Alizée and lip syncing, thoughts?

[Euphoria]

I have to agree with lefty on this one. 100%

[Jake04]

That says a lot coming from a professional singer/musician like Lefty. I have to agree with everything he had to say. And, just like him, I like Alizee's voice just the way it is. I thought she did a fantastic job during the "Samadi Goldman" show.

We all know there are more singers out there, French or otherwise, who can sing better than Alizee: Nolwenn Leroy, Amel Bent, Natasha St Pier, etc. There are also a lot of them who are just - some might argue, even more beautiful than Alizee; Jenifer, Claire, Shy'm, etc. But, overall, I wouldn't trade Alizee to any or even all of them. I know her great performance comes few and far between, which for me, just makes it more special! When she's at her best, very few, if any, could beat her!

Finally, as long as she doesn't pull a "Milli Vanilli" then I could care less whether she sings live or not.

[pepelepew]

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. 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.

She also does studio recordings well. In my opinion, very little autotuning is used on Alizée’s albums. The reason I say this is because autotuning is one of those things that once you start using it, you have a tendency to want to fix everything. There are imperfections in Alizée’s albums that a person using autotune would have probably fixed. The other thing is that autotune sometimes leaves artifacts behind which can sometimes be detected. I never hear any of that on her albums. Even En Concert. If it had been up to me, I would have fixed JEAM and JPVA.

The fact is, most live concerts that are recorded often use audio recorded from other concerts on the same tour to get the best performances. They usually also record the whole concert with no audience present and use much of that for audio as well as close-up shots. I’m sure En Concert was recorded this way. We all have seen her hair change and her wedding ring appear, disappear and reappear.

Alizée’s voice is not a powerful one. People with softer voices often have trouble hearing themselves through the monitoring systems during live performances and they are likely to have pitch and other vocal control problems. I like Alizée’s voice just as it is, but the downside of her vocal style is that live performances can be more difficult. The final thing I would say is that I don’t believe Alizée has put the time and effort into practicing and vocal coaching like she did under MF. I have a feeling she has been doing a bit more lately, but I think a lack of serious practice has hurt her in live situations in the past. All in all, Alizée won’t probably have the best live vocal performances, but a lot of us like her voice the way it is. And I for one would not want to trade her vocal timbre for better live performances. However, I still believe it is within her ability to improve on those live performances if she works on it more.

You make some valid points Lefty. I really can't argue with any of them. Even if the duet was actually done in a studio, it is one of her best vocal performances including harmony ever. I think the use of playback is just as prevalent in the US as in France. They were even caught using playback on the x factor with contestants.Integrity has never been a strong suit in the music industry. They have just taken smoking mirrors to new heights with the technology available. I do disagree with one thing Lefty. I think having the pretend instruments happening during a playback performance is a real deception, however it is not exclusive to Alizee, in fact it is widespread internationally.I do agree that it simplifies the production of a live broadcast though and has to lower costs there of.

[Corsaire]

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.

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”.

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.

“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.

_______________________

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... )

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:

[lapinschous]

Originally Posted by Corsaire

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.

I very much agree with the above and share Corsaire's point of view as far as her singing skills are concerned . Let's face it, one has to be of terribly bad faith not to acknowledge Lili's systematic shortcomings when performing live.

Her Asian promo tour of 2003 provides some interesting content since the japanese and koreans couldn't allow her to lip-synch in front of their audiences.



We can clearly hear that she doesn't dare to sing much louder, (well actually she never dared to sing much louder than that in her entire career!) , likely afraid of losing control over her singing , knowing that she was born with a much weaker and softer voice than most singers. She's quickly out of breath , obviously lacks training and doesn't have the confidence required to go high pitch .

Yet , with all that in mind, I still believe that , hadn't she made her partnership with Mylène come to an end, she would have made a lot of progress and overcame the major weaknesses of her voice... From Graines de Star to the Live 2004 concert , you guys must admit that Mylène's impact on her singing skills was all but unsignificant!


-----
On a sidenote, thanks Corsaire for making me discover Stéphanie Bédard

[Corsaire]

Originally Posted by lapinschous

I very much agree with the above and share Corsaire's point of view as far as her singing skills are concerned . Let's face it, one has to be of terribly bad faith not to acknowledge Lili's systematic shortcomings when performing live.

Well, we are on a fan forum, so, there should be a great deal of cognitive dissonance going on.
Read the second paragraph. (I am not talking about anyone in particular, by the way)

Originally Posted by lapinschous

On a sidenote, thanks Corsaire for making me discover Stéphanie Bédard

Stéphanie can perform at a very high level and she comes in many flavors. Have a look here.

[Karin]

Originally Posted by lapinschous

We can clearly hear that she doesn't dare to sing much louder, (well actually she never dared to sing much louder than that in her entire career!) , likely afraid of losing control over her singing , knowing that she was born with a much weaker and softer voice than most singers. She's quickly out of breath , obviously lacks training and doesn't have the confidence required to go high pitch .

