The economy slumps, unemployment is still high, and troops are still dying while
fighting for our country. Yet, some people are in a frenzy over whether or not
Beyonce lip-synced her way through "The Star Spangled Banner" at the
Inauguration on Monday? Really? Why do we care?
The "Today" show must think people care because they ran a piece on it Thursday,
a full three days after Beyonce gave a stirring rendition of it. Most of us thought it
was "stirring" until some twitterers and experts believed that Beyonce was mouthing
the song with a pre-recorded version of it.
I guess after the Lance Armstrong and Manti Te'o scandals and other fraud
fests, people are just tired of getting duped. They take it as a personal attack on their
integrity and belief system resulting in bitter outrage. Really?
I say, so what if Beyonce lip-synched. It's not like she's Milli Vanilli and using
the voices of someone else on their way to winning a Grammy-award. She has
incredible talent and we know that it's all her own. Nobody seemed to have much
of a problem when Whitney Houston brought down the house before the Super Bowl
in 1991 with her inspiring version of "The Star Spangled Banner."
Two years ago, Christina Aguilera went "live" with her rendition of the song and
butchered it. People see her today as a special talent, unfortunately for her, she gets
tagged with the, "Yeah, but..." Phenomenal ability, yeah, but she screwed up the
song in front of the entire world. And when artists screw up the national anthem,
people in this country feel it's blasphemous. "How can they do that!?," we ask.
It can happen. Sometimes the sound systems installed in the stadium are off.
Often performers suddenly get feedback in their ears and they lose their focus
temporarily. Aretha Franklin performed the song "live" during President Obama's
first inauguration when it was bitterly cold and she had some problems getting
everything out crisp and clean. Franklin was harshly criticized for not being
perfect. When you're performing "live", there are no safety nets. None. If
you crash, you crash hard.
I'm sure Aguilera would love to have a do over and do it by lip-syncing. It's
clean, it's safe, it's almost guaranteed. Beyonce played it safe, so what? If she
made just the smallest of mistakes, the entire country would have jumped all
over her. Should she be considered a fraud along the lines of Armstrong and Te'o?
I don't think so.
Beyonce got to where she is because she is not only talented, but extremely smart.
She made a good decision for her. Move on and get over it, people. There are other
things in life much more important that this.
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