Britney-Spears: These Lips Were Made For Synching
You will be shocked--shocked!--to learn that some people who caught the launch of Britney Spears's Circus Tour in New Orleans thought that the comeback queen was lip-synching. Lip-synching? In a highly produced pop spectacle which involves insane dance moves, midgets, and mimes? This is not possible! It's like saying the stock market is a smoke-and-mirrors game that makes rich people richer and is so tenuous that 14 years of 401K gains can be wiped out in the blink of a eye...OK, sorry, we didn't mean to bum you out by talking about anything serious or important. Let's get back to pop stars lip-synching.
Why are people so upset by the idea of Britney lip-synching? Maybe because she didn't even indulge the illusion of live vocals with the usual "Hi ya'all! What's up? So good to be in NAME OF YOUR CITY HERE. You're the best crowd in the world" sort of chatter that goes a long way toward selling the illusion that any of the sounds you're hearing at a massive arena show are coming out of the mouth of the star?
Even people who are considered real singers, like, say, Bruce Springsteen and Jennifer Hudson, perform alongside pre-recorded vocals. During the Super Bowl, when Hudson sang the national anthem and Bruce did the half-time show, they weren't out there without a safety net. They used backing tracks--although Bruce sang live, his band was pre-recorded, and it looks like Hudson might have been singing along to a pre-recorded track with a pre-recorded vocal. Why would a spot-on singer like Jennifer Hudson even think of doing that? Because 70,000 people were there screaming, and it's hard to hear yourself sing when 70,000 people are screaming. (And as American Idol has taught us, it's hard for some people to hear themselves sing when no one is screaming.)
On the master list of lip-synching scandals, Jennifer Hudson and Britney Spears rank pretty low, and we expect both of their careers to survive. Others have not been so lucky. Before Ashlee Simpson was in possession of a perfect nose and a rock star husband, she played Saturday Night Live and was humiliated when the song her band started playing was not the same as the pre-recorded one broadcast. Oops! She did an awkward little jig that will live in infamy and then stood there until it was all over. And after that it really almost was all over.
But the most famous moment in lip-synching history involves two dudes in dreads, one Grammy award, and one very public returning of said Grammy award. In 1990, Milli Vanilli won Best New Artist at the Grammys. It was later discovered that they had neglected to actually sing on their album. Even Britney wouldn't try to pull that one off. We think