I ask myself this after watching a news segment about concertgoers walking out on Britney Spears in Perth, Australia recently. Apparently, they were shocked and appalled that Britney wasn’t singing live; she was lip-synching the whole time. I’m shocked myself. Shocked at the fact that they didn’t see that coming!

It’s common knowledge (or so I thought) that lots of pop artists use pre-recorded tracks live, including, quite often, their vocals. This is usually to insure that the audience gets to hear actual singing while they do their crazy choreography, instead of them just huffing and puffing through the song.

Milli Vanilli where are you now? Those guys (minus the one that died) have to be pretty disgusted by this modern pop landscape. Their career went into the toilet when the fans found out that not only were they lip-synching, the voices being heard were not those of Rob and Fab, but studio singers. Imagine how different that scenario would have been if they had debuted in 2008 instead of 1988. In this day and age, a savvy producer can take any bum off the street and make a passable performance out of their off-key warbling. I don’t know how much actual singing talent those dudes had, but it’s for sure that if they’d had the technology that we do now, any lack thereof could have been masked and a huge scandal avoided.

So let me get this straight. Almost two decades ago, a major record label (Arista) dumped a huge-selling artist for lip-synching live, but today, it’s almost encouraged, expected. Talent seems to be secondary to performance ability and image. As long as the “artist” has the look and the moves, the rest (the actual MUSIC!) can be manufactured in the studio.

Aussie Britney fans, I feel your pain. But at the same time, I’m shaking my head in amazement that you are fans of this manufactured product, yet you actually expected to get an authentic experience out of her live show. Don’t you see that it’s not about the music? If you’re a fan of the music, good for you. But that’s not really the point. The music is merely a vehicle by which money travels from your pocket into someone else’s.

I’m pretty much done ranting now.

Keep it on the ONE y’all.

MooT

PS: Remember when the Black Eyed Peas were a Hip-Hop group? Those were the days…