Lip-synching in Miami

This article is a response to a documentary on the music industry. Here’s the link: Proof the Music industry is Fake

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The music industry is fake. I suppose its becoming faker by the day. That doesn’t mean that every single artist inside the industry is fake though. This documentary is about the music industry protecting its last major source of revenue (whatever that means..)

The documentary goes back in time when pop due Milli Vanilli were stripped from their Grammy award. They were striped because they were exposed for lip-synching. This is an important part of the documentary that you have to keep in mind, because it shows the two faced nature of the commercial music industry. Madonna and Britney are lip-synching too, and they are even getting awards for this! The difference between Milli Vanilli and Madonna is that at least Madonna is lip-synching to her own voice … sort of..

So the lip-synching phenomenon is a very old one by the way. Most of the ‘live’ music video’s in the early top of the pops were lip-synching too. I know, its embarrassing to see Britney or Madonna perform ‘LIVE’ with a microphone in front of their mouths.  The lip-synching is obvious, but it has been obvious ever since those early top of the pop’s ‘LIVE’ music videos too.

 Milli Vanilli went to far though, even by the music industry’s fake standards.

Its wonderful that Time Magazine is pointing this out, even though it took them 20 years to do so. I just feel a little sorry for some of the artists. 

What is unique these days is the technology available to the sound engineers. One of these is Proprietary software called autotune.  In this documentary they make it look as if autotune can magically transform anyone into Celine Deon.  I think that is extremely farfetched. It is used as a pitch control device. It is also used to create an electronic type voice. Remember the Cher song ‘Believe’? That weird robotic voice in the chorus – that was Autotune.

What Autotune does is it corrects the pitch of the voice against the ideal note, that the singer is supposed to make. So, it is probable that most commercial artists today over pitch, or they don’t make the notes all of the time. We, the listeners wouldn’t know about that though. I can just imagine an singer like Céline Deon with such a shrill voice as she has, it could spoil the whole track or song when she overpitches.

Sound Engendering is a huge part of the music product, whether in the studio or on stage. The sound (Engineer) could make or break a gig. That is the truth. It is like a photographer. Anyone can look pretty bad on a photo if the light is bad, if the angle is bad, if the moment is wrong. A mediocre model can look spectacular with the right angle and light. Nevertheless, a good model is ideal, and makes the job for the photographer easy. Same difference when it comes to the music sound Engineer.

There are so many things that can go wrong in a live music event. The sound Engineer would do everything to potentially save the gig from disaster. When it comes to dancing acts like Madonna and Britney, even more can go wrong with the vocals. There’s so much movement and erratic change. Nobody can run around and sing at the same time. I mean singing beautifully that is. You can do both, but then your voice would most probably sound like Usain Bolt, when you catch him for an interview right after he ran the hundred meters. And that is what Britney sounds like on the leaked audio track.

Now the ‘amateur singer’ Zack really makes it sound like autotune can make anyone sound great. But the truth is that Zack is a singer. In the documentary they just show his off note in the beginning. The more he sings the better it becomes. It is because the guy can sing, he’s just not professional (famous).

So, there are two different things about this documentary. The one is lip-synching and the other is Autotune. Autotune corrects certain aspects of a vocal track, either in the studio or on the fly, at a concert. Lip-synching is when the whole vocal track is superimposed onto the live act. It could mean that the band is playing live, but the singer’s vocals are pre-recorded. But why should the band be live then? If the band can play live on stage, why can’t the singer be live too? There’s no difference in pressure or circumstance.  It either means that the singers can’t do it, or it means that the producers know that the audience may lose interest.

After all, its pop music, and it’s about what is popular, even if it’s ‘Lip-synching in Miami’ and it’s called ‘LIVE in Miami’.

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