Lip Synching
Is Lip Synching less acceptable now than in years past? Or is it just easier to notice? While it’s very easy to notice when they start playing the wrong track, or a tape skips, it didn’t take a whole lot more effort 30+ years ago.
My roommate and I stumbled upon Rock 'n' Roll Forever: Ed Sullivan's Greatest Hits (1994) last night on a PBS pledge drive. We didn’t catch the whole thing, but saw the “performances” by the Loving Spoonful, Mamas and Papas, CCR, the Young Rascals, and Janis Joplin.
The Lovin’ Spoonful track obviously had to be lip synched because they used the cutting-edge Bewitched/I Dream of Jeannie effect of stopping the recording and moving various band members around as if they were magically transporting on and off stage. Also, there was no effort at all to mimic the actual guitar solo. He was playing something completely different.
The Mamas and the Papas track was very obvious too—Michelle Phillips can be seen eating something (!), popcorn I think, during her backup vocals, and nobody seemed to care whether or not their microphones were near their mouth or not.
CCR, though, did a great job of lip synching. John Fogerty even hit all of his miscellaneous “yeahs” dispersed throughout his lyrics. It would’ve been hard to tell they were doing so if I hadn’t heard the recorded track a million times. Perhaps if I hadn’t heard the song so much, I would’ve been fooled. Anyone seeing it live on TV the first time could’ve easily been fooled as well. Ed’s show also used a trick of adding a lot of reverb to the vocal tracks of all the lip synchers, which might fool anyone with an untrained ear.
The last two songs were in fact performed live, and very well at that. I hope this small sample isn’t an accurate indicator of how often bands lip synch on TV (or anywhere for that matter). It’s nice to be able to see the performers, but you’re not getting anything additional out of the music if it’s the same damn thing.
My roommate and I stumbled upon Rock 'n' Roll Forever: Ed Sullivan's Greatest Hits (1994) last night on a PBS pledge drive. We didn’t catch the whole thing, but saw the “performances” by the Loving Spoonful, Mamas and Papas, CCR, the Young Rascals, and Janis Joplin.
The Lovin’ Spoonful track obviously had to be lip synched because they used the cutting-edge Bewitched/I Dream of Jeannie effect of stopping the recording and moving various band members around as if they were magically transporting on and off stage. Also, there was no effort at all to mimic the actual guitar solo. He was playing something completely different.
The Mamas and the Papas track was very obvious too—Michelle Phillips can be seen eating something (!), popcorn I think, during her backup vocals, and nobody seemed to care whether or not their microphones were near their mouth or not.
CCR, though, did a great job of lip synching. John Fogerty even hit all of his miscellaneous “yeahs” dispersed throughout his lyrics. It would’ve been hard to tell they were doing so if I hadn’t heard the recorded track a million times. Perhaps if I hadn’t heard the song so much, I would’ve been fooled. Anyone seeing it live on TV the first time could’ve easily been fooled as well. Ed’s show also used a trick of adding a lot of reverb to the vocal tracks of all the lip synchers, which might fool anyone with an untrained ear.
The last two songs were in fact performed live, and very well at that. I hope this small sample isn’t an accurate indicator of how often bands lip synch on TV (or anywhere for that matter). It’s nice to be able to see the performers, but you’re not getting anything additional out of the music if it’s the same damn thing.
posted by PlaysByEar at 3:02 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home