What's interesting is that this is SOP on European TV. I can't comment on America, because I haven't lived there in the better part of eight years, but in Europe almost no one plays live on TV. The most common scenario is the band pretends to play, with everything but the vocals piped in - and usually the vocals are supported by a backing track too. Sometimes you even see a generic back-up band that learns how to fake playing various songs for a tv appearance, depending on what singer has been flown in to appear without his regular band. I can actually somewhat understand why this is done at e.g. award shows though. If you have 15 different musical guests performing, it would have to be a logistical nightmare if they all want to play live. So often you'll see, for example, Bon Jovi pretending to play their instruments while Jon sings over a backing vocal track. My guess is that at times like these, the show's producer says to the band, "Would you guys mind playing the song with your instruments unplugged?" and the band agrees in order to create less hassle - because obviously a band like Bon Jovi can actually play. And I think things have been done this way for decades - I've seen footage of Judas Priest faking a performance on Top Of The Pops in the early 80s. EDIT: And speaking of Top Of The Pops, it is very rare for any performer to sing live there. One of the only bands I've seen actually sing live on TOTP was the Backstreet Boys!
There's a very famous episode of American Bandstand when Public Image Limited, well, Johnny Rotten without his band, made no attempt to lip synch and just pranced around on stage while the song played. Good times. But it's interesting that the American audience tends to be less cynical (more naive?) and demand "authenticity", but expect to hear "live" music that sounds like the studio version. Personally, I prefer stripped down arrangements for live performances, but I'm obviously not everybody.
Hehe, I've always figured that's what I'd do if asked to lip synch a performance on live tv! I presume you're talking about actual concert performances, and not TV appearances. My feeling with the tv appearances thing is that European audiences just plain don't care whether someone is lip synching or not. Either that or they really can't figure out that it's taking place. I would actually argue that Americans are more cynical and definitely more likely to feel cheated if they find out that an artist is lip-synching. Either way, I chalk this development up to the McDonaldization of society worldwide. With the industry looking for the easist and fastest way to make a profit, it's no wonder they sacrifice talent for looks and end up with an army of bubblegum poppers on their roster who can't survive a live performance without lip-synching their way through it.
It's not uncommon for "acts" to tour with a "live-sync", which is a vocal track for use in live situations which is actually recorded just different enough from the original song recording to sound live, complete with "hey!"'s and "alright!"'s. The singer learns exactly where these faux improv's are in the song, and it's usually pretty convincing. Next time you see Beyonce or Destiny's Child perform "live" on TV while doing one of their aerobic workout dance routines, you'll see this practice done pretty well. NOBODY can strut like that and stay on pitch. Unfortunately, Ashlee can't hold a tune standing still, either.
My recollection of the episode was more than a little off (in my defense, I never did watch the original episode). March 5, 1980 "What can I expect from this a**hole?" That is the question Dick Clark asks Larry White, then tour manager for PiL, before the band's scheduled appearance on American Bandstand. When they do go onstage, John Lydon refuses to mouth the pre-recorded vocals, ending the long standing Bandstand lip-synch tradition. He then invites audience members onstage, and infuriates Clark by charging the host's podium. (See the video here.) And more great moments in lip synching.
A couple of my favourite lip-synch moments are (from Top of the Pops, naturally): Mike Patton leaping around and rubbing his finger over his lips in that kiddy way which makes a 'wibble-wibble' noise for the entirety of 'Epic.' David Gedge of The Wedding Present miming the words to 'Brassneck' (a fairly upbeat song) far, far too slowly. My all-time favourite though is when Nirvana were on and Kurt sang 'Smels like Teen Spirit' to a musical backing track. He sings really, really slowly and comes off like he's about to go 'on the nod'. Not all that surprising, I'll grant you, but kicking off with 'Load up on Drugs, kill your friends' made me chuckle.
The Washington Post's TV Column has a pretty amusing article about the incident: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62938-2004Oct25_3.html It ends with a description of Ashlee's performance two days later at the Radio Music Awards show:
One of the few truly truly truly weird people in music. It's an act with most folks, but that boy is just a freak.
Now that Ashlee has firmly settled on the "acid reflux" story, 60 Minutes will show backstage footage. My schadenfreude is on overload.
Thank God I'm an ugly bastard! Perhaps I overexagerated my opinon about pop singers. I agree that there are several who have good/proper/healthy singing technique (Whitney Houston is one I rate very highly). Most, however, have no singing technique whatsoever.
Just in case this hasn't been posted here... http://media.ebaumsworld.com/index.php?e=eb_ashlee_sax.wmv I think it's safe to say her atrocious on-the-spot dancing was more embarassing than the incident itself. Love the Benny Hill theme
There's more than several. Just because a person isn't a classicaly trained singer doesn't mean that they have no talent or reason to be on stage. Most pop songs don't require insane vocal exersizing. Your argument holds up in a thread about Ashlee Simpson, but I think it's a bit ignorant and bit snobby to start pish-poshing "pop" singers because alot of them can't stand up next to classical vocalists.
I'm sorry, I'm not explaining myself very well (and English IS my first language, go figure). It was not my intent to diminish pop singers by comparing to classical singers. And yet that is what I did, didn't I. Sorry. I'll just drop it.
Yeah, I saw him once with FNM on the Angel Dust tour. I can't imagine his solo stuff live where it's just him and the microphone.
Apparently the person at SNL who's responsible for the shows was the same person who did the Super Bowl halftime show. If that's the case, it makes it two boob jobs in a year.
It'll be amazing if that guy can get a job promoting lounge singers in Reno. Actually, these are probably planned "accidents" to get attention to singers past their prime (Janet Jackson) or to those that aren't getting the attention the industry would like (Ashlee Simpson.)
Was Eminem lipsync-ing tonight??? Sure looked like it, especially on that first track. Unless it was a "backing" track.