this seems a little unfair, she obviously wasn't singing 'live', but was performing to track (as most acts do), and so was only mouthing it to keep time, while at the same time running around and jumping about. I think you'd get similar results from most acts
I've seen the same comment on other websites: "You can't expect someone to run around and dance and sing. No one can perform like that except with a prerecorded track."
Nonsense. There's dozens of musical with hundreds of performers on Broadway now who do exactly that.
I'm not a Britney fan, but I don't know, that video seems a little suspicious. I think it was faked. For starters, why would that microphone even be hot to begin with? Also, the video had clips from a lot of different venues, yet the audio just sounded like she was singing that straight through in one take. I'm just a little....skeptical.
Even if this particular clip is fake, you have to realize that it is impossible for Britney Spears to sing her hits live because all of them are the result of countless hours of studio polishing and processing. It starts with a little voice barely above a whisper mouthed into a microphone an inch away, and what comes out the other end bears as much resemblance to the human voice as a hot dog does to a pig. Randy Jackson on "American Idol" once remarked on how many auditioners try to do that breathy Britney voice live without realizing that no human can do that live, not even Britney.
My wife, Laura Ainsworth, is a professional singer. I mean, a real, honest-to-God, I-didn't-know-they-made-those-anymore jazz/standards singer with perfect pitch who records albums as close to live as possible, with no Autotuning or other gimcrackery. We put her latest album, "Necessary Evil," up for Grammy consideration. In looking over the competition on her ballot for pop vocals, I realized that I don't know who gave the best pop vocal performance because after all the Autotuning, processing, overdubbing, reverbing, multi-tracking, etc., the singer could've started off sounding like a tonedeaf, alcoholic alley cat and you wouldn't know the difference.
I've seen the same comment on other websites: "You can't expect someone to run around and dance and sing. No one can perform like that except with a prerecorded track."
So the question naturally follows, who asked for the dancing? And return to this kind of choreographic kitsch for that matter. Is she a great "dancer"? She basically walks/clomps around and has some e-z aerobics moves and shakes her head/hair and shoulders when necessary. Her MTV appearances over the years just accented her lack of dancing talent by accenting a Vegas/Stripper side, moving with props (a live snake!) a breakaway costume that pulls of like a stripper to reveal "nude" clothing, and of course the obligatory stripper pole and so on. Then there was that mess that was a few years ago, where she could hardly manage to walk and talk. I've never liked Spears and her whole hypocritical family since the days she would be on MTV to receive awards and kept thanking Jesus for her talents and bringing back pop music.
Pure lulz. Most pop stars of her ilk are autotune frauds.
As for the singing & dancing live excuse, that doesn't wash. Michael Jackson, when he was at his peak in the 80s, was able to sing and dance completely live. This lessened as he got older, and by the time of his last tour, he was sadly lip-syncing 95% of the setlist, and even then we was about 37/38 and had no excuse.
I went to see Genesis in 2007 (yeah, I'm a Genesis fan and proud of it!) and Phil Collins was amazing. Not only singing live for 2 and a half hours, then aged 56, but also drumming for long portions of the concert as well. 100% live, no backing tracks. Phil, Mike Rutherford, Tony Banks, Chester Thompson and Daryl Stuermer kicking it for 2 and a half hours. Real music by real musicians.
I worked in a top London recording studio 1980-85 and let me tell you, there's barely one of them - and I include some rock "legends" in this - that can sing worth a damn when solo'd (and that's without the dancing!) and no amount of drugs and alcohol makes them any better. Especially when it's them taking it...
I have no idea if Britney can sing or not and I actually don't care at all. This sounds fake though. The levels and background noise should change in level and character with each scene change and they don't. It sounds like someone doing a "shreds" parody, some of which are extremely well done.
If you think Britney (or Madonna or whoever is the boy band of the moment) is supposed to be great singer and dancer then you're missing the point. Her job isn't to be a virtuoso (which she clearly isn't). It's to be a pop star. Her job is to project a larger-than-life image -- to "be" Britney Spears. The fact that someone like Adele for instance, can actually sing only matters because that's an essential part of her image. Do Britney et al. fail at being an idol? That's the pertinent question.
