My French is a bit rusty but between a cryptic email from Molly (hope you get better soon, Molly) and some French news sites clumsily translated by Google, it seems that 80s legend Plastique Bertrand – whom I (thought I) saw sing live at the most recent Countdown concert in Hobart – with Molly (hope you get better soon, Molly) - has been accused of lip synching...to someone else's voice.
Because the film track and music track are recorded separately when making a music video, artists usually lip-synch their songs and imitate playing instruments, too. (Okay, I suppose this makes some sense.)
Also, artists lip-synch strenuous dance numbers in both recorded and live performances - if artists didn't lip synch, these performances would need incredibly trained lungs. (Um…yeah, we’re paying you gazillions, so train.)
The NSW government is considering new laws to make singers print disclaimers on tickets if they plan to lip synch concerts – live should be live.
The Eurovision Song Contest has banned lip synching.
Okay, lip synching isn't a crime but, in my book, neither is it cool.
Would Plastique really stoop so low?
A brief history of lip synching
(Anyone else noticing a 1989 spike here?)
1970
The Partridge Family – aside from David Cassidy, the cast uses lip synching to make it seem as though they can sing.
1989
Milli Vanilli is famously busted during a live performance on MTV when the recording of the song Girl you know it's true jams and begins to skip, repeating the partial line ‘Girl, you know it's…’ over and over on the speakers.
(I’m sure they wanted the earth to open up and swallow them but fans attending the concert didn't seem to care or even notice - and the concert continued as if nothing unusual had happened. I'm not sure if this says more about the quality of the music or the quality of the drugs the fans were taking.)
Black Box scores a number one hit with Ride on time - another case of a pretty face lip-synching to someone else's vocals.
The New York Times claims Bananarama’s concert at the Palladium was basically lip synched (shame they couldn’t have got better singers to lay down the vocals, really).
The same source says Depeche Mode adds vocals and a few keyboard lines to taped backup onstage. But hush your mouth – DM would never do this!
2001
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette calls Janet Jackson ‘one of pop's most notorious onstage lip synchers’.
2008
A nine-year-old Chinese girl lip synchs at the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony because the seven-year-old singer is ‘not pretty enough’ to perform as China's representative.
2009
Britney is roasted over lip synching at her Australian shows with fans storming out of the Perth gig after only a few songs. In New York on her comeback tour, Brit reportedly uses her actual vocal chords a big three times – twice to thank the crowd, and once to sing a ballad – though the vocals during that number are apparently questionable.
2010
Scottish fans accuse Eminem of lip synching, including having his microphone turned off while trying to ad lib.
And this, of course, brings us back to Plastique…
From what I can gather (though I could very well be wrong), he has been accused of not actually singing his 1977 song, Ca plane pour moi (kind of a downer for a vocalist). He started off denying the claim but, in news just to hand, he admits he didn't sing any of the songs on his first four albums - rather, his producer, Lou Deprijck, sang and also wrote the songs. The engineers of the studio have confirmed this.
It seems he would (stoop that low, that is).
Stay tuned for a blog post on ‘bad website translations via Google’.
(Hope you get better soon, Molly.)
Image: renjith krishnan
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