Jun 24 2010
Live Singing
I’ve finished part one of my redone top 100 project! Now with all live performance clips, easier to read titles, new songs, lots of changes in ranking especially in the bottom half, and more! Honestly, I don’t know why I didn’t make the original version with live performances. I just find them so much more interesting to watch. So first, the video, then some musing about live singing, so stick around for that if you’re interested. IMHO, it’s some of my better blogging.
I’m at 64,000 video views now. I’m hoping to hit 100,000 with completion of this latest project. Wouldn’t that be awesome?
Recently, I’ve been wondering why it is that I dislike lipsyncing so much. I mean, idols are entertainers first, singers second (acting, modeling, or other things might also rank above singing), and I realize that many of them just can’t sing very well. And singing while dancing is hard! I know it is. You get out of breath, you’re trying to concentrate on the dance moves at the same time as you’re trying to control your voice, the stage lights are hot, and the crowd is loud and distracting. Far from ideal conditions to produce the best possible sound. Try it. You’d be surprised how difficult it is. So yes, lipsyncing often sounds “better”. And shouldn’t I prefer listening to better singing?
There’s no way to discuss this topic without bringing up AKB again. See, I’ve heard AKB fans actually criticize h!p for not lipsyncing, saying that it’s better to focus on one task at a time so you don’t do both of them half-assed. But, all that said, I still hate the fact that AKB lipsyncs most of the time. In fact, if they switched to mostly live singing, I’d probably consider becoming a fan of theirs. The lipsyncing is the one major barrier standing in the way of that, and I just can’t get around it. It’s not because I think it proves their inferiority as singers or anything like that. It’s really that I flat out don’t enjoy watching a lipsynced performance as much as I enjoy watching a live one.
I think the major problem is that in a live performance, a girl can put the emotion she is feeling into her voice. She can reflect the energy of the crowd and her excitement and joy at being on stage. She can really “get into” a song in a way that she can’t in the recording studio. With a lipsynced performance, though her dancing and expressions might say she’s totally feeling it, her voice will have been recorded in a calm studio environment. That mismatch just feels off to me as a viewer. It’s frustrating when I watch a girl giving 100% with her performance, but the energy level in her voice is stuck at 50%.
Another big issue is the “sameyness” of every performance. Every nuance is the same. There are no bad performances, but there are also no extraordinary performances. I can’t get excited because, “Wow! So-and-so sounded great on that solo line tonight!” because she always sounds exactly the same every time. And when AKB performs the same stage for over a year, and every time a girl opens her mouth to sing a certain solo line, it sounds just as she recorded it over a year ago, it honestly just gets boring. I don’t mind watching the same song performed multiple times if it’s actually a different performance.
And lipsyncing removes the pleasure of seeing your favorite idols struggle and improve, at least in the vocal category. And even if singing is not the main point of being an idol, it’s still an important one. If a girl messes up on a line, I can forgive her, especially if she totally nails it the next time. That’s part of why we cheer for idols, isn’t it? Because they’re not perfect, and we love them anyway. Lipsyncing removes the risk of excruciatingly bad singing, but it also takes away the opportunity for “shivers down your back” heart-touching singing. The kind of experience you have as an audience member knowing that that music you are hearing has been created once, in this moment, and it will never exist in the same way again. Imagine if LinLin’s fantastic solo version of Aozora had been lipsynced. Could it have still had the same impact? I’d say definitely not.
End of musing.
Now if there are any AKB fans out there bristling with defensiveness, don’t try to tell me AKB doesn’t lipsync their shows. I’ve been to a couple of them. I’ve seen many LODs, and in recent times, live singing is very much the exception, not the rule. Really, I don’t know why they don’t drop the farce and do it “PV style”. No microphones. They’d have another arm free for dancing! And yes, I realize that MM lipsyncs occasionally too. But in their case, it’s lipsyncing that’s the exception. Live singing is the rule. And I have also heard the argument that AKB performs so much that singing live all the time would be too much strain on their voices. I find that hard to buy, but even if that is truly the case, how about singing live at least half the time? Even just singing the solo and duet lines live would be a major improvement. I don’t believe that AKB lipsyncs because they are terrible singers, at least not by idol standards. They do it because it’s safe. It’s predictable and controllable, and that’s how management likes things. However, by taking that route, I believe they are doing the fans, and the girls themselves, a great disservice.
