Sometimes I watch a YouTuber named Fil (yes, that's how he spells his name) whose channel goes by the name Wings of Pegasus. He's a musician who reviews musical performances available online. Lately he has specialized in running vocal performances through a software that detects whether they've been altered by digital pitch correction or autotune software. It's pretty fascinating stuff. Recently, he made some headlines when he determined that live performances by The Eagles on their current tour, Don Henley's lead vocal in particular, are being pitch corrected in concert. The question that arises, of course, is what is the point of paying good money for increasingly expensive concert tickets if the performances are not actually live. Isn't it at minimum false advertising? It should be said that some pre-recorded elements are not a new thing in concert performances. They've been with us since at least the 1970s. I remember attending a concert by Queen in the early 1980s at the Montreal Forum. When they played Bohemian Rhapsody at the moment they reached the operatic multi-layered vocal harmonies the stage suddenly went dark. The voices coming through the speakers were obviously not live. A collective WTF could be felt in the audience. The reason for doing this was obvious to everyone; the harmonies of the original recording (multiple tracks sung by one person, Freddie Mercury) could not be reproduced by the band in concert. At least they made no effort to hide it.
In a recent post, Fil analyzes a performance by Whitney Houston 'singing' the Star Spangled Banner at the 1991 Super Bowl. Fil was inspired to look at Whitney's performance by scathing online reaction to country singer Ingrid Andress's recent drunken, off-key performance of the anthem at a baseball game. The point was that at least Andress's performance was completely live, while incredibly, Whitney's performance, which included a large orchestra, was entirely mimed. The reason given for Whitney's lip-synch by the show's producers was that it had to be perfect, there was no room for error with so many millions watching. Seems drastic for two reasons, a. it's Whitney Houston for crissakes, one of the most sublimely talented singers of our era, and b. it's the Star Spangled Banner, a civic prayer, and to mess with it is a kind of sacrilege. That said, Whitney does a pretty respectable but not flawless job of lip-synching her pre-recorded performance. These days, using pre-recorded elements and digital voice correction in live performance has become ubiquitous to the point of being music industry standard. The main problem is that the powers-that-be don't tell us that. For its part, Wings of Pegasus has almost 400K subscribers doing mostly voice analysis to uncover if the live vocal performances we're hearing are actually live. I guess I'm not the only one interested in finding out how artists and the music industry are pulling the wool over our eyes (ears?).
There are questions that need answering. Is all this fakery well-meaning? A case of musicians using the new technologies to 'improve' the product they're producing? Is this just another example of the commodification of the arts, the industry taking something that was once essentially handcrafted and turning it into shoddy and inexpensive IKEA merchandise? Money is certainly a major part of it. But maybe something more nefarious is also going on. Maybe music is joining fake news, fake images and curated fake social media lives in an increasingly fake world. And maybe it's endemic of a culture, not of 'perfection', but rather of fear, the fear of making mistakes, and if so, a fear of being human.
I think we need a little reminder of what the arts have always been about and are meant to be: honest human expression, the more honest the greater the work of art. Honesty also means fearless, and fearlessness means vulnerable, exposed, and necessarily that includes flaws. It's the only way for art to do what it's supposed to do, touch the heart and soul. Art that doesn't do that is nothing but product.
In the last year I've been turned on to American blues music in a major way, not recent blues, or rock blues, original blues from the early part of the 20th century, the 1930s and 40s. Artists like Charley Patton, Sam Chatmon, Bill Broonzy, Skip James, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Robert Johnson and Son House. Fortunately, recordings by these artists are available online, many of them rare and done in one take. They were made before multi-tracking, before studio effects, before overdubbing. Even when they've been digitally 'cleaned up' from the crackly 78rpm LPs from which they've been taken they remain exquisitely 'imperfect' in their authenticity. What comes roaring across the decades in these raw performances is the only thing that matters in art, their honesty and humanity. They remind me of how much we've lost in our desire for AI-generated perfection.
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PS: You may have watched Celine Dion's much-anticipated, 'comeback' performance at the Paris Olympics opening ceremonies. The setting was dramatic, Celine in flowing white gown, standing on the Eiffel Tower overlooking Paris next to a piano, the rain pouring down as she belted out Edith Piaf's Hymne A L'Amour. Remarkable that Celine, who is suffering from a debilitating chronic illness that has kept her from performing for the last few years, could have the strength and capacity to perform at all, let alone in a drenching rain. It was a moving, jaw-dropping coda to the 4-hour long ceremonies. But I suspected it couldn't be all that it seemed, so I posted a request to Fil to do an analysis, and he answered (I was not the only one making the request). I would link to Celine's performance if I could, but it seems to have been scrubbed from the internet. Fil explains why.
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