The National Anthem of the United States is a very hard piece of music to sing correctly and well. "The melodic range of the song is from a 'B flat' below middle 'C' to a high 'F'. The total range of the piece is an octave and a half," according to the American Songwriter.
The Canadians are lucky by comparison. "O, Canada" has a vocal range of about half the "Star Spangled Banner" coming in at one octave. (Personal opinion: I think the Canadian national anthem is not only the most singable but next to "God Save the King" the most stirring anthem in the world.)
So when some pop singer brutalizes our anthem, it's not surprising. What's surprising is that some goofball actually invited someone to sing the anthem who didn't have the range or the musical talent to do it justice.
And to do it at a big event like the Home Run Derby during Major League Baseball's All-Star festivities is among the epic fails of all epic fails.
Country singer Ingrid Andress has a nice little voice. Her twang is very nice, her look is pure country, and I'm sure she "wears her jeans too tight," Just to "watch the little boys come undone," as Gretchen Wilson sang.
But her rendition of the anthem is already going down in history as among the worst ever.
She admitted afterward that she was drunk and would enter rehab. "I’m not gonna bulls**t y’all, I was drunk last night,” Andress said in a statement on social media. “I’m checking myself into a facility today to get the help I need. That was not me last night. I apologize to MLB, all the fans, and this country I love so much for that rendition. I’ll let y’all know how rehab is I hear it’s super fun.”
"My ears are bleeding," the baseball writer Michael Schwab said on X. "One of the worst national anthem renditions ever."
"I'm so sorry, I'm sure Ingrid Andress is a wonderful person, but that was one of the worst national anthems I think I've ever heard in my whole life," said Sports Illustrated writer and podcaster Alex Carr.
The performance drew immediate comparisons to tFergie's remndhe 2018 national anthem belted out by the Black Eyed Peas singer at the NBA All-Star game, which had until now been deemed the worst performance of the song ever. Many agreed that Andress had taken the thorny crown.
“Made Fergie’s NBA performance sound like a choir of angels,” wrote Crossing Broad columnist Kevin Kinkead. “Made Carl Lewis sound like Luther Vandross.”
Andress joined the annals of anthems gone horribly wrong alongside the likes of Roseanne Barr, who famously shrieked her way through it at the Padres game against the Reds in 1990 before grabbing her crotch and hurling a hearty hawk tuah at the grass.
Lewis was another anthem flub, when the track star was tasked with singing it at the 1993 NBA game between the Bulls and the Nets — and by all accounts failed miserably.
Fergie's rendition was indoors, so she didn't have to deal with the reverb blasting in her ears as Andress did.
But Carl Lewis had no excuse. He should have declined the honor. Maybe his agent told him it could be the start of a career in pop music.
The woman can sing when given the right song in the right circumstances and the right sound engineers and producers to polish her performance.
I hope she comes through rehab all right. I doubt whether anyone will give her another shot at singing the anthem anytime soon.
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