Thoughts?
~Celestia~
Hi, longtime reader first time commenter here
Thanks for remaking the whole thing with live videos, it must’ve taken a lot of work to find the performances and whatnot.
and on the live singing thing, I saw your commentary over on H!O (I’m kind of a lurker there too -_-; ) and I have to say I agree with you (the AKB fans were really going at it in that thread :O obviously they never read your blog.). While I don’t go to concerts like you always seem to (how many have you been to :O ) I would say just watching them sing live makes me feel proud of them because it proves they can handle singing it. Back when Koha used to lipsync most of her solos I kept hoping she’d at least do a few live solos, and that Hapi Hapi Sunday performance in your video (from Wonderful Hearts 2009?) was the one performance I was hoping for. I was so proud of that performance because she proved she could sing.
and graduation performances – man if they were lipsynced I don’t think I’d feel half as awful about them, because you can hear the girls’ voices cracking and it’s just so sad T.T
Like you, I find it baffling AKB can’t at least do part of their performance live, their songs aren’t exactly the most vocally straining songs out there :/ but I guess it’s their choice.
About lipsynching and AKB: Amen, sister. Amen. I agree wholeheartedly.
I love what you’re doing and applaud your hard work! Thanks so much for being such a great ambassador of H!P!!
[...] Live Singing (Bikkuri Project) [...]
A perfect example of this for me would be Morning Musume’s 2006 Spring Rainbow 7 performance of “Mushoku Toumei na Mama de”. Yes, there are a few flat notes, but that being said, there is also feeling and emotion that you could never get if it were lipsynched. I’ll sit through a few so so live performances to get to that one that makes the girls shine and makes me so glad I’m a fan.
Agreed wholeheartedly. I think that the risk the girls take when giving a fully live performance inspires them to work hard to develop their talents to their fullest. When I had a solo in band or my church choir in high school I paid a lot more attention to everything about my performance – how I carried myself, how I played or sang, how I worked with those around me, how well tuned each note coming out of that finicky school piccolo was… In each case I knew I had a group of fellow musicians counting on me and that how I performed would reflect on the group’s legacy as well as the reputation of my director. Was it pressure? Yes, but it was also an empowering privilege. It meant that all of those people around me trusted in me and my ability enough to put those reputations into my hands. It speaks worlds about Tsunku and the H!P staff that they allow the girls that trust, and I think it’s why the girls grow and develop so much during their time in Hello! Project.
One of the main reasons that I love H!P is that it is “dancing, singing, exciting.” Most of my friends are former band, choir, or theater geeks and I can show them H!P concerts with pride because everything you see is really happening in the moment. Last year’s LA live was absolutely exhilarating because even though they were performing an unconventional stage with a unique setlist in a giant room in a foreign country the girls punched those first few notes of Mikan with their own power, and even though most of them had never been to a Musume live and no one knew what the setlist was going to be beforehand all of the fans threw themselves into responding without hesitation.
I would love to hear the girls of AKB sing live. I think they’d enjoy it a whole lot, too, as they were challenged to grow and develop by their own power.
I would agree with you 110%!
I have troubles with AKB for lipsyncing, and while live singing can sometimes be more painful, it’s always more entertaining.
As for the vocal stress, I can say that their voices would not get worn out from my experience. I have sung in the school choir (one of the best in the nation) for 3 years, singing at least an hour a day, and sometimes on weekends and school breaks. Many of the songs that we sing go from the B below middle C and up to a high E (For a Soprano II), and vary in vocal range for the other 3 parts much more, but I, nor any of the other 60 girls in the choir, have ever complained about having vocal strain or anything of that matter. I’d say the vocal stress argument isn’t very likely.
While I agree that AKB lipsyncs most of the time, I think MM lipsyncs just as much nowadays. The only ones that don’t are the powerhouse singers, which is the same with AKB. I agree that an actual live performance would be much more enjoyable and more beneficial to the girls though.
Like with MM, you’d notice Aichan singing live and then the next line by another member is obviously lipsynced. With AKB, you have Haachan singing live and the next member is obviously lipsynced.
