You Call Yourself a Performer???

This months topic comes on the heels of the 1999 Billboard Music Awards telecast in early December. The topic is "lip synching" at so-called "live" performances. Now come on folks, do you really think your audiences and television viewers are not sophisticated enough to know that these "performers" are not really singing while being flung around the stage in an over-produced musical number?

Lip synching has been around for decades, but let's leave it for the videos (if you must) and spare us that studio sound that we can get on the radio! After all it didn't work for Milli Vanilli now did it?

I think the bottom line is that these performers want to be like Madonna and the Jacksons who raised the performance bar for everyone. Anyone who has seen Madonna live or on a live video, can tell that she's really singing when she's hoisted above the head of some beefcake's shoulders. You can actually hear her voice waver as she throws her self around (presumably to avoid the green laser) and you can hear her BREATH! THAT's a live performance, not a re-enactment of an MTV video. Try to find those vocal anomalies next time Christina Augulliera does a cartwheel across the stage at the next Music Awards show!

Madonna you are not. She has spent years developing her abilities and CAN do it live. Yes, she has done a few lip synchers in her days, but the woman goes for it and does it live MOST of the time.

And then there's Cher. Do you Believe that she's ever performed that song live? Believe fell onto our top 100 dance tracks of the last decade only because it was a great song and a HUGE hit, NOT because she can ever sing it again. Although she maintains to this day that she does in fact perform that song live on tour. Maybe she should turn on her microphone and turn off her vocal track and we'll set the record straight!

So there you have it. Performing live music is at least 50% of your act. Save the lip synching for when you have a head cold or are stuck in a drug-induced stupor and can't bring yourself to perform. Music is a performing arts, so it's about time you act like a musical performer and less like a hand puppet without a voice! (and watch out for Jennifer's green laser)