Blanco Brown Crash Lands National Anthem at NASCAR Race

WARNING: Language

– – – – – – – – –

Holy shit this is bad.

It’s so often embarrassing as a country music fan when some mainstream “country” (in quotations) performer gets presented on a national stage. The most recent example was Blanco Brown singing the National Anthem ahead of the NASCAR race on Sunday (3-19) at the Atlanta Motor Speedway.

Blanco Brown is already an embarrassment enough on his own as the store brand version of Lil Nas X. Broken Bow Records signed him during the whole “Old Town Road” kerfuffle, and released the godawful “The Git Up” as a Tik-Tok craze. Blanco was later a guest on a bad Parmalee single, and since then all he’s done is release one failed single after another, and worked with both of country music’s interloping accused rapists, sexual assaulters, and groomers: Nelly and Diplo.

Granted, about 95% of Blance Brown’s National Anthem performance was not bad at all. He did a more soulful and busy take on it than some may find favor with, but whatever. It was working for him. Then comes the last “note,” and all a sudden the performance of ol’ Blanco crashed harder than Silicon Valley Bank.

He might as well have just stopped down the performance and told us all to go fuck our mothers. I felt less insulted than Clay Walker’s tour bus driver after Clay called him the ‘c’ word and told him “drive me smooth motherfucker.” This is the ear-serration that will accompany the four horsemen of the apocalypse galloping out of the sky to usher in the total annihilation of the Earth.

Stuff like this is the reason sports commentators hate on country music all the time, and over the years they have gravitated more toward performers like Sturgill Simpson, Jason Isbell, and the Turnpike Troubadours. And the confidence with which Blanco Brown delivered this ear-piercing banshee screech like he nailed it or something by crossing his arms at the end like he’s Mr. Cool is especially ripe. The sign language lady should have flipped him off.

Chris Stapleton at the Super Bowl, this was not.

© 2023 Saving Country Music