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
Britney Spears Is Back
Britney Spears Is Back On Top As Circus Sells More Than 500,000 CopiesWith her fifth debut at #1 on the Billboard albums chart, Brit confirms her comeback.
By James Montgomery
Well, there's really no denying it now: Britney Spears really is back! Back to selling tons of records, at least.
Her Circus album will debut at #1 on next week's Billboard albums chart, selling just under 505,100 copies. It's Spears' fifth album to debut at #1 on the chart, and it sold nearly twice as many copies as last year's Blackout album, which was denied the top spot on the chart by the Eagles' Long Road Out of Eden.
Circus' first-week sales total is certainly big, but it's only the sixth biggest opening of 2008, behind albums like Lil Wayne's Tha Carter III, AC/DC's Black Ice, Coldplay's Viva la Vida, Taylor Swift's Fearless and T.I.'s Paper Trail. Still, it outpaced the first-week numbers of some of Brit's pop peers, including Beyoncé's I Am ... Sasha Fierce, Mariah Carey's E = MC2 and Miley Cyrus' Breakout.
Interestingly enough, the Brit-sanity was so high among album buyers that Blackout also managed to return to the charts, selling more than 4,600 copies to land at #198.
Spears' manager, Larry Rudolph, told The Associated Press that the success of Circus really does signify Brit's triumphant return. "At the end of the day, I think she is America's pop princess, and the world's pop princess, and this just reconfirms it to everyone who doubted it," he said. "Professionally, she's feeling great. ... It's great for her to hear that she's got a #1 album again."
Those sentiments were seconded by in a statement from Jive Records, Britney's label. "We're absolutely thrilled for Britney," the statement reads. "The response to Circus is a testament to how great the album is, and to how connected and supportive Britney's fans are to her and her music."
Swift's Fearless lands in the #2 spot on the albums chart for the second-straight week, selling 193,500 copies. Beyoncé's Sasha Fierce is at #3, with sales of more than 152,800 copies. Last week's chart champ, Kanye West's 808s & Heartbreak, drops to #4, with sales of close to 141,700 copies. Nickelback's Dark Horse rounds out the top five, selling 133,400 copies.
The rest of the top 10 features the "Twilight" soundtrack at #6; the week's other big-name debut, Akon's Freedom at #7; the soundtrack to "High School Musical 3" at #8; the ubiquitous hits collection Now That's What I Call Music! 29 at #9; and David Cook's self-titled effort at #10.
Aside from Circus and Freedom (which sold 110,600 copies), other notable debuts on next week's chart include Scarface's Emeritus (#24, with 42,000 copies sold), Neil Young's Sugar Mountain: Live at Canterbury House 1968 (#40, with 26,400 copies sold) and the soundtrack to Beyoncé's new movie, "Cadillac Records" (#66, with 15,600 copies sold).