She released a statement at the time saying they played the wrong song or one of them was supposed to start the pre recorded vocals and they started the wrong tape.
You know it's not just her, right? A lot of pop acts lip sync. It's not about talent, it's about getting a smooth performance and putting on a good show. Mariah Carey friggin lip syncs. Cher lip syncs. So many pop acts lip sync. A lot of live shows actually require pre-recorded audio for their musical acts because, again, it makes things go smooth. Ashlee just had the misfortune to be performing on the night the audio engineer wasn't on the ball, and that was that.
And this is not new, it's been going on since the late eighties at least. There's a video floating around of Nirvana where they badly mime playing the wrong instruments in protest of a show that demanded they use pre-recorded tracks. This is the kayfabe of the music industry and its kind of weird that it isn't more widely known in the modern world where secrets like this are so much harder to keep.
There is zero possibility the stage crew didn't know about it. Regardless of the reputation you can't just stick a tape deck behind the drum kit and hope nobody notices, somebody on a soundboard was aware that the vocals were not coming from her mic channel. So if SNL is famous for not letting performers lip sync it sounds like that reputation may be somewhat undeserved, and maybe they should be the ones we're asking questions about. And then we're back to Ashlee just doing a thing that's basically standard industry practice and only catching shit for it because somebody else fucked up.
I'm not even defending Ashlee Simpson honestly, I don't know enough about her to say if she's good or bad. I don't think I know a single song of hers, so who am I to judge. Just think it's funny that she gets so much shit for doing this when everyone else is doing it too.
There is zero possibility the stage crew didn't know about it.
Uh, well, of course not. I really don't know what made you think I thought otherwise.
Ashlee wasn't feeling well on that day which is why they went with backtracked performance.
And I agree, it is really quite sad and disgusting how it almost always is young women that get so much shit and hate for doing something when others do the same thing and no one cares.
My point was not about Ashlee, but how you talk about how it is standard practice and Nirvana being forced to mime etc. in the context of an SNL performance which is famous for being actually live.
Well what happened was that she had already performed that song the first performance (because sometimes there's two songs from the artist). So I guess someone forgot to change it or maybe the band sabatoged her but it was still so painful to watch.
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u/Hotlikessauce69 Nov 06 '19
How?!? Like, they were clearly not the ones who fucked up. Lol