Bur really, this is just going to make MM fans go “LOLOL, YES, YOU ARE SO SMART! MM RULES AND AKB SUCKS!” and make AKB fans overly defensive.
Japanese are very forgiving when it comes to lipsyncing. Its just not AKB. Perfume since 2009 has been lipsyncing all the way. They still be lipsyncing when they perform at Tokyo Dome….. Considering that the Perfume fanbse is mostly rockers and techno makes it even more bizarre.
AKB are what I called purest form, of idols that has not been seen since the 80′s. The type where they are not so good at singing,dancing,or acting compare to artist. There is also the girlfriend experience (GFE) that is the soul of AKB. They can’t be too good at anything or not their male fanbase will have an inferiority complex. Basically, promoting a submissive female persona.
All idol groups do this but AKB is by far the best at doing it.
Akimoto is a smart businessman. He allows AKB to lipsync so that their audience feels empowered and thus the audience feel they have ties to the girls. And thus buying more singles/merch. Lipsyncing is part of the package for AKB.
Only in Japan, folks.
Btw, Berryz first concert with W was lipsync all the way but then again they were babies back then so it is forgivable.
@Popotato- Um. No. I’ve been to “live shows” of both groups, and the only time I’ve heard anyone in Morning Musume lipsync is Koharu singing a Kirarin Revolution solo. TV performances have more lipsyncing, it’s true. But it’s the live shows that really count for me. Conversely, of the two AKB shows I went to, not a single line was sung live. I know a couple girls sing live sometimes (Takahashi Minami for one) but truly, there is a HUGE difference between the two when it comes to the amount of live singing. And “AKB Sucks” was not my intended message. It’s more like “Lipsyncing sucks” I enjoy many other aspects of the group.
@mydnightzx- That’s a very interesting take on it.Thanks for providing some new insight into the issue.
I can kind of understand Perfume’s lipsyncing, since their distinctive sound requires pre-recording and processing. I’m not a fan of that group either though.
Well I don’t really know why I’m responding here as you pretty much skipped all my comments on H!O, but whatever, let’s try it again. One thing I don’t get is that when people talk about lipsync as something homogeneous, they put the CD and they act like puppets. I think is a bit more complex than that: the instrumental track is pretty the same, and background voices, but there are different layers mixed, there are sections when they open the mics and they are singing live, and other parts are just the recording, sometimes even there are “live” tracks mixed, because, you know, they shuffle units for concerts and the girls are not the same. The thing is, again, that when you start adding things with live vocals to do a mix how you decide when something is “real” or not? If it becomes a mix, I listen to it as a mix. Is a process and there is a lot of things happening with the music as guide. If you want it as a “safe” guide, but the concept of idols implies the safeness of it. I could expand this a lot or try from another angle, but for a start…
I really don’t know why lately there is so much lipsynch on stages. Maybe because they are starting them with one month of training (and it is not a month where they are only training). I also found surprising that they were so open talking about recording voices on their blogs. Anyway, there are shows where they sing live: there is whole concert that I think was on their DVD magazine vol.2, the recent Wednesday J-Pop or Infinity, the stage play they did with some of their songs.
Another thing, and this is about mydnightzx’s comment. I don’t think AKB is like that at all, and this is quite a part of the misunderstandings about the group. On an early interview, Akimoto stated that he wanted to do a group that was like a classroom with every type of girl inside of it: smart, shy, sporty, silly, tall, short or whatever you want to add. So obviously, singing talent is not the only requisite to join the group. But this is part of the concept: “Idols that you can meet”. When I read scholarly articles written about J-pop and idols they mention how they start from this idea about the idol as a pure thing that is not even a earthly creature, and how with the decades this idea becomes more humane. Morning Musume was a more human group than what was before. And probably, AKB are just pushing in that way. If they look like dorks, or if they do mistakes, or if they do funny faces and are not “just” beautiful, is part of it. I don’t agree at all about the idea of the GFE, because every idol solo DVD is less or more that, be the girl from Morning Musume (and there are recent examples), Idoling!!! or AKB. There is a lot of AKB female fans. But enough for now…
@Anhh Thank you for your long and well thought out response. I view “Infinity” as the one glowing example of AKB doing a show live within the last couple years. I mean, I watched both versions, and it totally proved that they could do it, given the chance. There would be a learning curve with some of the more vocally challenged girls, but as they practiced it, they’d get better. Lots of Morning Musume members were not good live singers when they started, including Gaki-san, and she sounds fantastic now.
