[Official Message] Countdown Live 2013-2014 DVD&Blu-Ray on 30.04.2014

[Delirium-Zer0]

Originally Posted by November4

Lol because she's a vocalist and lip syncing is basically cheating? I'm fine with heavy back tracks with some real vocals thrown in like Koda Kumi always does, but full lip syncing is gross, especially for ballads.

But she's not a vocalist, she's a performer. And that's completely different.

What makes a pop show "good" versus what makes a rock concert or vocal performance "good" are different things. Ayu's opinion on "good" is clean, rehearsed, precise, and perfect. (At least for the part of the show before the encore). She has a vision for that show and she wants to see it happen. That means there's no room for screwing up lyrics or running out of breath when dancing, so lip-sync.

When a pop artist is trying to put on a good show, they're gonna lip-sync. It happens so often I don't know why people still make a big deal out of it. They record one-take live versions of it to lip-sync to, so it's different form the CD still, and they ARE lip-syncing to themselves, so it's not a lie.

During songs where there's dancing, a pop singer - as opposed to an operatically trained vocalist - is going to run out of air and be unable to sing. (As a general rule, if Ayu is wearing the headset & dancing with her dancers, she's lip-syncing... just as almost every single pop star has done for the last 35 years). During tender, sweet pop ballads, a fudged lyric could kill the mood of the performance completely, and in the artist or producers eyes (and some fans' eyes) might ruin the show. So sometimes pop artists will lip-sync to a ballad too (CAROLS is a good example).

It's not dishonest or cheating, it's an insurance policy.

Singing is hard. Truth. Breath control, projection, enunciation, etc. are all very, very easy to screw up. With alot of singers, sure, you're not gonna really care - their target audience wants "feeling" more than perfection, so the occasional breathless moment or voice crack or incorrect lyric actually enhances the experience of seeing them live. Then there are some people are REALLY truly talented vocalists and have mastered that stuff. Annie Haslam, Pat Benatar, and Ann Wilson of Heart all come to mind - THOSE are vocalists. Always on pitch, never faltering. Because they were at it for their entire lives before becoming professionals.

Ayu isn't a vocalist, just as most pop stars aren't. She's just a charismatic woman with great lyrics, cool clothes, and an artistic vision for her shows - one that she wants to see polished before anyone in the public sees it.

Not that I'm defending this - I disagree fundamentally with her approach to live shows and I find her much more fun to watch when she's moving naturally & awkwardly and rocking out, and find it endearing when she messes up. But nevermind