Unless you've just landed after a 16 hour flight, there's no way you could've escaped the news about Beyonce's lip-syncing debacle. The world is abuzz with precious Queen Bey's slipup, i.e. lip-syncing the national anthem at the presidential inauguration on Monday, and some people have even gone so far as to compare her "betrayal" to that of Lance Armstrong.
Honestly, people.
For starters, this isn't the first time the reigning queen of hip hop/pop/all living things has been tied to the "abominable" practice. When she performed at the 2009 Academy Awards with Hugh Jackman, many people pointed a shaky finger and blamed her for lip-syncing. For some, particularly those who don't multitask by singing and dancing onstage, this feels like cheating. We don't necessarily take that stand, but we can understand its origin.
The important thing to remember is that Beyonce is not the first famed singer to be caught and shamed in the town square. And like all others then, this too shall pass.
For instance -- remember Ashlee Simpson's awkward "SNL" performance, circa 2004? The singer went onstage to perform her second song for the night, when the soundtrack started in the back and played the song she had already sung that night.
The 20-year-old gave a little dance onstage before bouncing off, reportedly with tears in her eyes. At the time, this was news.
How about Chris Brown at last year's Billboard Music Awards? The singer, equally known for being Rihanna's ex (or current squeeze?), put so much into his heavy-duty dance moves that he didn't even bother to check if it sounds like he's singing. It did not, and he got a ton of heat for it.
And who can forget Milli Vanilli, the duo who practically coined the term "lip sync"? Robert Pilatus and Fabrice Morvan not only pretended to sing the songs onstage, it wasn't even their voices fake-singing. They were merely front men. This time, it resulted in a recall of their Grammy award.
Forward on to 0:16 to Milli Vanilli's live MTV performance in 1989 when the track simply skipped, exposing their fib to the world.
Then there are times when you wish the stars would lip-sync. Christina Aguilera's 2011 Super Bowl performance comes to mind, when the "The Voice" judge fumbled through the words of the national anthem. Yikes...
Last but not least, no roundup in music history can be complete without a little Britney. Ms Spears sometimes uses the trusty assistance of pre-recorded vocals and sometimes doesn't, and we can't tell which of these times is more pleasing.
You be the judge:
All in good fun, Brit. All in good fun.
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