Simpson lip sync on SNL (1 Viewer)

[Phil_L]

Ashlee's lack of talent is even amplified for me now that I just watched Donna Summer sing God Bless America at the World Series. Now that is a woman who can sing. Kelly Clarkson sang it last night and was quite good I must say. Silly Ashlee, go back to being in Jessica's "shadow."

 

[Gary->dee]

quote:maybe her band did play the wrong song. so stop them and start over with the right one. maybe her vocal track did malfunction. so suck it up and make the attempt to sing it live. that's what a professional would do. not slink offstage shamedly, and then later blame her own shortcomings as an artist on a bunch of hired hands.

Couldn't agree more, Robert(as I sit here listening to Cat Stevens, Pink Floyd, and the Rolling Stones- real musical artists!).



A professional singer would improvise and go on with the show in some shape, way, or form. That's the old showbiz mantra is it not? Hell, Elvis Costello put the brakes on his own song he was singing live on SNL back in the 1977 and started singing another song("Radio, Radio"). That was original and cool at the same time. That also indicates the difference between a real professional singer and a manufactured product.



Btw ABBA was on SNL in 1975 with host Robert Klein not 1977.

 

[AnthonyC]

I stand corrected (got confused with the other SNL music mishap you mentioned--Costello).

 

[Chris]

Someone referenced Letterman; Dave has a history of putting on acts he know can perform live, and it makes the performance a lot more 'interesting' I can think of numerous times where bands have 'improvised' or done something 'unique' on Lettermen that made it a collectable; everything silly from stopping to clear their throat to forgetting their own lyrics.



People don't mind that stuff, it makes it cute; I've seen several acts change their song after they start..



(yes, I'm a Tori fan, but I'll say this) one of the most tear jerking moments I've ever scene was Tori Amos on Dave Letterman's first show back after Sept. 11 when she sang "Time" live on Dave different then her current single to fit the moment. (hunt up the video, you can find it many places, it's still mindblowing in MPG form)



Watching Dave Matthews revise to react to the audience, etc.



Really, there aren't a lot of places offering music "recorded live" with an emphasis on quality outside of Dave.. and it's one of the things that has really kept me tuning in.

 

[Wayne Bundrick]

The story is a featured link on Yahoo's home page right now.



http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm..._ashlee_simpson

 

[John Kilduff]

It's times like these that I'm reminded of why I switched to watching "MAD TV".

For fans of "MAD TV": What do you think the chances are that "MAD" is going to be wailing like Hendrix on this gaffe?



Sincerely,



John Kilduff...



It seems more live on "MAD", even thought the show is taped.

 

[Linda Thompson]

FWIW, I found this posted on another board which I frequent:

quote:Found this on FameTracker. Make what you will of it.

---------------



here's the word from a friend of mine who was at the show, and got it straight from the director, beth mccarthy, who she was a guest of:



ashlee can't sing. she tried all day friday, but was whining to her voice coach. they decided to leave her mike on so she could sing along to the track, but after the first line or two of the first song, turned her off cause she was awful.



so, as of the first song, all the mikes were off.



now, they had the wrong song queued up for the second song, obviously. it really was the drummer's fault. apparently he was supposed to signal something or start in with some beat, and the one he did was for the first song. because he f***ed up, the guy doing the tape hurried up and put the first song on, because that was what the drummer had signalled. when this got all f***ed up, they did two things:



1. turned on all the mikes so the band could take over and start the real song. which they didn't. have no idea why.

2. turned off the tape so the band could play the real song.



they were going to turn on ashlee's mike so she could sing the real song, but decided not to because the band was just playing the first song. the guys were smiling cause they were simply thinking "what a f***ing clusterf***".



beth mccarthy was also the director of the superbowl halftime show last year, so she's no stranger to ... malfunctions.

 

[Seth Paxton]

quote:"Live by the sword, die by the sword" is a nice cliche, but I'm not going to crucify this girl for what is very likely the machinations of the faceless agents, producers, and network executives. Give them that damned sword first.

