Cazart! Kids, do I have a treat for you.
Last year Beyonce played Today Show. She did a few cuts from the latest album. One of those was "If I Was a Boy." What the crowd on the plaza and the fans at home heard was this. But what did it actually sound like?
The "sound board feed" has been leaked. Mrs. Jay Z doesn't actually sound ... human. I would describe it as a parrot being sawed in half.
This should give you plenty of ammunition when your coworker tries to tell your that Beyonce is not the product of a marketing machine and is actually a great singer. "Oh yeah, Susan, have a listen to this."
UPDATE: In the spirit of fairness: There is some question over the validity of the clip. So, we'll say we don't know if it's real and funny either way.
Last year Beyonce played Today Show. She did a few cuts from the latest album. One of those was "If I Was a Boy." What the crowd on the plaza and the fans at home heard was this. But what did it actually sound like?
The "sound board feed" has been leaked. Mrs. Jay Z doesn't actually sound ... human. I would describe it as a parrot being sawed in half.
This should give you plenty of ammunition when your coworker tries to tell your that Beyonce is not the product of a marketing machine and is actually a great singer. "Oh yeah, Susan, have a listen to this."
UPDATE: In the spirit of fairness: There is some question over the validity of the clip. So, we'll say we don't know if it's real and funny either way.
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Aw my... the pain...
But Britney's original voice samples are still worse.
Is this for real? C'mon ... really? I can sing circles around that.
If most of these people are talentless, is the whole 'unplugged' thing rigged too?
Apparently this is for real. The sound board feed was played on Stern yesterday.
That is the funniest thing I have seen today. But I don't think its real. Man, too good.
They have lots of artists unmasked on you tube, Cindy.
We have our examples down here and I can tell you, this kind of thing is for real. A famous girl singer was asked to sing a capella in a TV show and the result was 100% different from her records.
I'll gladly retract the whole thing if turns out it's fake. A lot of places have picked up the story.
http://www.theinsider.com/news/2066431_Howard_Stern_Leaks_Beyonce_s_Today_Show_Performance
Stern said he had got his hands on other "sound board feeds" before. Like Enrique Iglesias and others.
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/220989/what_enrique_iglesias_really_sounds_like/
He skewered Linda McCartney 15 years or so ago.
Linda was another one that was mentioned.
As much as I'd love these to be real the site with the spash on the videos (hellohomo.com) has a post saying that they are fake. http://dontfeedtheartist.wordpress.com/2009/01/11/hq-beyonce-video-downloads/
As a performing musician, I have to ask/say....
Look, if you know you're lip synching, you're not going to put much into the actual singing except making sure you move your mouth the right way. Having no monitors with your actual voice coming out means she probably couldn't hear herself sing over the piped in music. I play much smaller shows than that and have nights where I can't hear my own voice WITH monitors.
Also, even for the most minor of acts it is common to have some sort of vocal processing. Even if it is just a compressor, a nice tube pre, some EQ.... Since noone was going to hear this, she probably just had a Shure 57 going straight into the board. I can hear that there's no compression... I would have to assume the rest is missing too. Hell, since noone was supposed to hear it, I'm guessing the engineer didn't even bother to trim the signal. (Considering that this is a bootleg feed of unknown origins, the engineer could have been someone with a grudge who set the controls to make it sound even worse...)
Since she's lip synching, she's concentrating on looking at fans, moving around, putting emotion in her body language... She's not concentrating on her singing. Noone's ever going to hear what's really going on, right?
So, what you're hearing is a singer who cannot even hear her own voice, singing into a setup that is way crappier than what High School garage bands use, focusing on her stage presence and not her singing.
As much as I enjoy the unmasking of those who populate the top 40, and as much as I think the "Live Concert" on TV shows is a MF'ing joke... I really can't hate on the "singing". I'm just amazed that they can get people to show up and cheer while they listen to the CD and "fake" perform.
Hating on this would be like me asking you to mimic throwing a pitch with no ball in your hand and then criticizing your form. It's not really fair. Had she known that the board feed would go public, maybe she says "Oh, in that case I need a monitor, and you'd better put some compression, eq, and reverb on that channel or I will slap you silly."
I have to back up LostInDaJungle on this much: Trying to sing without decent monitors is like trying to write a letter blindfolded. No matter how right it feels without sight, the results will hurt your eyes...