Lack of training time could be an issue. Maybe they’re just stretched too thin to rehearse live vocals enough? But I know that many Johnny’s groups, Arashi for example,are just as or even more busy and they still do their concerts 80-90% live.
It seems that idols are walking a very interesting tight-rope. On the one hand, the GFE thing appeals to many fans, so it’s good to seem “moe” and whatnot, but on the other hand, I know they want to succeed and be taken seriously as legitimate performers. So is the lipsyncing meant to make them sound better and therefore more credible in the eyes of the public, or is it actually, as mydnightzx suggests, a way of handicapping them and making them less threatening?
And, ya know, even partially live singing doesn’t bother me very much. At least there is something real happening. But AKB seems to rely on the 100% prerecorded, just stick in the CD and mime the words approach far too often these days. In particular, I really wish they’d sing at least the solo lines live.
When I mentioned the thing about stages, I was not trying to build a great argument for all their live shows, just saying that they have to learn from scratch choreographies, songs, stage positions and the rest, in not so much time, so I could understand that the first shows could be quite chaotic (like every live band, less or more). But really, is not an excuse to stick to it.
I can see why people find it problematic: live music is first and then the recordings come, as a document of it or as a business card to show to the world. I don’t believe very much on that, I think that in pop music, the most important thing is the recording (I mean, there are tons of examples, but let’s say Robert Johnson, or some singer that already is dead). The important thing would be those things that lure you and hook you up in a song or an album. Textures, sounds, rhythms, melodic motifs, guitar solos, etc. What I remember about “Nanchatte Renai” are Sayumi and Koharu parts, nor how professional the rest sound or how well executed is the entire thing done. Those are the bits that you are always returning to trying to decipher what they have on themselves to make you lose yourself. What I said about a recording being a recording on the thread is this. Many people talk about DVD shows, that could show less or more fidelity to a live event, but they are still recordings and, at least myself, I’m judging them with the same set of standards. There are many “live” musics that doesn’t mean live music: a DJ mix is a process of mixing not of playing music, there is generative music that randomly generate sounds according to streams of information, there are electronic pieces which sounds only made sense when they are played on multiple speakers on a live auditory.
What I think is that is not really something about the performance itself, or how problematic can be more than 100 girls breathing, singing and getting out of tone for the guy mixing the live sound, is more than the whole thing is a history you know to which you are supposed to react and to which you react (like the kisses between Sayu and Ai). There are specific chants, specific rituals, etc. So is more like playing easy for people not to get lost. But I don’t know, have to think much more about it…
I’m not so sure about the legitimacy as performers, most of these girls pretend to be other things, models, tarentos, actresses, etc. But I see you from where are you coming and why you are reasoning accordingly.
For your Top 100 clips, how did you choose those lives? Is it because you like that live performance of that song or cause that’s the only one you can find (especially for the older ones).
I prefer live performance too, but I didn’t realize AKB lip-syncing that much. My thought about lip-syncing is simpler: if I wanted to listen to someone sing the recorded version, I’ll just listen to their CD.
@aprillis- Well, it’s a combination. I have to find clips that are high enough quality to use, preferably with the original lineup, because I know people will slam me for it if I deviate from that too much. After that, it’s down to which I like best.
Ah, sorry if I made it sound like that was your intended message; I meant that rabid fans will just take it that way.
Again, I do agree that AKB lipsyncs a lot, but I realize that the 2 shows you watched were very early shows of a stage. They do sing live more often further into the stages, although this is still somewhat limited. Although with B5, I have yet to see a live show, some LODs already had a few members sing live, one very noticeable would be Kasai and Amina with CANDY. Although I think this only happened once so far. It is kind of strange that they keep going live in a song for one show and then switch back to lipsyncing in the next show…
@anhh
I did mentioned that all idols sell the GFE experience.
. Even H!P and all those other groups.
I just added that AKB is the best at this.