But Moe, she is the face of those execs. You can always blame the system, but its a little bit like a Nazi soldier just blaming Hitler.

Maybe others will just take your place, maybe people bigger than you are f'n up the world, but that still doesn't mean you have to go along with it.

If her career takes a hit then not only will she not be getting money based on a fabrication, but neither will the money-men behind the scenes. I'm sure this won't even slow them down, but its better than nothing.


As f'd up as Michael Jackson is, he still has one of the best lyrics ever about changing the world - "I'm starting with the man in the mirror" (I'll ignore just how physically literal he meant it

).

Some other singer didn't get a spot on SNL for Ashlee. She was willing to deal with the devil to get that chance, and it cost her. Tough shit I say. I sympathize with the human condition that makes us compromise ourselves, but then again it shouldn't be above the norm to not cheat.

I think its Chris Rock that does a similar bit about credit being given to fathers who actually take care of their kids with a rant about "that's not a good guy, he's just doing what he is SUPPOSED TO BE DOING".

Let's not set the bar so low that regular becomes all-star.


As for the band, the wrong song, etc, the excuse is lame for a far simplier reason. If you are a singer, a professional, and you go on live you have to work through such problems. The band stayed out there. If there was no canned music then WHY NOT JUST SING SOMETHING ELSE, or I don't know, START THE SONG OVER.

When Elvis Costello stopped his band famously on SNL, he was able to keep them all on stage and get them going on the other song without SNL falling apart and without anyone running off in tears. Holy shit, what a concept, performers that can start and stop on their own and even change things up if they want to. Even local cover bands are able to play whatever song comes up next.

So the band "started the wrong song". You turn to them, they realize it, and you start up on the right song.

That's is as long as you aren't waiting for your own canned lyrics to begin. Hell, she didn't even speak into the mike at all to explain, coordinate, anything.

This is a show in which mustaches and other props go bad all the time and those pros don't just stop what they are doing, goof around, and then leave. They plug through it.

IMO, most live acts on SNL sound rough, different, whatever, often in a good, raw way that makes them seem awkward the first time but quite interesting on repeat viewings once you get used to it.

I will say that some acts, especially other acts of questionable talent or ones with lots of dancing (or both) have sometimes sounded canned or at least "sung along to" with a live mike, so I can believe that she is no where near the oddball act recently. Still, plenty of bands clearly do play live on SNL.

 

[Seth Paxton]

BTW, the quote in Linda's post sure sounds reasonable and believable to me.

His version before the Indy 500 2 years ago didn't go over much better.

 

[Jason_Els]

She was totally unprofessional about the whole thing. The rule in singing is perfectly clear, the band follows the singer. She should lead them into whatever song she chooses. If the drummer got it wrong it's up to her to stop him and start over with the right song. These things happen in venues from roadhouses on the AlCan to Carnagie Hall. The audience understands.



But what she did was horrendously disrespectful to the audience and her band. I was more appalled the audience didn't boo or jeer her as was their right and duty to do. Yeah it's national TV but so what? If the act sucks you let them know it. Not doing so only allows shlock to pass along unchallenged. Can Ashlee Simpson sing? I don't know but I do know that her dreadful behavior showed me she doesn't know or respect her chosen profession (short-lived as it may be) and she should be called on it. Why cheapen the performances of artists who truly work hard for their audiences applause?

 

[Keith Paynter]

Another prime example of style over substance. Pop music is a fraud, and people who spend years trying to be serious musicians and artists are being hurt by marketed copycat pablum.



I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. The tragically ludicrous, or ludicrously tragic...

 

[GeorgePaul]

Well, Keith perhaps you'll know after you read Ashlee Simpson's response on her website.

"Please stop all the insensitive remarks.
10/24/2004 7:32:18 PM - by Ashlee Simpson

I lip-sync, so sue me.
You have no idea what it's like having millions of dollars being spent trying to make you a star."

