Do Concerts Have Pre-Recorded Vocals mostly?

[Disneylover99]

Not being able to understand what Motley Crue is saying is a blessing.

Well, their f-bombs were pretty clear.

 

[BrianL]

Backing tracks are very common, but that doens't mean the artist isn't singing too - they just get a little help. This is very prevalent when the performer has elaborate dancing in their routines too as it is very hard to move like that and carry a tune. Really, as long as fans know that, it's not that big of a deal. They want to provide the best experience possible, so if that includes backing tracks, then whatever.

 

[Cannot_Wait_4Disney]

Well, their f-bombs were pretty clear.

LOL they have a song named for a curse word. I even read the lyrics once. But these are the lyrics I heard.

Verses Blah blahb.................
.....
.....
Chorus.
CURSE WORD!!! Blah blah blah blah blah blah
Curse word... Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
Curse word.. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
Curse word Blah blah blah...

 

[disykat]

Wow. This is a hard one. I really admire people who can perform live under all sorts of circumstances. I know I couldn't do it. It's a hard call.

I just sing rarely at church and had an experience yesterday that totally makes me understand why it might be necessary. I had agreed to sing an important solo and literally lost my voice between the first and second service. (I have allergies so it was probably a perfume exposure.) It was almost time to sing and my voice was just GONE. While it is often easier to sing than to talk, it was terrifying to sing not knowing if the next note was going to come out or not. I was honestly thinking as I sang that it was like being on a trapeze without a safety net. As a person who is not a performer, it was terrifying. (It ended up fine and no harm done to anything other than my nerves.) I can't even imagine knowing I was going to be stepping onto a stage in front of a bunch of people who had paid money to hear me and not feeling like I could rely on my voice!

So, while nothing compares to a live performance, I'm not against a safety net!

 

[Colleen27]

I can't say I've noticed it at any shows I've been to lately and I don't think it is the norm outside of an extremely show-heavy subset of pop (pretty sure Megan Trainor was lip syncing when I took DD21 and her friends to see her, way back when they were in middle school). But I've seen some aging rock stars that are old enough and out of shape enough that they might benefit from considering it...

 

[Imzadi]

Defintely not my experience with Coldplay, Queen, Billy Joel, Stevie Nicks and Elton John over the last year! All live.

YAY! Adam Lambert & Queen had better be singing live when I see them in October at Madison Square Garden. I spent a good part of my rent money getting absolutely great tickets. Although, I expect the whole audience will be singing along with them, so it actually may not matter, so much as we all have a great time singing Queen songs together. There was a sing-a-long version of the Bohemian Rhapsody movie. I think that would have been a blast to go to.

Celine Dion sang her own songs live. There were many times where she played with the audience, aimed the mike toward the audience halfway through a phrase and had us sing along, until we were singing most of the songs with her at the end. It was one of the best times I ever had.

Cher sang most of her songs live. I think there may have been 2 or 3 songs which were really strenuous, where she may have lip synced. But there were other songs where she turned her head or her mike hand dropped away for a second and her voice definitely dropped out, or she needed to catch a breath.

Also, at 73 years old, when we saw her, her voice is a bit scratchier and she doesn't quite hit the high notes as she did when she was younger. Unless she had recently re-recorded the songs she would lip-sync to during her concerts, it would have been really noticeable that the quality of the lip-synced songs were much better. In fact, she did a segment where she sang live with old footage of just Sonny singing his parts of their duets. We got to see and hear him from decades ago singing with the much more mature and scratchier Cher singing live.

I agree, Elton John sings all his songs live.

 

[Imzadi]

Exactly. The Milli Vanilli guys never actually sang. Apparently both had heavy accents (one German, one French) and had trouble with English pronunciations, as it was not their native language. Their first hit single, Girl I Know It’s True, had already been recorded in the studio by American session musicians, including three male lead vocalists and several background singers, before they were even involved. The record producer then hired Fab and Rob to be the faces of Milli Vanilli. They were essentially actors/imposters who appeared in photos, on album covers etc and performed at concerts, yet the voices you heard were not theirs, either live or recorded.

It is not so much that the industry did them dirty as the producer did. They were lied to and took the fall for doing something they were hired to do. For the record, I still listen to Milli Vanilli songs. I don't care who actually sung them.

The producer didn't just do them a dirty, we the public were deceived. If Milli Vanilli were animated characters like The Archies no one would have cared who really sang the songs. I don't think I've ever seen the face of the real singer of Sugar, Sugar, nor do I have to.

Or even if they were made up characters (which they were,) and we were told from the beginning they were characters, it might have been okay. The Monkees were originally going to be lip-synced until they cast Davey Jones and Mickey Dolenz who could actually sing.

The Partridge Family producers thought they were going to lip-sync the whole family until they cast David Cassidy. Then he and Shirley Jones actually sang the songs. The show never hid the fact that the rest of the family didn't sing.

 

[goofy4prez]

Defintely not my experience with Coldplay, Queen, Billy Joel, Stevie Nicks and Elton John over the last year! All live.

There's a reason for that. It's something lacking in so many.

TALENT!

 

[starvenger]

I can't say I've noticed it at any shows I've been to lately and I don't think it is the norm outside of an extremely show-heavy subset of pop (pretty sure Megan Trainor was lip syncing when I took DD21 and her friends to see her, way back when they were in middle school). But I've seen some aging rock stars that are old enough and out of shape enough that they might benefit from considering it...

In a way, it's similar to auto-tune and other vocal correction techniques. Almost everyone uses it, whether you realize it or not, when recording tracks and/or singing at concerts/performances. So it's a question of how much is too much for you with regards to a particular artist.

 

[rigs32]

a modern-day Madonna, who unfortunately was a trendsetter.

Why do you find it unfortunate? We don't all have to like the same things.

 

[goofy4prez]

Why do you find it unfortunate? We don't all have to like the same things.

We do not have to like the same things. I'm just someone that prefers the talent of the voice rather than the talent of the flesh. You do you and I'll do me.

 

[Skywalker]

Defintely not my experience with Coldplay, Queen, Billy Joel, Stevie Nicks and Elton John over the last year! All live.

Yes Billy Joel was definitely live when we saw him - he messed up the words to We Didn't Start the Fire, swore and started all over again. He said he hoped it didn't end up on You Tube