Smoke and Mirrors

[Audiofanzine] Weekly newsletter for January 7, 2017 [Editorial] [Headlines] [User Reviews] Smoke and Mirrors Happy New Year! I hope yours was a lot happier than Mariah Carey's. In case you hadn’t heard, she had a bit of a meltdown during an appearance on the [New Year's Rockin' Eve] telecast. You could tell that something wasn't right through her first couple of songs, and by the third, her lips were so out of sync with the vocals it looked like a badly dubbed movie. Apparently there was something wrong with her monitor mix, and partway through the third song she gave up in frustration, and stopped even pretending to sing. Meanwhile, her recorded lead vocal played on. In an account of the Carey incident in the [New Yorker], a network executive is quoted as saying that it’s considered “safer” to lip-sync for a TV appearance than to actually sing. I’m sorry, to me, that’s cheating. If you lip sync to a recording, it’s not a performance, it's smoke and mirrors. Lip-syncing seems to be particularly common in the pop world. My theory is that if you see dancers on the stage behind the singer, there’s a good likelihood that the vocal is lip-synced. Why? Because it’s an indication that the artist considers the spectacle more important than the music. Carey, or her management, perhaps, clearly decided it wasn’t worth the risk for her to actually sing on the telecast—they thought the safer route was to fake it. But, as it turned out, the opposite was true. A couple of flat or sharp notes wouldn’t have been nearly as embarrassing as what transpired on that Times Square stage. I have more respect for a singer like Adele, who was at least trying to sing at last year’s Grammys, in what turned out to be a disastrously pitchy performance—also due in part to technical issues in her monitoring system. While I’ll admit to feeling a bit of schadenfreude from seeing somebody at that level mess up like that, at least she was actually singing. For Carey, I have no such sympathy. She was faking it, and she got busted. Next time, Mariah, try singing. You might even enjoy it more—and the audience certainly will. Oh, and lose the dancers. Mike Levine U.S. Editor, Audiofanzine [Post a comment →] Share: [Facebook][Twitter][Google+] [Editorial] [Headlines] [User Reviews] [The ultimate guide to audio recording - Part 16] [The ultimate guide to audio recording - Part 16] [I'll dedicate the first article of the year in this series to tidiness in your home studio. I know it seems a bit off-topic, but trust me it is much more important than it appears at first sight.] [A guide to mixing music - Part 111] [A guide to mixing music - Part 111] [In my opinion, automation is at the core of a well-accomplished mix. And yet, as I have pointed out numerous times, this stage is often neglected by beginners, most certainly due to a lack of understanding of all the ins and outs of it. That's why I will keep bugging you with more articles on the topic in the coming weeks to really drive it home. So we'll start the year with a somewhat peculiar article...] [Editorial] [Headlines] [User Reviews] [Recording Gear] [Boss DI-1 Direct Box] [Guitar] [Marshall MG15DFX] Follow us on:[Facebook][Twitter][Google+][YouTube] You received this email on your email address [{EMAIL}] as a result of your subscription to AudioFanzine's newsletter. This is not spam. [Unsubscribe from this newsletter].