Poor Jude Law...he actually apologized to the audience for Simpson at the end of the show. Hopefully some residue of his great talent rubbed off on her--he may even be a better singer right now, since we know he has a clue about professionalism onstage, unlike the pair of above-average breasts known as Ashlee Simpson.



As for Saturday Night Live--how low does that show have to go before NBC finally yanks it off the air and tries something new?

 

[Vince Maskeeper]

quote:On her opening number, Vogue, she sang live over a pre-recorded track to bolster her live vocals during her dancing. Not completely live, but she WAS singing. She sang the rest of the show completely live.

See, the "track to reinforce the live vocal" excuse is a pretty common one... I have worked with countless acts that did this... And it's hilarious that during soundcheck I can check wireless mics and hit 80% signal on the wireless receiver and a full gain input at the monitor console-- yet when the "artist" is up there they're getting about 1/8th the signal coming off the mic. I've never been behind the scenes with madonna specifically- but the majority of these acts who use this type of setup are simply lipsynching with a different excuse.

quote:there's a difference between historically having multiple takes in a recording studio, to get a better performance, or because a lyric was forgotten or flubbed, or yes, pitch was off, and recording today with pro-tools, where they'll go back through dozens of takes, selecting a line here, a chorus here, even down to a single word, and then compiling all of that into the one vocal track used for the album. or using pro-tools to adjust the pitch of a vocal, note by note until it's spot-on accurate.

Don't kid yourself: Just because it's faster and easier now with digital tools, doesn't mean it wasn't done before. Quality engineers and producers were widely reknown for their ability to punch in on syllables, or razor edit tape down to sub beats. I still catch old recordings in which the engineer cut in the same exact breath from the singer on the downbeat preceding a vocal to cover his edits.



Artists slowed down tape machines to correct vocal problems or to perform guitar heroics, producers razor cut drums into time, engineers would punch in vocal takes for 1/4 of a second 200 times to get a particular note correct--- Heck, sometimes after the band went home, producers would replay takes or hire studio musicians to fix takes.



And this all happened on hit records before digital technology made it's way into the booth. The only difference is, back then you used to have a bit more skill and knack-- there were probably 50 guys working in the world that could do extreme exact editing to vocals with a razor and a block... now any kid with a rich daddy and some spare time can do the same.

quote:maybe her band did play the wrong song. so stop them and start over with the right one.

It's fun to watch this performance to see that the band actually knew what was happening way before she did- and actually tried to save her ass.



Artists who do this sort of thing have to play to a click guide track of some sort (obviously) so the live band lines up with the recorded vocal. in the old days- this was often recorded on one channel of a dat or cd, and the vocal on the other.



Then they started carrying DA-88s or ADATs, digital multitrack machines which allowed them to have 1-4 tracks of production tracks (usually guide click, and some rhythm tracks to flesh out the more exotic drum elements in most pop stuff) and now 1-4 tracks of vocal.



In the past few years- they've been carrying protools sessions, with the finished album tracks ready to go. This way they can add/delete elements as needed (can't hire a keyboard player in Denver or find the right Korg in Santa Anna? No problem, just call up those tracks from the PT session, and feed them to the "live" engineer in place of the normal live feed).



So, when the song starts, there is usually a click intro to cue the live band. It obviously gets fed only to the monitors on stage (and on the Simpson clip you can clearly hear it behind the crowd cheers after she is introduced). Now, I don't know if they have a different click for each song or if it was just the tempo- but you can tell the band immediately knows that it is the wrong song. When the song starts- the guitarist doesn't even bother playing- the bass player plays the song he's supposed to be playing- and I think the drummer starts playing the "wrong" song to cover.



