Is it significant whether or not Beyonce lip synced the inaugural National Anthem?

It doesn’t matter to me if she did or didn’t lip sync. Either way, she sang the song. If she did lip sync, it was probably because she didn’t want to mess up in front of so many people.
If I’m not mistaken, I think the guy you are referring to that was caught lip syncing was pretending it was him singing when it was actually someone else.

She has confessed. But she has already proven that she can sing.

Milli Vanilli were idiots right out of the gate. They lip-synched other people’s voices.

Doesn’t matter to me. What if her voice wasn’t strong that day and so she decided to lipsync? Better than singing poorly or ruining her vocal cords we know she really caj sung already. I think it is better if it is live for a special event like this, but if it was lipsynced, I certainly would not hold it agaist her. If she always lipsynced, then it would get tiresome and seem to artifical to me, but I don’t think that is the case for her.

I thought it was becoming the norm.

No, not at all. Out of all in the pain and suffering going on in the world, and out of all the really serious things that involve the President, I honestly don’t care about whether or not some performer was lip syncing or not.

I’m also not impressed. I’d rather hear her flub a note than see a performance that wasn’t live. They couldn’t find someone who actually wanted to sing live? There must be any number of brilliant and famous performers who would jump at the chance. She should have given her place to one of them.

When I listened to it a couple days ago she seemed to not sound perfect. I would not have guessed it wasn’t live.

There are a number of contradictions in the story. If, as they say here, “all inaugural music is pre-recorded in case weather conditions or other circumstances could interrupt the program,” then why wasn’t the band pre-recorded, or notified until the last minute that Beyoncee was going to do so?

And what is the purpose of a “back-up”? What would she do, stop singing in mid-anthem and say, “You know, this isn’t working out, let’s just roll the tape I recorded earlier.” Either they were going to play it or they weren’t.

I hate crap like this. It’s always “but this is standard practice”, but it’s also a secret. If they can’t tell the truth about it, then they must know the audience won’t appreciate it. In other words, either do it and tell the truth about it, or don’t do it. This is starting to remind me of dope-taking cyclists.

What surprises me, if she did lip sync, is that she thought she could get away with it without anybody ratting on her.

I agree with @PhiNotPi, and I never thought she was great to begin with…

It’s no big deal. Lots of outdoor things like that are lip synched, especially in winter. So what, it was her voice.

I don’t see it as a big deal. She recorded the audio used, so she did sing, just not live. Whether we want to believe it or not, this has become the norm rather than the exception at large scale outdoor events. Just too many things that can go wrong otherwise with an event that no one wants to see derailed. I’m actually surprised it’s even an issue.

Pop artists lip syncing doesn’t surprise me at all. Pop artists are a different breed than say a singer-songwriter, opera singer, etc. For a pop artist, it’s all about being popular, and having tons of execs marketing them etc etc. What I’m saying is, pop artists are so generic that when it comes to really performing what matters isn’t the delivery, but that they actually show up and have the lights, dancing, and crowds pumped.

This is my opinion having grown up through 90’s pop music.

I just watched the video of her performance, and I have to say…if she was lip synching, she did a hell of a good job with it! One: You can usually catch at least a second or two when the artist’s mouth doesn’t seem to match the actual sounds, and I couldn’t spot any. Two: There was, for lack of a better phrase, “breath noise” in the song, which there usually won’t be in a recording. Three: At one point, she removed her ear monitor to hear better. That seems unlikely if she’s syncing it.

None of that rules out the possibility, of course. Just saying that if she was lip synching, it didn’t diminish the good performance. Obvious lip synching does, because it takes you out of the moment.

What’s a little more fakery to make women feel inadequate?

Wasn’t it a cold day? Singing takes a lot of air and frigid air would not be good for the vocal chords. It could certainly affect voice quality. Since a lot of singers lip synch, especially for an outdoor concert, I can’t fault her.

As far as I am concerned none of todays “pop stars” can sing, and have to have their voices enhanced digitally, like Rebecca “the Black Plague” Black.

Just another example of the manufactured, shallow, sub-standard industry that music generally seems to be. Of course it doesn’t matter, not really, but if you’re going to profess yourself to be a leading talent in your business, then it’s live or nothing, simple as.

Who cares I didn’t watch it. I don’t care for her anyway, as well as the one she was there to preform for.

Doesn’t matter in the least to me. Not just because I’m not a Beyonce fan, but because as one who’s done a lot of professional recording, I know the technical difficulties of singing outdoors in front of such an immense audience. I can totally understand why a performer would she would want to protect her reputation by pre-recording. The only problem for me would have been if it had been marketed as a “live” performance. But I don’t recall seeing that it was.

My coworker held me down and forced me to watch it. It was easy to tell she’d Milli Vanilli’d it.

See the part when she takes the monitor out of her ear? Voice didn’t even waver. Now, I’m sorry, but if you’re going from using a monitor – where you can hear yourself and make near-instant tone changes, to not using one, and having to correct yourself by feel (because there’s no way she could hear herself singing in that crowd) there’s going to be some effect. Even if you’re effing amazing (which I don’t believe she is) there will be a noticeable difference between the two.

Once upon a time, if a person wanted to be a performing singer, they had to… y’know… sing.

Personally, unless the particular music style is not intended for live performance (electronica, for example), I tend to avoid artists that sound better on an album than they do live. If you can’t bring it on your own, without a millions-of-dollars studio behind you, don’t bring it at all.

It’s noticeable how many singers bloody murder your anthem, like they’re trying to out-warble one another with exaggerated wailing at the end of each line…make it go away.

Oh, I sooo agree with @ucme. It’s a good song, plain. Doesn’t need the pop touch with all those irritating and pointless warbles and inflections.

I see it all the time @Pachyderm_In_The_Room, just sing the bloody song…properly!

BTW, Slate agrees with me.

She didn’t, then she did, now she didn’t… WHO CARES !!!

In a culture full of fakery, it makes us groan when someone who is supposed to be real and musical turns out to be yet another part of our culture’s fakery. It just creates cynicism.

Real music doesn’t do that.