October 24, 2004

Lip-syncing screwup goes out live on SNL. The king of evening comedy claims to have never allowed lip-syncing, but just this evening Ashlee Simpson's voice track started too soon. The result: a big gaffe onstage, followed by an abrupt cut to commercial. Strike one against corporate music. Anyone see it?
posted by rolypolyman 19 years ago
  • It hasn't aired on the West coast yet...I'm looking forward to seeing how they'll handle this.
  • Link won't last much longer.
  • SNL: Saturday Night Lipsync
  • funniest thing to happen on SNL in years. Even more bizzare than the tape error, what is that dance she started to do, some kind of Irish "I'm a jolly lip-syncing leprehcan jig??" And then the look between the two guitarists- you can just see them thinking- "we spent 80 grand to go to Berklee for this?"
  • I can just see it now -- an AVI with some Irish music over the jig-dancing part.
  • i saw it live, and i was wondering how soon it would be on the internets. I laughed out loud.
  • STRIKE ONE?! The game has been over since 1964 or something.
  • But, anyway.. isn't SNL supposed to appeal only to 13 year old stoners?
  • What? They don't play live on telly???!!! (~^)
  • WMV. Much better quality.
  • If this is news I am Britney Spears.
  • I knew it!
  • Wow. That was...awkward. People need to get over the lip-syncing thing anyway. As Jerry pointed out, Britney's been a lip-sync addict her entire career and people ignored it. Meanwhile, poor Madonna spent all those years staying uber-buff so she could sing and dance at her concerts and she gets slagged by Elton John in her old age.
  • It doesn't look like they changed anything for the West Coast broadcast. She walked off the stage.
  • I'm hosting an MPG of ashlee blaming the band for you guys because i don't seem to see it anywhere else. It'll probably be taken off tommorrow because i have not a lot of bandwidth on my site so be nice to my site and hopefully the clip will find it's way to other sites by then. I think this important for kids these days to see what kind of crap they are being fed by MTV and the like.
  • Thanks rochiebones. That passing the blame to her band was much worse the lipsynching on SNL. I expect musicians to phone in performances on SNL- it's not a concert, just a PR circle jerk. Even the walking off isn't that bad. A mistake happened, and she didn't know how to handle it. I don't think I'd know how to either (I don't even know how to dance a jig). But passing the blame was shitty of her. I never heard of her until this incident, so I guess it still was successful PR, if you're the kind that thiks bad PR is good PR.
  • "My band started playing the wrong song"??!! Lame. But was this any kind of surprise? I think this important for kids these days to see what kind of crap they are being fed by MTV and the like. Don't take this the wrong way, but this statement made me think of when I was young and idealistic and couldn't stand, say, Kansas, or Foreigner, or Asia. The music industry ain't run by musicians; the good music that gets out there does so in spite of the industry. Support your local bands!
  • I watch SNL regularly because... well, Tina Fey kicks all ass. But each week it's a debate, do I bother with anything after the Update? SNL's usually crap all the way through, but post-update the shitstorm's kicked up to factor 3 at least which can make for some decent "car-wreck" viewing... actors screw up, forget lines, "improvise" a sketch into oblivion, etc. Tonight, it was worth it.
  • Thanks for the videos! Jude Law is soooo dashing. *swoons*
  • If it weren't for a screwup like this, Milli Vanilli would probably have lasted a lot longer. I had really hoped back then that the music industry learned it's lesson after that debacle, but apparently not.
  • It was amusing on a certain level, but in general I can't watch things like that. I mean, as pointlessly famous and overplayed as she is, I couldn't help but sympathize with her while it was happening - very few things in life are worse than that kind of humiliation. But as I said, it's also pretty amusing to imagine what the spin and/or disastrous career results this will create. It's just in that visceral moment, where I'm not thinking of her as anything but another fellow human being humiliated in front of a lot of people, that I feel sorry for her.
  • SNL and Lorne Michaels at one time were equated with quality musical acts... at least as far as the mainstream goes. Lorne, presumably up to this day, has had rigid control over the show's quality and went above and beyond the call of duty, but obviously his judgement began sliding precipitously sometime in the 1990s. Now this fiasco. To me, what we saw was a spectacular demonstration of just how bad the PR/marketing/industry forces have made inroads.