Then, if you can't hear yourself, but you try to sing loud enough to hear anyway? Not only are you writing blindfolded, you're leaning on the pen with your entire body weight. You'll make a mark, but you won't be able to control it.
Some performers may not be given a choice. The show has to be perfect, but soundchecks take so damn long, and the plane back to LA's not going to wait on you. The guy in charge hooks up the playback and everyone else has to lock step.
Let's not delude ourselves here. Beyonce's got some pipes, and anyone arguing otherwise is just being vicious. I don't like pop music any more than the next Slayer fan, either, but where credit is deserved, it should be given.
I don't doubt that someone like Beyonce, Britney Spears or Madonna might start out with an artistic vision and a drive to perform, but when the royalties start rolling in and you're a few tax brackets away from where you started, then you find the bank account is easier to maintain than that vision. It sucks when that happens, but, well, that happens. An entourage is expensive, I imagine.
But look, Beyonce isn't an act I'd pay to see, so it's none of my business if it's faked or not, and if you want your money back, go ahead an ask for it, just keep in mind that Jay-Z ain't gonna let you take cash out of his pocket. That guy's scary.
The Enrique thing is a proven fake:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enrique_Iglesias#Public_Image
I'm pretty skeptical about this Beyonce thing as well. I think what LostInDaJungle said is extremely plausible. I'd put money on that's what actually happened.
I added a little note on the post. It may not be real. I just don't want Beyonce's dad to yell at me.
The monitor explanation seems plausible to me.
JW
The lyrics are stupid regardless.
actually, E, they are a pretty accurate view of how many of us women see the world...that boys can be boys but we women have to be on our best behavior.
that guys can cheat and their buddies will have their backs...a guy who sleeps around is sowing his oats, a girl does it and she's a whore...that it's easier to live a low maintenance lifestyle as a guy...etc, etc.
Think about it--if the average person saw a guy walking down the street in a wrinkled tee shirt, they'd assume he was single or his wife or girlfriend was out of town.
If that same person saw a woman walking down the same street looking just as disheveled, the assumption would be that she was doing the walk of shame, was homeless, or was mentally ill.
Think Keith Richards versus Amy Winehouse.
She's saying she'd be a bum and a poon hound if she was a boy? Is that good or bad?
Basically....she talks about turning off her phone, telling everyone it's broken so that they would think she's sleeping alone...she talks about the guys having her back when she's out...rolling out of bed and putting on whatever she wanted to wear...get with who she wanted and not get confronted, etc...
Is it good? Not IMHO---but it's honest...a walk in the perceived shoes of the other...
But she also sings about using the knowledge she has now of a female's mindset to be a better guy--that portion is good.
I could dissect the whole song, but won't...I just appreciate the honest lyrics from a female PoV...
the actual video illustrates it pretty well (the role reversal is interesting to me):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVTyLqkez6A
I saw the vid and she was a cop. You don't have to be a boy to be a cop.
If I was a girl I'd be a lesbian and wear rumpled shirts.
Anyway, to each his own. Don't really have anything against Beyonce.
She was him--if you noticed, he was the one who was really a cop at the end...
So, if you were a girl, you'd like girls and wear wrinkled shirts...
okay...but way to go out on a limb* and walk in the heels of 90%** of the opposite sex!
*not saying we walk on limbs
**based on the often bandied about stat of 1 in 10 people being gay
(when I say limbs, I mean tree limbs...I know that we walk using our legs, and someone will point out that those are limbs)
I saw the vid and she was a cop. You don't have to be a boy to be a cop.
If I was a girl I'd be a lesbian and wear rumpled shirts.
Anyway, to each his own. Don't really have anything against Beyonce.
Fucken double post.
I was thinking of that gal who was hooking up with Lindsey Lohan specifically. She's thinking outside of the box.
Samantha....whose family had to put a restraining order on LiLo...
and actually, she was thinking inside of the box, no?
Beyonce Knowles - dazzling beauty, sexy and stylish, well-danced and had a magnificent voice. I think that Beyons has become the most popular young singer in the contemporary pop scene. I often listen to her songs. Usually I downloading them from this site http://bestmp3.dyndns.dk/Beyonce/artist3377.html.