Most Mainstream Concerts Simply Lip Synced Acting, Forced by Record Labels
So you’re seeing your favorite pop star live and you paid several hundred dollars no doubt to hear your favorite song that you’ve already listened to 293 times. You know the one that’s on the radio all day long too. The one the “night shows” are making jokes about. Well guess what? Most likely you just paid hundreds to watch a millionaire “act” like they’re singing their big hit. Still a performance no doubt, but most likely a silent one with only a live mic in between songs or at key “forgiving” parts in the song to sell the charade. A good tip is if they are dancing around a lot you’re not really hearing them sing.
Now you may be saying not my favorite artist! No way! They’d never do that! They’re 100% authentic and blah blah blah blah. You’re wrong. Even that dude/gal has to do it. It’s part of the business and many times they are faced with a “you do this or you find another record label” type situation.
The cold hard truth is that several things lead a record label or producer to determine that lip syncing must be used and forced if necessary. There’s practical reasons like audio quality for one thing. If your favorite pop star is running around on stage and performing amazing physical feats with their dancers it’s next to impossible to have a clean mic signal from the singer that isn’t filled with huffing and puffing as well as “mic handling noises” and the like. It just makes sense to play a pre-recorded vocal track or at least a partial track like a 70/30 mix where it’s mostly the clean pre-recorded signal going out.
Did you know that in the “business” often even the biggest stars record a separate “live” version of their hits. Yup, these are special versions that are used live for lip syncing that are a little different than the released album version. This helps sell the illusion that it is a unique performance.
Now you’re probably saying “well I can see that being needed because my favorite star is quite the dancer and that’s part of the show too” and you’re right. It’s almost acceptable in that situation. Where it becomes questionable is with solo artists that are not “running around” while performing on the talk shows or other live television productions. The thinking there is that there are simply too many eyes on and too much money riding on the performance to let it be 100% live. Do you think that every pop artist is 100% on the money every single performance? They’re not. Fact is studio recordings of your favorite songs are the 54th take or so of that performance, you know, the good one out of them. That’s if they can actually sing mind you. Plenty of artists out there that just look good or whatever. They have auto tune for them which isn’t real singing either. Now knowing that artists aren’t perfect super heroes, you can see why the record label that just invested almost $1 million in the new artist they’ve created, the album they’re promoting, between recording it, putting ads together, plastering the artists face all over town, do you think that they’re just going to “risk” all that on some potential live debacle and lose all that investment cash? Hell no! Just doesn’t happen.
Frankly when artists go against this and resist, and there have been those people, you end up getting screwed with during your performance or simply excluded from those outlets. Of course there are exceptions but this is the norm once a certain level is reached in certain genres of music.
Moral of the story? Maybe you should take that $690 you were going to spend on the ONE ticket to see that millionaire pop star and instead go see different local bands for six nights, have a couple drinks, buy their latest CDs, shirts, etc. and you’ll still probably have $90 left over to go buy some more music from other great smaller artists. You’ll get more shows in, the local bands will definitely be happy you bought stuff, and you’ll be contributing to your local venue and community’s economy more. Nice!
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