Christina Aguilera Massacres 'The Star-Spangled Banner,' Hits a Few Flats on Her Way Down

Listening to Christina Aguilera's music takes something of an acquired taste. But enjoying her performance of "The Star-Spangled Banner" at the Super Bowl last night requires tone deafness - and lyrical ignorance.

Anyone who sat through the Super Bowl last night knows there were no cheerleaders for the game. And if you were watching Christina's performance in hopes of a Janet Jackson replay, I hope you were sorely disappointed. For it wasn't Christina's wardrobe that's in question, for once.

Nope. It was definitely the way she sang - and nearly massacred - our national anthem.

Things were smooth sailing for the first few measures, minus the undeniably forced melody phrasing (since when did musical composer John Stafford Smith add 20 more notes to the melody line?). But it's her lyrics failure that really made headlines.

When Aguilera reached the fourth line of the song, the lyrics all of a sudden change from the tried and true "O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming" to a repeat of the second line's, "What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming."

Except she also replaced "hailed" with "watched." Whoops.

Don't get me wrong. I couldn't stand up in front of one of the world's biggest live audiences plus viewers at home and sing "The Star-Spangled Banner." I'd probably forget a few lyrics too.

But Aguilera is used to the attention. Did she freeze up? Did she forget to practice? Or did she not know how to pronounce "ramparts" and "gallantly"?

And to top off her stellar rendition, she lands a few flat notes to boot. Turns out that showing off your vocal talent in a cold stadium doesn't have quite the same effect as it does in a warm studio with a sound engineer - something she might keep in mind if they ever invite her back again.

What really got me was when the camera panned in on the faces of some of the football players as Christina sang, "Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there." They glanced upward at the flag, as if making sure it was indeed still present and accounted for. And from the expressions on their faces, I think they half-expected it to have disappeared altogether.

Personally, I enjoyed Lea Michelle's "America the Beautiful" a lot better. Sure, she showed off a little, but she stayed true to the tune and stayed on pitch besides.

So, in other words, perhaps those in charge of musical performance at the Super Bowl should hold an audition to make sure the singer actually knows the lyrics and can hit all the notes before taking center stage at the world's biggest sporting event.

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Watching the Super Bowl take-outs