  • I can't really get to worked up by the lip sync issue. Pop "artists" are completely manufactured to begin with. Most of the would sound no better than you and I (i.e. like crap) if it wasn't for the technology and talent in producing them for consumption, recorded or live. Besides, most of what consumers buy is not the music, but the package, i.e. how pretty the woman is, her hair, her (manufactured) pose, her taste in clothes, etc... Shall we get worked up by their breast implants, her nose job? The same goes (albeit to a somewhat lesser extent regarding the beauty) for male pop starts. Lets face it folks, it's pop, it's consumable, and is supposed to be as real and complex as a happy meal.
  • I thought the Aftermath was handled fairly well. She was succinct and upbeat, if not entirely convincing, and given the circumstance the band could easily have agreed to take the blame as necessary. Take one for the good of the team and all that. Worse, IMHO, is the fact that she's admitting she wasn't professional enough to instantly seguee when the band screwed up. Shouldn't that be a required skill of concert performers?
  • She must have quite a rapport with her band.
  • wtf is ashlee simpson? i think i'm with you, squidranch. btw, thanks for hosting that, rochiebones.
  • Jude should have laid down the Law instead of covering for her at the end.
  • Well, not really. Just goes to show that some entertainers are more gracious than others...
  • shes hot how much do Ashlee Simpson band members get paid? Does the record label put the bands together for Ashlee, Shania etc? It seems like a good gig - but do other musicians make fun of you?
  • She is so fucking ugly, jesus.
  • baksheesh: I don't know how muche these guys are paid, but I hope a lot of money. Because, you see while Shania didn't lip-sync her super bowl performance, her band was there just for show (and God, they looked like dumbasses). They'd have to pay me a lot to submit to such public shame.
  • http://www.ashleesimpsonmusic.com/ shes hot Are you fucking serious? Christies, she's the ugliest pop star I've ever seen. and SNL = Doo Doo Butter.
  • Tina Fey=Evil Incarnate.
  • ANARCHY IN THE UK IT'S COMING SOMETIME MAYBE SOMETHING SOMETHING TRAFFIC LINE GIVE A WRONG TIME WHATEVER
  • Make no mention of bags over heads.
  • Can't say I'm surprised you're not a fan, davidmsc, but "Evil-Incarnate?" Actually, that's something of an achievement for an SNL'er. Usually they're just hopelessly, forgettably vanilla or one-note-raunchy-irrelevant. I'm happy that they've got at least one member of the cast who's able to really get under people's skin. My satisfaction in watching the Simpson Debacle was in seeing Lorne get a little egg in his face after far too many seasons of the"britney/justin/ashlee/jessica/pink/avril/lindsey" rotation. I mean, c'mon, isn't there a music act out there a bit more worthy of the oxygen these people are using up?
  • Best tactic is to ignore davidmsc. Sorry, pal, but you're a troll.
  • I've noticed this since I started watching SNL. It's most obvious if you watch the 'drummers' for 'bands' that are supposed to be backing up singers you know do all their work in the studio. The surprise for me is that they'd kept the sham up all this time, though that shouldn't really be suprising either I guess.
  • I was thinking how much better this might have gone if she had just winged it and caught up with the tape. Just acted like that is what she was suposed to be doing all along.
  • also Tina Fey rocks!
  • Tina Fey is teh hawtness.
  • According to the Miami Herald, her recording company Geffen is now claiming that we were supposed to be hearing "pretaped electronic percussion" and the vocals somehow slipped in.
  • "Best tactic is to ignore davidmsc. Sorry, pal, but you're a troll." Hmm. Let's see.. davidmsc has been here.. ooh, a shitload longer than you, HawthorneWingo, has posted multiple articles & has quite a few Monkey friends.. you, however, are a newbie no one knows slinging troll lames. It seems as if you should perhaps, oooh, maybe.. shut the fuck up? This is not Metafilter. Once you've established yourself as something more than a fly-by-night, then, maybe you can start being uppity. 'Til then.. STFU
  • Stop trolling nostrildamus
  • See, I thought HawthorneWingo was joking.