I'm not so sure it is fake. It's not different venues, as some has suggested. It's all one Las Vegas show, but with different sets and costumes. And the mic is there for her to speak to the audience when she wants to, so it's probably always on. And it really does sound like her, I think.
Not that I'm defending her voice, but in her defense, in this situation, she's not trying to sing well. She's focusing on keeping time with the lyrics and on dancing. I don't think she's got a great voice, but if she tried, I'm sure she'd sound much, much better than this. I'm guessing she's a decent singer, and much better than average, just not someone who would have a singing career if she didn't look like she does.
"Britney Spears is going to incredible lengths to cover up her reported plans to lip-sync her way through her much-hyped Las Vegas residency. Her minions have created a cheat sheet of scripted answers to be rattled off to curious fans — and Confidenti@l has obtained a copy.
We first revealed last month that, according to a well-placed source, the “Toxic” singer will be phoning in her “Britney: Piece of Me” shows, which will take place over the course of two years at Planet Hollywood in Sin City.
“Britney does not sing. She is being paid a lot of money to lip-sync,” our source told us at the time. Team Britney went into meltdown after we broke that story and ordered up the “phone guide” sheet, to be used by staffers at Planet Hollywood if they’re quizzed about the show, according to our source.
I agree with some other commenters that she's basically selling an image. It doesn't really matter if the voice is manufactured in the studio as long as the final product sells. There are exceptions, but the strongest singers have no need to rely on the constant distractions of fog machines, hyper background dancers/singers, and costume changes every five minutes.
By contrast, I was treated last evening to three live songs by Alanis Morisette, who sat accompanied by nothing more than two acoustic guitars - she blew the roof off.
I cover dozens of classic rock and pop and shows a year. And even performers with uncertain voices such as Brian Wilson perform LIVE to the LIVE accompaniment of their bands and backup vocalists.
It's sad that we have fostered a generation of stars who fake it.
Even artists one might think of as lightweight, such as David Cassidy SING LIVE. I know. I saw him fight through a cold and an increasing rasp on his voice. He pulled it off just fine last Thursday at BB Kings.
Darlene Love sings live. She is vivaciously and proudly 72.
Petula Clark is 80. Vibrant and dynamic and absolutely live.
It's like when GM was putting Chevy engines in Buicks. Miming is out of line.
And rockgolf is right -- there are a dozen musicals on Broadway, plus how many national touring companies, where the casts sing and dance and they do it live night after night.
Whether it's Britney or anyone else, miming to a tape is cheating the audience.
Actually, it's a matter of what sells on a mass level in pop music today, and a great voice isn't the key -- it's the overall package. Not that I often paraphrase Simon Cowell, but when a great singer appeared on American Idol, they were not preferred over a so-so singer who could belt and shimmy and play to the audience.
He would tell the really great singers that they could be fine studio performers, but they were not the potential stars they were looking for.
Even on The Gong Show, they would occasionally have an outstanding singer but they would lose to a mediocre one who got the room clapping and cheering.
Pop stars are packaged products and if the public loves the package, the music, the videos, the appearances on the net, etc.
That's not an indictment, it's just the state of the business. And it is not to say that the Britneys and their peers do not have talent, they do, because they can command a huge following with their charisma and instinct for career moves.
I, however, think Petula still rocks. She is great in concert and still makes records. Her hits have stood the test of time, as have the other artists mentioned above.
Who knows who tomorrow's legends will be -- much less how the public will sift through the "entertainment highway" to find them?
The fundamental problem here is mistaking Spears for a singer. She isn't; she's an entertainment personality, whose particular area of entertainment is music. She's a packaged commodity, no different than the DeFrancos in the 70's or the Monkees in the 60's. She delivers exactly what her fans expect her to deliver. I'm not defending her; it's just that she is an interchangeable musical widget, and no one is ever going to seriously consider her a real singer like Morrisette or Sheryl Crow.
Big difference -- The Monkees could sing. They proved it on the 2011 tour, as well as the 2012 and '13 shows with Mike Nesmith returning in Davy Jones' absence.
The term "Personality" infers someone like Tab Hunter - who could not sing. The Monkees could. Regardless of how they were cast or hired, there was a real and enduring talent behind the gloss.
