform this song - especially in front of such a large audience. They did her no favours whatsoever by soliciting this for her.
Sorry to be the mean one here, but she needs her ass beaten. And her parents need to be beaten too. >.<
ReplyDelete:(
ReplyDeletegosh. that was...not fabulous. i have an 11 year old, and she would totally think she could rock this. which is why i would never allow it. sadly, now she will never be allowed to forget these 2 minutes of her life.
You know, I feel a rant coming on. I probably need a smoke. Anyway. You know what I'm sick of? EXACTLY THIS. Enty posts a video of a girl singing the anthem badly and we are all left either defending badness or gleefully shooting her down. Can't he post someone singing well? All this is going to teach her is that SHE GOT ATTENTION. No one cares anymore WHAT kind of attention they get (positive or negative--SEE: Real Housewives) as long as they are getting attention. So if she becomes a monster all of us are as much to blame as the other adults in her life.
ReplyDeletePlus check her out on YouTube. She really isn't a bad singer at all, although y'all aren't gonna like all those runs at all. And she plays piano. And, no, I have never heard of this girl until today. This just struck a bit of a nerve for whatever reason. Now, about that cigarette...
Ahh. I feel much better. But the sentiment still stands. :)
ReplyDeleteI have no hate for this little girl, her vibrato just hasn't simply had the time to fully develop on its own yet. It's really hard to color your voice in the style she is doing so without a developed vibrato, b/c the vibrato acts as the foundation for vocal coloring or 'oversinging' to bounce off of. The vibrato also steadies the voice on pitch, which is probably part of why she was faltering. You can hear the beginnings of her vibrato towards the crescendo of the song where her voice starts to get raspy, but it does sound she pushed the hell out of her little diaphragm to get it out.
ReplyDeleteAdd to that the song isnt the easiest to sing as others have previously stated. Plus, she was probably terrified. I don't even know her, but I'm actually very proud of her.
@March That is one brave little girl you have the pleasure of knowing. ;)
Okay, she actually got some of the very basic words wrong. The look on the audience's faces was priceless. As much as I loathe Landon Donovan, I cracked up when he was trying to suppress his laughter.
ReplyDeleteIf this was an age appropriate setting and she was singing at a junior high school event or a talent competition with others in her age range, I wouldn't say a word.
ReplyDeleteBut she's not. She's singing at a large scale event and this is the real world. She was awful and it shouldn't have happened at all. Maybe she's great at other songs, who knows, but she wasn't here and having "courage" to do it doesn't give anyone a pass. We can't keep dumbing down society to an "everyone gets a medal" type of thing.
Shit, that was nearly as bad as tinnitus.
ReplyDeleteSeriously...some adult needs to have their ass kicked for teaching this little girl to sing like that.
ReplyDeleteI bet she wouldn't be half bad if someone with any sense had coached her.
Whoever decided it was appropriate to ask an eleven-year-old to sing it to begin with should be horsewhipped.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteGet it together, Miss Poppypants. Not all are calling for her to be tarred and feathered.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry but she was terrible and had NO BUSINESS SINGING THE AMERICAN ANTHEM AT A PUBLIC EVENT. By your logic, we are to sit quietly while every child who believes they have a gift are to come forward and sing the US anthem. Is that it? And even if they are beyond awful, we are to smile politely because they are a child? If you believe that, you are part of the problem.
You want to participate at a grown-up event, you have to take it like a grown-up. Or is life always going to to be about sitting back and watching a child be terrible at something and smiling and encouraging them forward? Is that what we should do?
I agree that the national anthem is a hard song to sing, but when you choose to show off and basically change every note I'm glad this is what happened. Anytime anyone sings the anthem and does the runs (where they go off showing their range) I can't stand it. Sing the song, it is supposed to celebrate your country not your voice. It's an honor to be able to sing the song. You're lucky to have the opportunity to sing for your country not the other way around. 11 or not, she's obnoxious. I wouldn't be surprised with her attitude if she was a pageant girl when she was little.
ReplyDeleteI particularly enjoyed watching the audience and players faces. We are obviously not alone in thinking it wasn't good. She can sing a hell of a lot better than me, though.
ReplyDeleteI hate, hate, hate when singers try to prove how "artistic" they are by not performing songs how they were written, dragging them out and showing how they can go up and down the scales. It's particularly egregious when it's the national anthem being bastardized. This girl is a classic example -- plus, her voice sucks, despite her being a "singer and songwriter." Mine does, too. Which is why I don't volunteer to sing in front of thousands of people.
ReplyDeleteI'm reminded of the movie "Goon," when, after an awful rendition of "O, Canada," the hockey announcer says, "Well, that was borderline treasonous."
you know, good parenting includes encouraging your child to follow their dreams--but it does not include enabling delusions of talent, especially when said enabling includes colossal embarrassment for your progeny. #parentingfail #idiots
ReplyDeletewhat's funny is...you can tell she has a singing talent and the strength is there...she's just very off tune singing this song and she's dragging it out. It could be because of nerves. One day when her voice is stronger and more matured, she'll be better.
ReplyDelete