  • MeFi scoop:
    it really was the drummer's fault. apparently he was supposed to signal something or start in with some beat, and the one he did was for the first song. because he fucked up, the guy doing the tape hurried up and put the first song on, because that was what the drummer had signalled. [...] they were going to turn on ashlee's mike so she could sing the real song, but decided not to because the band was just playing the first song. the guys were smiling cause they were simply thinking "what a fucking clusterfuck".
    I luv pop culture.
  • Tina Fey has a scar on her cheek? I've never seen it. Even in the pics from JG's link, I still can't find the scar.
  • 1: Is this stupid waste of time really still on the air? 2: That's not music.
  • In the interest of education, I give you that scar on Tina Fey's cheek.
  • Dude, ActuallySettle, shut the fuck up and quit trolling.
  • We all don't really need the F-word, or the S-word, or U-word or T-words (nothing dampens a conversation like these, esp in combination). We need to stay on target - we're here to talk about performers who don't know how to improve anymore. Actually, lately I've been on a Jason Mraz kick. Hear him on a radio website (scroll down to the bottom) - now there's some impressive live music for you. I've also heard several live tracks - he'll just make stuff up when he feels like it.
  • Hmm. Let's see.. davidmsc has been here.. ooh, a shitload longer than you, HawthorneWingo, has posted multiple articles & has quite a few Monkey friends.. you, however, are a newbie no one knows slinging troll lames. It seems as if you should perhaps, oooh, maybe.. shut the fuck up? Huh. Well. I was under the impression that MoFi is about intelligent conversation. Not about territoriality, or "he's better than you because he's my friend," or "I'm better than you because I've been here longer." Guess I was wrong. Thanks for filling me in, Nostrildamus!
  • Oh, now I get it. Nostrildamus is mad at me because I criticized something he said. (Vaguely and without mentioning his name, I'll note.) I think the fact that I didn't mention his name in my post made it pretty clear it wasn't at all anything personal, but I guess not.
  • HW, you're looking too hard. I think what got the Nostril flaring was you, a newbie, calling davidmsc, an established and respected member, a troll for making a joke. One of our goals here is keeping things civil. There are inflammatory comments now and then but the vast majority of them are jokes. You'd be well served to hang out for a while and get to know the tendencies of the regulars here before you go accusing someone of trolling again. davidmsc was not trolling in this thread. Or maybe Nostril was irritated a little to start at the quality of your comments and FPP so far, prompting more flaring than usual?
  • mexican: I honestly thought davidmsc's comment was a troll, based mainly on a few other of his comments I've seen in my time here. If not, my apologies. Really. (I really will hesitate before making a judgment like the one that allowed me to criticize davidmsc.) But I still don't think that justifies telling me to "shut the fuck up" just because I'm new; that's high school behavior. And I think I'm going to insist on retaining the right to call out something that I think is unintelligent or doesn't add to the conversation moving forward. I'd rather get dumped on for missing the joke than give that up. Also, I'm not sure I "get" your comment about the quality of my comments/FPP. Compliment, or insult? (I'm assuming the former, and that this comment is really directed to Nostril, but words on a computer screen can get tricky, as has been made abundantly clear.) Thanks for the attempt at defusing, in any case. I just want to be friends, AND be able to be passionate -- and, where warranted, critical.
  • Hey, david dresses right. That's OK. Be cool, for gob's sake. It's all fine.
  • That's addressed to all parties, btw. Opinion only, obviously.
  • Uh... look here?
  • I like puppies better, but I think kittens are cuter.
  • Nostril, here's my hand. Shake it and let's be friends, or at least done with this conflict. davidmsc, you too.
  • I really wanted to comment on this thread, too. Shame it had to spin out of control as it did. I wanted to point out that the Simpson girl demonstrated a total lack of class/musicianship by walking off stage and that I thought the band rocked. Blaming the band for the problem was especially low. Even if it was the drummer's fault, he and the rest of the band stayed on and kept playing because people were watching. At any live gig, the right song is the one that the first guy to start playing plays. No one watching knows the set list. Blaming the band is especially lame if she was up there to lip sync.