I am not sure you can say the same for Britney.
That's how I judge the ability of a performer. Not something auto tuned or electronically edited, but a live performance.
I figured someone would make mention of the fact that the Monkees eventually did sing and play their own instruments. That doesn't invalidate my comparison, because when the Monkees were created, the four actors were not hired for their musical abilities; they were hired to play a role in a TV show. The Monkees were initially no different than the Partridge Family in that respect. Calling them a manufactured commodity doesn't detract from what they eventually became, but there is no denying that the band was created by Rafelson and Schneider to be a TV show and not an actual musical group. Jones, Tork, Nesmith and Dolenz were hired as actors. not musicians, and were very actively discouraged by the producers from becoming involved in the actual music production, until pressure from Nesmith forced them to relent. I love the Monkees and the music they eventually made, but their initial formation was motivated by the same thing as Spears; the desire to create a product, not to create music.
Another theory: She was lip-synching and the singing was real. Since she will hear the prerecorded song on her earplugs, she can't really hear herself how she acutally sings (which is quite unimportant anyway since you can't hear her actual voice during the song). That she sings instead of just moving the lips might be a personal choice. But keeping pitch without hearing yourself (and doing a dance-performance during that) is nearly impossible.
Said musical-performers will hear themselves on their earplugs, so the comparison is quite unfair.
29 comments :
Good Lord, Ken, even Linda McCartney wasn't that horrible.
this seems a little unfair, she obviously wasn't singing 'live', but was performing to track (as most acts do), and so was only mouthing it to keep time, while at the same time running around and jumping about. I think you'd get similar results from most acts
I've seen the same comment on other websites: "You can't expect someone to run around and dance and sing. No one can perform like that except with a prerecorded track."
Nonsense. There's dozens of musical with hundreds of performers on Broadway now who do exactly that.
Hey Ken,
You have got to check out Hello Ladies on HBO. In my opinion, it is the funniest new show and I'm sure after you watch it you'd agree with me.
It would be great to know what you think of it in one of your posts?
She sounds better than I thought she would!
I'm not a Britney fan, but I don't know, that video seems a little suspicious. I think it was faked. For starters, why would that microphone even be hot to begin with? Also, the video had clips from a lot of different venues, yet the audio just sounded like she was singing that straight through in one take. I'm just a little....skeptical.
It's fake, dude. Sorry 'bout it.
Even if this particular clip is fake, you have to realize that it is impossible for Britney Spears to sing her hits live because all of them are the result of countless hours of studio polishing and processing. It starts with a little voice barely above a whisper mouthed into a microphone an inch away, and what comes out the other end bears as much resemblance to the human voice as a hot dog does to a pig. Randy Jackson on "American Idol" once remarked on how many auditioners try to do that breathy Britney voice live without realizing that no human can do that live, not even Britney.
My wife, Laura Ainsworth, is a professional singer. I mean, a real, honest-to-God, I-didn't-know-they-made-those-anymore jazz/standards singer with perfect pitch who records albums as close to live as possible, with no Autotuning or other gimcrackery. We put her latest album, "Necessary Evil," up for Grammy consideration. In looking over the competition on her ballot for pop vocals, I realized that I don't know who gave the best pop vocal performance because after all the Autotuning, processing, overdubbing, reverbing, multi-tracking, etc., the singer could've started off sounding like a tonedeaf, alcoholic alley cat and you wouldn't know the difference.
Case in point: http://youtu.be/irk3_p15RJY
@rockgolf...
I've seen the same comment on other websites: "You can't expect someone to run around and dance and sing. No one can perform like that except with a prerecorded track."
So the question naturally follows, who asked for the dancing? And return to this kind of choreographic kitsch for that matter. Is she a great "dancer"? She basically walks/clomps around and has some e-z aerobics moves and shakes her head/hair and shoulders when necessary. Her MTV appearances over the years just accented her lack of dancing talent by accenting a Vegas/Stripper side, moving with props (a live snake!) a breakaway costume that pulls of like a stripper to reveal "nude" clothing, and of course the obligatory stripper pole and so on. Then there was that mess that was a few years ago, where she could hardly manage to walk and talk.