If they have a no boyfriend rule, then they sell the GFE experience.
I guess I won’t go further about this GFE as people have different opinions about it.
Back to the lipsyncing part………
I don’t mind the lip syncing but it aint my thing. I’m not the type of guy to travel all the way to Japan and see my idol just to shake her booty onstage. Personal Perference btw.
The taboo about lipsyncing is mostly a Western thing? I get that the perception over there is that if you support lipsync, you are dissing all the great singers that came before like Aretha Franklin, James Brown, Dusty Springfield, etc etc…
The only people who can lipsync and get away with it are people like Lady Gaga and Michael Jackson. But their live performance are a spectacle with pyro and special effect. And MJ can sing very well live if he chose to.
AKB can get 16 girls to sing live at once. They can just do the old H!P trick and turn some mics off.
I think AKB hasn’t really practice harmonizing with all 16 girls and thats why they lipsync.
But that’s ok because their Japanese audience does not care.
If they care that much, they be at H!P or Ayumi or other live singers venues because AKb is not gonna change their successful formula anytime soon.
Of course AKB can sing live if they want too. Its just a matter of will.
But their audience do not care so why bother?
I’ve heard people say they sing live more as they get used to a new stage, but honestly I just don’t see it. A5 was performed like forever. I’ve watched or at least skimmed through dozens of A5 LODs, and the only one I’ve ever heard sing live in them is Takahashi Minami. Same for K6. Only Sayaka sometimes sang her solo live. That and they sang their final “Sasae” as old team K live.
If anyone can point me to an all live, or even mostly live LOD of A5, K5, or B4 I will believe it, but I don’t think such a thing exists.
I believe it was the case in the past that they incorporated more and more live singing into the stage, but now it seems like they’ve pretty much given up on it. And yeah, they have no financial incentive to sing live, so why bother? But I know they’ve lost me as a potential fan due to the lipsyncing thing, and I can’t believe I’m the only one in all Japan that feels that way. They’re really popular now, but maybe they could be even more popular/ appeal to a wider audience if they sang live more?
^
I highly doubt if they sing live, they will get more fans. Maybe you should ask your Japanese friends and see if they prefer lipsync.
They are pretty popular right now and all they are getting are the good promos.
Unless you are saying that in Japan you have met teenagers/older men who are not into AKB?
I think that this conversation can’t go much further, could go longer but stating the same things, if we cannot see that each one has a definition for “spectacle”, “experience” or “idol” or what is the valuable aspects of live music. It doesn’t make much sense go to Japan to see your favourite girl shaking her booty, but it does make sense going to Japan to be part of the experience or the mystique, sitting in that place, knowing that you are there, feeling the music in your body, seeing the girls you have spent so much time seeing on TV shows or PVs, feeling suddenly between these unknown people that you belong with them, that you are alive in this moment because of the group, because of them, because of you, etc.
But I mean, if by your definition, whatever this is or whoever is that you, those things are excluded to be “experiences”, “spectacles”, “shows” or “idols”… Is not that we can’t disagree, is that we are not going away from stating that a≠b. I mean I can understand when some people say that they don’t like AKB because they are not like H!P. Many of us “learn” (multiple plays of the same songs, names, PVs, live shows, etc.) how to love a group or a music style. I have gone through a lot of that, learning and breaking the patterns I’ve created, so I don’t really think that they are that important. People do the same thing but they modulate it on their own way. But maybe different tools don’t do the same work. Anyway thanks for the exchange.
Totally, totally agree on the whole lip syncing thing (and this has nothing to do with AKB since I don’t know enough about them to form an opinion). I suppose I expect my singers to be able to have some sort of singing ability, even the idols. I do understand that my thinking might be in the minority and there is a lot more that goes into an idol than just singing, but that is still part of it.
I when I see a live show, I don’t want to see a show that is 100% lip synced. Singing live just makes the song so much more personal and evokes emotion that you just can’t get from a recorded track. For me the recorded track is almost too perfect. That’s what makes the lives so great. The singer can add their own little flavor to the song while the are singing a really make it their own. And while singing live does open up the chance for flubs and what not, that’s okay. I don’t expect them to be perfect every time, and will forgive little mistakes here and there, but it’s important for me that they try. With lip syncing they aren’t even trying and to me it seems like they are just “dialing it in” and taking an easy way out.
