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Billie Jean. Sung live or lip synced?

Do you prefer Billie Jean sung live or lip synced?

  • Sung live

    Votes: 63 85.1%

  • Lip synced

    Votes: 11 14.9%
  • Total voters
    74
Why he didnt sing Billie Jean live on Motown 25 is beyond me. He gave such an amazing performance on the J5 medley, that every time i watch it I have to remind myself that this was actually live.
 
Live vocals is always the best, the second leg in Bad World Tour 1988 in USA is the best part of the tour, much better to Europe, because he does always Live Vocals except the first half of Man in The Mirror.

But i love the all 88 - 89 of bad tour, only in concerts from February to April are the best of the all Tour.
 
To be honest, my favorite performances of Billie Jean involve him lipsyncing it (yes, HIStory Tour ones), so.

But I do love hearing him sing it live. Either-or, but I just prefer the lip-synced ones 'cause by the time he did HIStory tour, he was really tuning it up a notch with the robotic movements and I like that a lot. Plus I love the ending sequence the most of Billie Jean.
 
Live all the way for me.

NOT fan of lip-synching...
 
I would usually choose live vocals in a heartbeat, but based on the performances we have, it simply doesn't get better than Billie Jean on the HIStory tour. That song was the highlight of the whole tour for me. Some nights it would go on for over ten minutes.... all the little quirks he'd developed, taking the outfit out of the suitcase, talking to the hat, beatboxing, doing the robot moves.... lip-synched or not it was just brilliant.
 
I don't mind. Two of my favorite performances are lip synced (VMA 95, 30th Anniversary) and they're so brilliant I don't pay attention to it. I wish he sang live a bit more than he did though. Not just Billie Jean. But I also get why he didn't.
 
I love, Billie Jean live, he has more freedom. However, I do prefer lip-synced because he was more into it when the playback was cut off and he was doing it live, after the first Moonwalk.
 
Apart from anything else, lip synced has no ad-libs.

I've worked out that 28% of the enjoyment I get from Michael's singing is from ad-libs.
 
I am schocked really that 5 people actually prefer Billie Jean lip-synced...
 
I always prefer live performances. Watching/Hearing Michael lip-sync is disappointing.
 
This is the one song where I actually prefer dubbed vocals. It allowed Michael to focus more on dancing over keeping his vocals on key.
 
IMO MJ never really had to worry about singing in key - he just naturally did so.

If he was out of breath there are many lines he can let the back-up singes sing and get his breath.

Most the dance starts after the breakdown really - so he does not have to sing there. - Which makes playback even more stupid really...
 
Galactus123 said:
But isn't singing as important as dancing? Maybe even more important.
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Typically yes. But Billie Jean to me has always been a dancing song - it's only one of a few numbers where I'm actually focusing on Michael's moves rather than his voice. That and Smooth Criminal.
 
AlwaysThere said:
Typically yes. But Billie Jean to me has always been a dancing song - it's only one of a few numbers where I'm actually focusing on Michael's moves rather than his voice. That and Smooth Criminal.
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Yeah, I agree about Smooth Criminal. I don't think anyone minds Michael not singing Smooth Criminal live. Almost the whole performance is a routine and it's already a hard one to sing live because it's deep on the verses and high on the choruses.

Billie Jean, however... Okay, so he's older and tires quicker by the time the HIStory tour rolls around but there's just way too much lip-syncing. He clearly sounds tired in the Brunei concert but I think most would prefer that.
 
EmCeeSquared said:
Yeah, I agree about Smooth Criminal. I don't think anyone minds Michael not singing Smooth Criminal live. Almost the whole performance is a routine and it's already a hard one to sing live because it's deep on the verses and high on the choruses.
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But it's much better live, isn't it?

Compare the thrill of watching on Bad vs. Dangerous. Yes the latter has the lean & is great to watch, but the nuances of SC & BJ when he sings live take it to another level.

If it's all about the dance, then watch the short film.
 
Tony R said:
But it's much better live, isn't it?

Compare the thrill of watching on Bad vs. Dangerous. Yes the latter has the lean & is great to watch, but the nuances of SC & BJ when he sings live take it to another level.

If it's all about the dance, then watch the short film.
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It's a shame he didn't sing the ab-libs of Smooth Criminal live on the Dangerous tour like he did on the Bad tour.

But it's not just about the dancing when he lip-syncs. The experience of watching the full routine done on stage in front of an audience uninterrupted is different to that of the video.
 
EmCeeSquared said:
It's a shame he didn't sing the ab-libs of Smooth Criminal live on the Dangerous tour like he did on the Bad tour.

But it's not just about the dancing when he lip-syncs. The experience of watching the full routine done on stage in front of an audience uninterrupted is different to that of the video.
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He didn't sing the ad-libs because he didn't sing any of it. That's the problem.

Thankfully with MITM at least he did half & half so you had 3 minutes of earth-shattering ad-libs.
 
Why Michael didn't sing every song live during the 1988 leg of the BAD Tour is beyond me. His voice was in good enough shape for him to do so
 
analogue said:
Why Michael didn't sing every song live during the 1988 leg of the BAD Tour is beyond me. His voice was in good enough shape for him to do so
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I'd say he was well able to hit the notes, but the frequency of the shows I think were a factor. Mike's style of singing was quite aggressive so I think he just had to sacrifice a couple of songs instead of sacrificing a show due to a sore throat? That's the only reasoning I can think of. Definitely not laziness in 88/89.

Alternatively, he could have done what he did with Can You Feel It in 81 and just sing around the high parts and change it up- much like he did with some songs in Amsterdam 79.

If the show wasn't so large and grandiose with everything pre-determined, he could just simply change songs at the last minute to suit how he was feeling.
 
Live! I've always found it much more vibrant live. Simply put, live is truth. You can't watch Billie Jean from Munich 92 and think "it's better lip synced" it brings it to a much more exciting level, especially moments like, when he sings "For forty days and forty nights, the law was on her side" & he's breathless, adds new poignancy to the lyric, effecting it differently & putting different emphasis on different words, and almost bringing new meaning, we're hearing it how he's hearing it at that moment. So you're getting a true representation of expression at the moment it's expressed. I would have preferred less emphasis on perfect dancing and perfect singing, with more focus put on "live" singing and live expression. Especially as he got older, I think much of the dancing could have taken a back seat in favor of live vocals.
 
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