Yet , with all that in mind, I still believe that , hadn't she made her partnership with Mylène come to an end, she would have made a lot of progress and overcame the major weaknesses of her voice... From Graines de Star to the Live 2004 concert , you guys must admit that Mylène's impact on her singing skills was all but unsignificant!

well... why she should sing louder? I think she sang loud as was possible. I think the problem was in something else... cause ML music sounds good, but the output from speakers for me sound really weird in this, compared with music

[lefty12357]

Originally Posted by Corsaire

“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.

By "almost live" I mean it is a studio recording, but the takes are usually live without doing punch-ins. Another words, it's not much different than recording a live show, but you have much better control over the acoustics and background noise.

Originally Posted by Corsaire

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”.

It is more difficult than you think. However many shows do it all the time because they are dedicated to doing live performances and are willing to put forth the effort to do it. And there are some shows that broadcast live performances and don't do such a great job. I'm not defending any TV show that chooses to go the easy route, I'm simply saying that one of the reasons these shows will prerecord performances is to avoid the effort and/or to avoid unfortunate incidents.

Originally Posted by lapinschous

I very much agree with the above and share Corsaire's point of view as far as her singing skills are concerned . Let's face it, one has to be of terribly bad faith not to acknowledge Lili's systematic shortcomings when performing live.

Her Asian promo tour of 2003 provides some interesting content since the japanese and koreans couldn't allow her to lip-synch in front of their audiences.



We can clearly hear that she doesn't dare to sing much louder, (well actually she never dared to sing much louder than that in her entire career!) , likely afraid of losing control over her singing , knowing that she was born with a much weaker and softer voice than most singers. She's quickly out of breath , obviously lacks training and doesn't have the confidence required to go high pitch .

Actually, it pretty much sounds like Alizée to me. I wouldn't expect her to sound much different. It's too bad they did such a terrible job matching the vocal to the playback music. You get a lot of direct sound from the playback and a lot of bad room acoustics on the voice.

Here are a few more live vocal performances to compare:

http://youtu.be/2yMVGtnrTj0

http://youtu.be/WP9LYD_Am4A

And to no one in particular I would say that this is how Alizée sounds. This is how she has always sounded, sometimes better, sometimes worse. I would think that people who like her and have listened to her for years would be aware of this. As I said before, I think she should practice, practice, practice. But I wouldn't expect any major change in her voice at this point.

[Corsaire]

Originally Posted by lefty12357

By "almost live" I mean it is a studio recording, but the takes are usually live without doing punch-ins. Another words, it's not much different than recording a live show, but you have much better control over the acoustics and background noise.

Lefty, until proven otherwise, the RV part is from his studio album. You can even hear the hissing imperfection near the end. If you suggest that they would reuse some voice track (and maybe some instrumental tracks) from a studio recording that was used for the production of a RV album but then would make sure that Alizée’s performance was done in an “almost” live condition in a studio, so that they could play the whole thing back in that fake setting, I am sorry to say that this makes little sense to me.

Originally Posted by lefty12357

It is more difficult than you think. However many shows do it all the time because they are dedicated to doing live performances and are willing to put forth the effort to do it. And there are some shows that broadcast live performances and don't do such a great job. I'm not defending any TV show that chooses to go the easy route, I'm simply saying that one of the reasons these shows will prerecord performances is to avoid the effort and/or to avoid unfortunate incidents.

So far, I checked 4 other performances from “Les Années bonheur” and they all looked pretty genuinely live, with voice breaking when pushed too far, and all. Again, until proven otherwise, RV and Alizée’s performance was not live, and my opinion is that it was clearly set up so that people would think it was live. People can conclude what they want, but I really don’t see how I am not supposed to feel deceived by this.

Originally Posted by lefty12357

Actually, it pretty much sounds like Alizée to me. I wouldn't expect her to sound much different. It's too bad they did such a terrible job matching the vocal to the playback music. You get a lot of direct sound from the playback and a lot of bad room acoustics on the voice.

Here are a few more live vocal performances to compare:

http://youtu.be/2yMVGtnrTj0

http://youtu.be/WP9LYD_Am4A

And to no one in particular I would say that this is how Alizée sounds. This is how she has always sounded, sometimes better, sometimes worse. I would think that people who like her and have listened to her for years would be aware of this. As I said before, I think she should practice, practice, practice. But I wouldn't expect any major change in her voice at this point.

So, what was the point of even discussing this, then?

I came here to praise Alizée’s “live” performance (and I also said in another thread that her live voice seemed to have gotten better, as of late), but then, I felt that I had been deceived by the “Les Années bonheur” performance. You don’t think this performance was deceiving and, respectfully, I beleive you are wrong. My other point is that Alizée has yet to show that she can consistently perform well (not extraordinarily well, just well) in her live performances. Here, I am sorry to say that I don’t know if you have been arguing this point, or you have simply tried to explain why this is the case. Well, unless you or I come up with something that hasn’t yet been said already, I suppose this won’t get much further.

[lapinschous]

It's more common for young artists in France to lipsynch, especially when dancing. But what Alizée doesn't understand is that quite a lot of time has passed and she hasn't put on a single good dancing show for years.