[Delirium-Zer0]

I've stated my thoughts elsewhere on AHS already, but it's more relevant to this thread so here goes:

There are two types of pop singers: vocalists/artists, and pop stars/idols. And there are two types of concerts: music performances and stage productions.

Pop artists who are known for their vocals, or for whom the concert is centered on a showcase of their musical abilities and songs, shouldn't be lip syncing. However, Ayu is not this type of pop artist.

She and her songs have always been popular more for their arrangements and lyrics than her vocals. No one calls ayu a great vocalist, she's not responsible for playing any instrumentation herself. For an Ayumi Hamasaki concert, she's going to put on display the stuff that's a major part of her branding - her personality, costumes, charisma, etc. Not her voice. Her concerts are not musical performances - if they were, they wouldn't have a gazillion dancers or crazy stage setups or background videos. They're stage productions, more akin to an acrobatics show where Ayu just happens to supply the score. I hate that, I don't like it at all, I agree that concerts SHOULD be about the music, so Ayu's smaller shows have always been more appealing to me. But she does big stage productions, and it is what it is, so there you go.

I've always known that Ayu lip syncs. She's been doing it for ages. Her shows before the encore are these scripted, choreographed, carefully planned theatrical performances that need to be, in her opinion, perfected before she does them. If there's a chance bad vocals will take you out of the performance, she records a track to lip sync along to.

WHY has this never bothered me in principle? Again, she's not a vocalist. I don't feel lied to when she lip syncs. It's still her voice, and she doesn't lip sync to the CD version, so I don't feel ripped off. Also, everything after the encore starts is all her. That's the "concert" part, where it's her and her band and her dancers are just up there having fun with her, and it's more intimate and natural. So because I get that, and that's natural, I'm cool with it.

Also, as others have said, this has ALWAYS been done. When the song needs to be uninterrupted, the lyrics need to be intact, and the vocals need to be on point - like when a singer is dancing & might run out of breath, or when the song is a ballad where control is difficult - then lip sync is a very, very common practice. My favorite pop stars when I was a kid were Paula Abdul and Janet Jackson, both very famous for their dancing - and they were also very obvious lipsyncers. And I could see it was happening, even as an 8 year old. It wasn't exactly hard to tell they were doing it because, like Ayu, they had very exaggerated mouth movements when they did it. I asked my parents and they confirmed they were probably not actually singing. I found it interesting - I mean I was 8, I wasn't gonna feel insulted or lied to then. As long as it was THEIR voices, I didn't care (look up Milli Vanilli and C&C Music Factory to understand why I had that particular perspective, if you're unaware of those artists' scandals). Artists lip synced in music videos, and since I was watching these concerts on TV anyway - and it felt like a big alternate music video - I didn't see why it would make a difference.

If I'm watching a band or singer on TV who's know for their musical ability - a great guitarist, or a really creative drummer, or a gifted vocalist, or someone playing a piano with one hand & a harpsichord with the other - THEN I'm gonna feel lied to if they're miming, you know? Finding out someone like Shiina Ringo was lip syncing would kinda be heartbreaking (oh god if any of you have heard that an artist like her does this please don't tell me lol). My favorite concerts are about the band or singer putting their skills and songs on display for the audience, yes, but Ayu's concerts aren't (typically) about that. They're about the staging and story and her charisma and costumes and stuff. So she's gonna lip sync, just like every other non-vocal-oriented pop star always does.