I've never liked Spears and her whole hypocritical family since the days she would be on MTV to receive awards and kept thanking Jesus for her talents and bringing back pop music.
Dear Lord this is Yoko Ono horrible!
What an inopportune time for the audio on my computer to be out.
Reminds me of the "Beach Boys Unplugged" spoof, which had me in stitches. Click my name to see it.
Pure lulz. Most pop stars of her ilk are autotune frauds.
As for the singing & dancing live excuse, that doesn't wash. Michael Jackson, when he was at his peak in the 80s, was able to sing and dance completely live. This lessened as he got older, and by the time of his last tour, he was sadly lip-syncing 95% of the setlist, and even then we was about 37/38 and had no excuse.
I went to see Genesis in 2007 (yeah, I'm a Genesis fan and proud of it!) and Phil Collins was amazing. Not only singing live for 2 and a half hours, then aged 56, but also drumming for long portions of the concert as well. 100% live, no backing tracks. Phil, Mike Rutherford, Tony Banks, Chester Thompson and Daryl Stuermer kicking it for 2 and a half hours. Real music by real musicians.
I worked in a top London recording studio 1980-85 and let me tell you, there's barely one of them - and I include some rock "legends" in this - that can sing worth a damn when solo'd (and that's without the dancing!) and no amount of drugs and alcohol makes them any better. Especially when it's them taking it...
I have no idea if Britney can sing or not and I actually don't care at all. This sounds fake though. The levels and background noise should change in level and character with each scene change and they don't. It sounds like someone doing a "shreds" parody, some of which are extremely well done.
This is pretty obviously faked, but the point is still valid.
It's fake. It's been around for YEARS. Everyone sings to a backup track anyway. Even Beyoncé lip syncs to a pre recorded live version.
If you think Britney (or Madonna or whoever is the boy band of the moment) is supposed to be great singer and dancer then you're missing the point. Her job isn't to be a virtuoso (which she clearly isn't). It's to be a pop star. Her job is to project a larger-than-life image -- to "be" Britney Spears. The fact that someone like Adele for instance, can actually sing only matters because that's an essential part of her image. Do Britney et al. fail at being an idol? That's the pertinent question.
I'm not so sure it is fake. It's not different venues, as some has suggested. It's all one Las Vegas show, but with different sets and costumes. And the mic is there for her to speak to the audience when she wants to, so it's probably always on. And it really does sound like her, I think.
Not that I'm defending her voice, but in her defense, in this situation, she's not trying to sing well. She's focusing on keeping time with the lyrics and on dancing. I don't think she's got a great voice, but if she tried, I'm sure she'd sound much, much better than this. I'm guessing she's a decent singer, and much better than average, just not someone who would have a singing career if she didn't look like she does.
And... as of today:
"Britney Spears is going to incredible lengths to cover up her reported plans to lip-sync her way through her much-hyped Las Vegas residency. Her minions have created a cheat sheet of scripted answers to be rattled off to curious fans — and Confidenti@l has obtained a copy.
We first revealed last month that, according to a well-placed source, the “Toxic” singer will be phoning in her “Britney: Piece of Me” shows, which will take place over the course of two years at Planet Hollywood in Sin City.
“Britney does not sing. She is being paid a lot of money to lip-sync,” our source told us at the time. Team Britney went into meltdown after we broke that story and ordered up the “phone guide” sheet, to be used by staffers at Planet Hollywood if they’re quizzed about the show, according to our source.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/confidential/britney-sync-singing-article-1.1491357#ixzz2iNo2MwsH
I agree with some other commenters that she's basically selling an image. It doesn't really matter if the voice is manufactured in the studio as long as the final product sells. There are exceptions, but the strongest singers have no need to rely on the constant distractions of fog machines, hyper background dancers/singers, and costume changes every five minutes.
By contrast, I was treated last evening to three live songs by Alanis Morisette, who sat accompanied by nothing more than two acoustic guitars - she blew the roof off.
Some commenters want to believe in this horrible singing so badly, they're stuck saying "well, even if it's totally fake, the premise is real."
Barack Obama probably isn't sneaking into children's hospitals and stealing kidneys, but he might just as well be; after all, politicians are crooks.