“But maybe different tools don’t do the same work” Sorry, that doesn’t make sense. You can’t use the same tool for every work.
came from H!O.
nice read and I agree.
I still like both AKB and H!P but on the videos and dvds I own or have downloaded, I do find I watch the MM stuff more because the performances aren’t lipsynced meaning they don’t sound exactly the same as the mp3 i got blaring in my headphones.
This is also the same reason I’m a fan of SMAP. Every performance is different and you can tell they aren’t lipsyncing. Well, anyone can tell if you know who SMAP are. Every performance has a different flavor and its never the same.
I feel it will be the reason AKB declines one day. At some point, the fascination will die because fans will get bored of performances that are purely identical over and over again.
For the record, I have met lots of male teenagers/men who are not into AKB. Where there is popularity, there will also be lots of haters and lots of people who just don’t care.
Yes, they’re very popular, but popularity is relative. It doesn’t mean that everyone likes them. Just that more people like them than like other groups.
So yes, there is room for improvement.
Well Morning Musume wasn’t originally created to be an idol group, they were a girl singing group that became an idol group, while AKB48 was an idol group from the start. Thats probably why there is more live singing in morning musume then akb48. I know i definately prefer live singing. I’d be pissed if i went to a concert a group lipsync the whole concert.
great post!
I’ll start with saying that I prefer live singing- even if it’s not perfect, _because_ it is not perfect. There is a certain personality that comes through in live recordings that is not present in studio recordings- where the same line is often sung dozens of times and then “frankenstein-ed” together. I love that you included that performance of “BYE BYE Matane,” to illustrate the point. Can you imagine that moment with canned vocals? This isn’t to say that I like listening to god-awful vocals- I just like to hear my performers “caught in the moment.”
But with all the talk of DVD recordings and comparisons, I think we should remember that ALL of these performances are mixed and edited and (possibly) re-recorded. I’m not saying the entire performance is re-recorded, but we should be occasionally suspicious. To bring up a couple of examples think of how David Bowie added background vocal tracks to his “Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars” concert movie or Kiss Alive! being “as live as it needs to be!” I have the distinct feeling that most of the concert footage we are watching is in this strange not-quite-live domain.
I do agree that some tweaking occurs in the DVD production. The crowd noise, for example, is definitely faded down. But if you listen to the audience recording of a performance and compare it to the DVD version, it’s sounds pretty darn similar. You can tell it’s been “cleaned up” a bit, but I’ve never seen anything so drastic as patching in a different recording of the vocals.
Hi!!
So, I have to say I agree with everything that you and what ”anhh” said. There are many different things to look in a performance, but you know, it’s maybe because I’m a girl and I look for other things in idols, and as much as I love AKB48, I won’t excuse their constant lipsynching, in tv and stage perfs, like a desperate fan xD. I understand you because I also feel like not watching their concerts for it xDD In that aspect (like watching LODs, I never finished watching A5 for example) I would say you follow them more than I do xD
Now, AKB is a musical group, and they sound great live (mostly due to shared lines, but no, they do have good voices to start with). The problem is that, weirdly, Japan is very permissive with that. For example, I haven’t heard a single live tv performance of Arashi this year, and from what I read, their fans have the same class of discussions as we do xD But they also say, Arashi gets paid for singing and dancing, and so does AKB, so it’s kinda disrespectful to the audience that they don’t sing live when they can. I don’t get it.
Now, about AKB’s live concerts, when you said that
”I’ve never seen anything so drastic as patching in a different recording of the vocals.”
Ahhhh, whenever I write about this, I feel like I’m giving a very lame excuse xD, but that’s exactly what happens with all AKB’s DVD concerts since their first one. I say it’s a lame excuse because seriously, no one bothers to paste recorded stuff over a live concert, and because I don’t have the video with the exact part when the camera shows the stage and you hear they are actually singing live D: but yes, that’s what happened, while watching their making ofs and it struck me right away, when the camera goes from the backstage to the audience and the stage, they were singing live. They aren’t professional singers, and I’ve heard their songs enough times to know when they lipsynch and they don’t.