  • wtf is the U-word? I can't think of any dirty words that begin with U.
  • You know what? It's actually pretty damn cool that her first instinct, when things went wrong, was to dance a jig. I hope I can train myself to have the same kind of reaction to trouble. Like: Oh no, there's a fly in my soup! *does a jig while lipsyncing "shoo fly"*
  • Mr K. - I guess you could call it the "SU" word - my least favorite.
  • Wow, "flaring newbies"? That nostril guy is really making everything way too tense. But I shouldn't criticise; I haven't been through the elaborate hazing rituals that you established members have.
  • I haven't been through the elaborate hazing rituals that you established members have quick, somebody fetch the goat.
  • So we're all agreed: kittens are cuter than puppies, and Lisa Simpson is a newbie troll.
  • We have a saying in the Bidness: "Never do a live demo." Because they always. get. f**ked. up. I understand the ire from the listeners viewpoint (although I can't believe that anyone is shocked SHOCKED to learn that lipsynching goes on on television), but from a network TV live show viewpoint - do you run a usually competently lip-synched tape, or do you let a young, overcompensated and therefore super-ego driven moderate talent have a live mike? It is, as they say, a no brainer. The only thing notable about this is the quality and thoroughness of the TFU.
  • Well, I, for one, will not stand by while shinything makes wild and unsubtantiated assertions about the relative cuteness of puppies. Next thing you know we'll start to hear that ninjas are cooler than pirates. And if we let that by, just imagine what people might say.
  • ...or do you let a young, overcompensated and therefore super-ego driven moderate talent have a live mike? Personally, I wouldn't give anyone of that description a record contract, much less a live TV appearance. But then if I chose what goes on TV and had a chance to axe all of the wasted space, there'd be about four channels total. But hey, not everyone has the talent and dedication to be a sideline elitist like me.
  • She's scheduled to perform again tonight, at another event billed as "Live."
  • Lori, don't you see? It's a joke... or at least that's what I was told when I brought the same thing up.
  • That's funny, cause that's the same reason I can't listen to her excuses.
  • Hmm. Reflux? I assumed that any gastric distress would have, um, further down the system, thus explaining the odd "dancing."
  • Dude, I have acid reflux. I've never lost my voice from, and frankly can't imagine how I could. And she had it back by the time she blamed her band. That's where she really fucked up.
  • in other news, talentless shit promoted.
  • I had vocal health issues a few years ago as a result of reflux. The idea is that gastric juices can reflux into the vocal tract at night while the person is asleep, which is one of the reasons why folks that suffer from reflux will often sleep on a bed with the head raised. I've also had episodes where I've refluxed while standing and could actually feel it in my throat. It sucked ass, moreso because I sing all day, every day at work. Reflux laryngitis is real, and can be traumatic for a professional voice user. That doesn't excuse Ms. Simpson's bullshit finger-pointing at her band. That's poor form. And if she could get a cortisone shot for the upcoming Radio Music Awards (not an uncommon quick fix for laryngitis sufferers on that level), why wasn't that an option for SNL?
  • Now that I think about it... the steroids probably weren't an option for the RMAs because she no doubt initially planned to use a track for that gig as well. However, with the SNL fracas blowing up everywhere and her career on the line, she and her handlers probably decided that it was worth a risk to her voice to ensure a true live performance. All things considered, it's better to not sing when suffering from extreme laryngitis, but sometimes you just gotta do it. I took steroids to get through a gig for the first time last December (under a doctor's supervision). I had a range of maybe less than an octave, and was expected to sing B-flats full-out. The drugs helped get rid of the inflammation, but it's never an ideal option... my voice was totally shot for a few days afterward.
  • Another performer complains of gastric distress, but the show must go on.
  • I was so convinced that the preceding link was fake... but Pujol is apparently the real thing. Holy crap.
  • Stop Ashlee
  • Stop Ashlee comments. Why doesn't Monkeyfilter dovote time to unsung musical artists.