@Patrick,
>>Everyone sings to a backup track anyway.>>
NO THEY DON'T.
I cover dozens of classic rock and pop and shows a year. And even performers with uncertain voices such as Brian Wilson perform LIVE to the LIVE accompaniment of their bands and backup vocalists.
It's sad that we have fostered a generation of stars who fake it.
Even artists one might think of as lightweight, such as David Cassidy SING LIVE. I know. I saw him fight through a cold and an increasing rasp on his voice. He pulled it off just fine last Thursday at BB Kings.
Darlene Love sings live. She is vivaciously and proudly 72.
Petula Clark is 80. Vibrant and dynamic and absolutely live.
It's like when GM was putting Chevy engines in Buicks. Miming is out of line.
And rockgolf is right -- there are a dozen musicals on Broadway, plus how many national touring companies, where the casts sing and dance and they do it live night after night.
Whether it's Britney or anyone else, miming to a tape is cheating the audience.
Actually, it's a matter of what sells on a mass level in pop music today, and a great voice isn't the key -- it's the overall package. Not that I often paraphrase Simon Cowell, but when a great singer appeared on American Idol, they were not preferred over a so-so singer who could belt and shimmy and play to the audience.
He would tell the really great singers that they could be fine studio performers, but they were not the potential stars they were looking for.
Even on The Gong Show, they would occasionally have an outstanding singer but they would lose to a mediocre one who got the room clapping and cheering.
Pop stars are packaged products and if the public loves the package, the music, the videos, the appearances on the net, etc.
That's not an indictment, it's just the state of the business. And it is not to say that the Britneys and their peers do not have talent, they do, because they can command a huge following with their charisma and instinct for career moves.
I, however, think Petula still rocks. She is great in concert and still makes records. Her hits have stood the test of time, as have the other artists mentioned above.
Who knows who tomorrow's legends will be -- much less how the public will sift through the "entertainment highway" to find them?
The fundamental problem here is mistaking Spears for a singer. She isn't; she's an entertainment personality, whose particular area of entertainment is music. She's a packaged commodity, no different than the DeFrancos in the 70's or the Monkees in the 60's. She delivers exactly what her fans expect her to deliver. I'm not defending her; it's just that she is an interchangeable musical widget, and no one is ever going to seriously consider her a real singer like Morrisette or Sheryl Crow.
I'm not hearing what you want me to hear. She sounds bad in all her music. What am I supposed to be hearing that's so terrible?
@Tom Swofford:
Big difference -- The Monkees could sing. They proved it on the 2011 tour, as well as the 2012 and '13 shows with Mike Nesmith returning in Davy Jones' absence.
The term "Personality" infers someone like Tab Hunter - who could not sing. The Monkees could. Regardless of how they were cast or hired, there was a real and enduring talent behind the gloss.
I am not sure you can say the same for Britney.
That's how I judge the ability of a performer. Not something auto tuned or electronically edited, but a live performance.
I figured someone would make mention of the fact that the Monkees eventually did sing and play their own instruments. That doesn't invalidate my comparison, because when the Monkees were created, the four actors were not hired for their musical abilities; they were hired to play a role in a TV show. The Monkees were initially no different than the Partridge Family in that respect. Calling them a manufactured commodity doesn't detract from what they eventually became, but there is no denying that the band was created by Rafelson and Schneider to be a TV show and not an actual musical group. Jones, Tork, Nesmith and Dolenz were hired as actors. not musicians, and were very actively discouraged by the producers from becoming involved in the actual music production, until pressure from Nesmith forced them to relent. I love the Monkees and the music they eventually made, but their initial formation was motivated by the same thing as Spears; the desire to create a product, not to create music.
Another theory: She was lip-synching and the singing was real. Since she will hear the prerecorded song on her earplugs, she can't really hear herself how she acutally sings (which is quite unimportant anyway since you can't hear her actual voice during the song). That she sings instead of just moving the lips might be a personal choice. But keeping pitch without hearing yourself (and doing a dance-performance during that) is nearly impossible.
Said musical-performers will hear themselves on their earplugs, so the comparison is quite unfair.
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