I agree with the folks that want to sing along. I remember a World Series game when I was pleasantly suprised. It was quite a ways back, and Toni Tenille(of the Captain and—) was tosing the anthem. But before starting she addressed the crown and said “Won’t you please sing with me our national anthem?” She didn’t use the opportunity to do a pretentious solo. And in the sixth game of the 1985 World Series the Oak Ridge Boys came out to sing. Now, I had never seen them and they looked a bit…odd. But they did great. Ordinary tempo and notes, just did a beautiful harmonization.
Whoever the choir group was that sang it at the Phillies/Braves game on Monday had the most foul conductor. I think the blame should be on the conductor since although the singing was quite nice, for some reason the anthem was sung at, oh, TWICE THE FRICKIN NORMAL SPEED until the “Oh say does that…” verse. WTF?
Atlanta used to have an IHL hockey team called the Knights. If you go to an Atlanta Thrashers game, or sometimes, even at Braves games, you get some yahoos who thinks it’s cool to yell “KNIGHTS!” when the song gets to “…gave proof, through the night…”
Really tacky and disrespectful IMO.
Actually, I prefer America, the Beautiful. That should be our National Anthem IMO.
I also like la Marsailles and The National Hymn of the Soviet Union (“Soy’ooz neroosh’imi resp’ooblik svob’odnikh / Splot’ila nav’eki vel’ikaia Rus”). And of course, O Canada.
I like the more normal versions, but I like it when the crowds yells “O!” at the Orioles games, and I might like the Knights thing too, but that sounds a bit more disruptive. Then again, I’m an Orioles Fan. BAseball is our national sport after all and being a baseball fan is a part of my patriotism. I think the “O!” is appropriate.
The worst rendition I ever heard must have been a recording from the 70’s. As part of the instrumentation, it included synthesizer-“laser” sounds that are very difficult to describe in pure text.
I think we should just change the National Anthem to “Rock Lobster”. I’d like to see who they’d get to sing that at ball games.
Actually, as national anthems go, America’s is about the most unsingable of them all - the range is all wrong for your Average Joe, the tune is less than hummable, the scan of the words is sub-par, and so forth. As a patriotic song, yes, it’s perfect, but as something that every person in the country ought to be able to sing well? Forget it. A much better anthem would have been “America the Beautiful,” or even (Supreme Court forbid) “God Bless America.” (“My Country 'Tis of Thee” is based off of the British “God Save The Queen,” so I wouldn’t think that would be appropriate.)
IMHO, of course, but many music historians agree.
Then again, Ben Franklin wanted the turkey to be the national bird…
Esprix
I went to an NFL playoff game at San Francisco in the mid-80s (87?) where they played the Vikings (I think). Chakka Kahn was singing the national anthem. The song was so mangled as to be [hyperbole] barely recognizable [/hyperbole], and about three quarters of the way through the crowd took it over and sang the rest the boring way. They (we) sang right over her, finished, applauded and cheered, and sat down. She still hadn’t finished.
I agree that SSB should be sung straight most of the time. Is it so bad to have this one patriotic thing that all Americans do the same? It would also be easier for people to hit the high notes if it were sung in a key two to four steps lower key than it usually is. As for some of the soloists, it seems they are simply unable to sing it straight.
Point - as Cecil has told us, the tune is from an old drinking song. So if we got tanked first, it might be easier to sing. Or maybe we just wouldn’t care how we sang it. 
Dissenting opinion (caveat: ignorant foreigner)
Working up in the US last year this NZer had the opportunity to hear your national anthem on a number of occasions and got a really big kick out of standing and singing along to it at the local Ice Hockey games. (Go Mallards!).
Yeah, the range is difficult and the tune is none too easy, but I’d trade our victorian dirge for it in an instant.
'Course if they’d been singing My Country 'Tis of Thee… instead, I guess I could have sung along with the God save the queen words and we’d all have been happy. 
I much prefer George Carlin’s version:
Oh Beautiful, for smoggy skies, insecticided grain,
For stripmined mountains majesty, above the asphalt plain,
America, America, Man sheds his waste on thee,
And hides the pines with billboard signs, from sea to oily sea!
JP
I, myself, don’t mind a little personal touch in the song, but I just HATE it when it’s done in such a way that no one could possibly follow it and sing along if they were so inclined. To me, that’s not adding flair–it’s fueling personal vanity. They aren’t singing in such a way as to inspire unity and patriotism, they are saying, “See what I can do with my voice? I’ll bet you’re as impressed with me as I am!”