In case you don’t believe me (and I don’t blame you xD), the best example happened during their 100 song concert in 2009. I guess you watched it already, the making of is full of bits of live performances. But, when the #1 song, ”Shonichi” is announced, and the Team B girls come crying into the stage, they start performing the song, and I thought they were lipsynching, but when the making shows that part, they are bawling, they sound terrible, yet they are singing their hearts out, full of gratitude to the fans. It’s a shame they fixed the sound because it killed the whole emotion of the performance, and I wish they stop doing it. I also have the feeling that Takamina’s ”Bird” was live, I mean, she was about to cry, too.
Of course, songs without stage recordings end up live, like all their shuffle units, but it’s not enough. I hope they stop doing it, because….it doesn’t make sense. The DVDs are very limited to get, so not many people will watch the performances anyway, and the ones that were there heard them live, so…wtf???
I think I might try to go to a AKB concert, rather than a show, and see if they really do sing live there. I hope they do, and I cannot, for the life of me, understand why they`d ruin a perfectly good concert DVD by patching the studio recorded version over it.
Studio execs. “Hey! That performance didn’t sound 100% perfect! We must hide this shameful lack of perfection from people who buy the concert DVD!”
Dude. We don’t care. Honest.
Arashi huh? Well, at least their concerts and concert DVDs are live.
One question … how does one tell if a performer is lip-syncing …
And maybe life performances just means that fans can observe their idols in the flesh …
Well, there are lots of clues, but really it just sounds different.
For one thing, if the girls are dancing around a lot, you can hear them getting out of breath or even breathing in the microphone during live performances. If a girl, for example, jumps during a line and her voice remains perfectly even, it’s lipsync. Also, if it’s totally perfect, it’s lipsync. If their mouth movements are just a bit off from what you hear, it’s lipsync. If you are familiar with the recorded version and every nuance is exactly the same, lipsync. That’s the easiest way to tell. The same lines being sung by the same girl won’t sound exactly the same every time. But if she makes a mistake or forgets a line, or even substitutes something else for the line (for example, Risa singing “Happy happy happy birthday” instead of “happy happy happy has come” during Reina’s birthday show.
But yeah, really it just sounds different. It’s really obvious when some girls are singing live and some aren’t. It’s harder to tell during big group parts, because that has a homogenizing effect, but if there are solo or small group lines it’s easy to tell.
@celestia: I think it’s just better to watch a making of and see (hear) :/, it’s very obvious actually. The ”Shonichi” performance I said is really the perfect example of it, because even in their last B3 show they did it live, crying, just the same as the AX concert. If only Youtube didn’t erase their stuff, I would have put the comparisons up. Or maybe I should upload it to one of those chinese youtubes and post the links everytime this comes up, w/e.
And yeah, that’s why I made an emphasis on Arashi’s ”tv performances” xD I know they do their concerts live, and even in them they have lipsynched a few songs here and there, but I get your point. And TBH every time I feel like I’m about to flee out of the AKB fandom due to the lipsynching, they always do something, or I find a video, or a show, that reminds me of why I’m a fan xD I got in for the songs, but the actual girls on them, and even more, the bluntness in the way the group is managed hooked me up.
I agree with you 100% Celestia.
I like AKB’s songs (or atleast their earlier stage ones, you know all the good ones that are no longer in the top 100 countown) but I can’t imagine seeing a show at the theatre just to watch them from pretty close lipsync. Not to mention that you have to be seated unless you get the standing in the back. It’s no a concert, it’s like some high school recital.
I remember seeing the Himawari Gumi DVD a couple of years ago and while it was enjoyable because the girls changed every day it was the same recording no matter what girls were on stage and I’m like… what’s the point?
BTW when are you in Japan til because I’d love to meet up before you leave.
Also going to the 5ki event in August if you want me to give Gaki anything. She was fabulous in Fashionable.
http://www.hello-online.org/index.php?act=tracker&CODE=details&torrent=25434 You mentioned finding a Live LOD, and I’ve watched this one a few times and most of it seems live xD The only one who isn’t live is Watanabe Mayu, but most of the units are live (there’s even a few mistakes) and team songs are live too. Plus it’s B3, which is one of the best stages that AKB has had.