Now these guys have like 5 seconds to decide what path to take: The track is wrong- but they have no idea if the audience is hearing it or not. So, do they try to play the wrong song to the wrong click, or cover by playing the previous song a second time? I certainly wouldn't wanna be in that position- cause no matter what they decide on- it's gonna get hairy and they're gonna be criticized for it later.

quote:The story at MSNBC quotes a behind-the-scenes source at SNL saying this sort of "manipulation" has been standard procedure for some time now, so I hardly think Lorne Michaels cares.

From personal experience, although I don't watch SNL regularly-- I would say about 1 of 3 performances I see on the show are canned. Some are full-on canned, some are obviously "live recordings" where the vocal track is not the album version, but was recorded specifically for live performances, possibly even on the SNL stage during rehearsals.

quote:Hell, Elvis Costello put the brakes on his own song he was singing live on SNL back in the 1977 and started singing another song("Radio, Radio"). That was original and cool at the same time.

And staged.

quote:What do you think the chances are that "MAD" is going to be wailing like Hendrix on this gaffe?

Ironic, because I have seen lip sync performances on MAD TV as well.

quote:it really was the drummer's fault. apparently he was supposed to signal something or start in with some beat, and the one he did was for the first song. because he f***ed up, the guy doing the tape hurried up and put the first song on, because that was what the drummer had signalled.

I didn't see the first song- but if the band was "live" for the first track- I find this hard to believe. If they were doing the band live, the likely pulled the vocals and some rhythm tracks off the PT session, in which case the material would have been cued well before the commercial break...

quote:She was totally unprofessional about the whole thing. The rule in singing is perfectly clear, the band follows the singer.

In the case where your singer is coming from tape- the band follows the click track-- if not, disaster follows.



Best excuse I have ever seen. LOL.

 

[Keith Paynter]

Instant fallout:



http://ashlee-simpson.ytmnd.com/

 

[Ric Easton]

Well, looks like I turned off SNL too soon. Thanks for the links. I gotta agree, not very professional! How old is this kid anyway?



Ric

 

[Dave_Brown]

For those that may have seen her Mtv show, do you remember her first "live" performance after her album was done? Where her sister shows up wearing those goggles from eye surgery? Anyway, every song she performed was obviously a recording and the only time her mic was live was when she was telling the fascinating stories behind the songs.



She sucks, but because she can ride her sisters fame, she is given a shot at it. The worst part was after her show how all the producers and family members came back to tell her what a great show it was and how she blew the roof off the place. Ok, but she never sang a word, so I guess they were telling her what a great lip synch artist she is, because she sure can't sing when it comes to live performances.

 

[Bren_Chris]

Not an ounce of sympathy for this "artist." I hope she (and Lorne Michaels, for that matter) reap all the embarassment they deserve.



Blaming the band was the worst bit. They actually tried to cover for her, and they behaved like professionals by grinning and bearing it while she ran off. For her to come out and blame THEM makes me wish the rest of her "career" is haunted by this event.



Long live this video clip. I hope Simpson relives it when she dreams each night. She's a fraud, and SNL's quality control just went down another 46 notches. This is what they get for booking crap acts.

 

[Randy Tennison]

It's pretty funny that as soon as I saw this on TIVO, I thought, "Wonder what they are going to say on the HTF!?!?!"



Pretty major screw up, no matter the reason for the backing track!

I can understand a back up track for a dancer/singer, like Britney, or Janet, but Ashlee was just standing there.

 

[LanieParker]

Eek! Well her apology to the audience was really the most embarrassing, because she told them her band started playing the wrong song and if you go back and watch the tape, the band isn't even playing when the vocals and music kick in... it isn't until after her little ho-down that the band decides "F it, just jam!"





Poor thing, how old is she? I guess no one taught her that if there is a mistake just roll with the punches. SO much for LIVE entertainer!

 

[Jason Walstrom]

If she was smart she would have said this, and she still can say this,





"They (producers of snl) wanted me to lipsync, I agreed feeling pressure but once up there on stage i couldnt rob the fans, so I didn't sing along to the voice track and did my 'Anti Establishment Folk dance for all to see! F the man!!!"