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Originally Posted by lefty12357
It seems that it has been relatively common for TV shows in France to use playback. My guess is this has more to do with quality control of the broadcast as well as making “live” performances more simple and save a lot of time rather than deceiving the public.
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Well, although it is common to use playback on French TV, according to lappy, there was some debating on Alizée-France over this, so I would think that even French people (well, at least some of them) were deceived. I am myself quite accustomed to seeing playback since it has been heavily used on Québec TV for decades, but there has always been an unwritten rule about using it; you can get away with it as long as you don’t make too much efforts to hide it. What I see here is a complete and utter deception from beginning to end. The orchestra at the back solemnly watching, the smaller selected ensemble playing music with strings on the side looking at the beautiful birds serenading each other. The white grand piano with the pianist wearing an ear piece, RV pretending to play guitar... and even unplugging it at the end... I wonder what could have been done to make a better attempt at deceiving. Maybe a sign at the back saying “This is really live signing, folks”.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lefty12357
Because you don’t have to set up all the microphones, do the sound checks and mix the performances live. Most of these performances are prerecorded in a studio, but they don’t spend the kind of time they would normally do when recording an album. Typically, little or no editing is done on the artist’s voice. Alizée seems to do these well and the recordings are “almost” live.
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“Almost” live? Lefty, I think you will be the first one to agree that it has become impossible to tell what has been done to a voice recording with today’s technology. Pitch correction can be applied in such manner that it is undetectable, even by audio professionals, and countless people in the business have corroborated this fact. So, if that particular Alizée performance is indeed from a studio recording, no one can tell how good it was to start with. Also, I don’t think that one can listen to an Alizée (or any other singer) recording and find telltale signs, to prove that her voice was not corrected, or only slightly corrected. The fact that there might remain slight imperfections in Alizée’s recordings doesn't convince me that no correction were applied.
Concerning Alizée’s live performances in general, I really don’t believe there is any excuse or explanation that will cut it for me. Since I have discovered Alizée, I have not been convinced that she can perform live reliably in a competent manner. Also, I have what I think are valid reasons to believe that the audio of En concert was tampered with, and for the rest, it saddens me to say that there is just too many poor and average live performances to convince me that when she does sound reasonably good, it is actually live. And I wouldn’t say that the LB/MF years were necessarily better years of live singing for Alizée as there are plenty of occurrences where she did sound, quite frankly, awful, even back then. pepe, I agree that voice alteration is rampant today and even live performances might be corrected “live”, but all I am saying is that in the case of Alizée, we have proofs that she has trouble singing live, and not two or three mishap, she has problems on a regular basis.
In any case, this should not turn into an Alizée bashing on my part. I suppose the majority of her fans love her voice and are willing to accept that she cannot perform live in a reliable manner. Myself, I make no excuse for this; I would hope that Alizée would rely less on her cute looks and her angelic voice and work a little more at being a good, solid performer, and I really don’t think she would have to change the texture of her voice to do so. But when I think of it, Alizée is probably giving to her fans what they really want.
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Additional comments on the complexity of producing live shows
I really don’t think it is that difficult to set up a stage with a piano, one a two violins, a bass, a guitar and percussions. That would have been plenty to accompanied a live rendition of Hélène by RV and Alizée. There is a very popular show in Québec called “Belle et Bum” that has been broadcasted every week for years and I would doubt it has even 5% of the resources that were invested in “Les Année bonheur”.
(Not doing bad in Québec, talentwise, by the way...
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Obviously, the guests on that show do
rehearse with the band beforehand, but these were live, one take. The level of difficulty here far exceeds that of Hélène, which is a relatively easy song to sing and perform. So, I really don’t buy the “it would take too long to set up” argument. The makers of of “Les Année bonheur” probably spent more time and efforts setting up this elaborate hoax (until proven otherwise) than it would have taken to just set up a minimal stage for a live performance.
** Edit **
I wrote all that before even checking other “Les Année bonheur” shows... Well, it turns out that they do offer (at least some) real live performances, so, I would say this adds to the deception they seem to have created for the RV and Alizée performance. Actually I was wondering why RV looked so uncomfortable at the end of the rendition... Did he feel awkward about this whole situation?
Here is Village People, quite “live”, I would say: