Latest on MJJC

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
I love live i love hearing Michael voice so beautiful the dancing imo does get in the way of Michael singing live by the the time he does all of the moving and dancing he is out of breath it hard but Michael does it.
 
Gaga summed it up best for me with this:

I think if you pay money for a ticket to see a show, the artist should f****** have some pipes and sing their records for you.
Click to expand...
 
dewey said:
Gaga summed it up best for me with this:

I think if you pay money for a ticket to see a show, the artist should f****** have some pipes and sing their records for you.
Click to expand...

Very true. But then she also said "Rah-rah-ah-ah-ah-ah! Roma-roma-mamaa! Ga-ga-ooh-la-la! Want your bad romance", so I don't know what to believe.
 
Tony R said:
Very true. But then she also said "Rah-rah-ah-ah-ah-ah! Roma-roma-mamaa! Ga-ga-ooh-la-la! Want your bad romance", so I don't know what to believe.
Click to expand...

Lady Gaga, the great philosopher
 
Michael clearly preferred to keep the dancing over the singing on the HIStory tour but even if we accept that it still doesn't excuse songs like You Are Not Alone, Stranger in Moscow etc. Perhaps singing those songs live after 20 minutes of dancing proved difficult by that point.
 
Personally, Lip-singing.
I'm just not a fan of Michael's live vocals for high intensity songs. Listening to him sing it live, it's hard to tell they are the same person from album version to live performance.
History was perfect for Billie Jean.
It was a polished performance, and the performance was smooth and cut, bringing the audience back to 1983.
Loved it.
 
Live for me, but overall I love his performances live or lip-synced. :yes:
Lip-syncing has never lessened the enjoyment of any of his performances for me at all.:)

I honestly just love to see Michael perform in general because whether or not that particular performance is lip-synced I still know I'm watching the greatest to ever touch a stage.
It's not like he ever lost his vocals either because although I've never watched the whole thing (too sad for me) the clips I've seen of This Is It seem to prove that he could still sing his cute lil ass off.:D
 
Last edited:
It depends...the performances that are lip synced, I like them they way they are. And the ones that are sung live, I like them they way they are
 
There are certain songs that just sound better on the record than they do live. Billie Jean is one such song for me. I never quite liked Michael's live singing on this song. He sounded exhausted.
 
Almost all live performances of "Billie Jean" used playback, to various extents. The entire Motown 25 bit was album vocals, but in later years Michael started doing the last part live, followed by freestyle dancing. I don't think his voice was suffering, but its very hard to maintain enough energy to dance and sing simultaneously, especially over long periods.
 
Moviefan2k4 said:
Almost all live performances of "Billie Jean" used playback, to various extents. The entire Motown 25 bit was album vocals, but in later years Michael started doing the last part live, followed by freestyle dancing. I don't think his voice was suffering, but its very hard to maintain enough energy to dance and sing simultaneously, especially over long periods.
Click to expand...

Billie Jean was sung live more times than lip synced.
 
Speaking of live singing. Live singing sounds much better with a handheld mic instead of a headset mic. There was a show on the Dangerous Tour where Michael's headset mic wasn't working, so he had to switch to a handheld, and his vocals sounded so much better then. It was like listenting to the BAD Tour.
 
analogue;4176703 said:
Speaking of live singing. Live singing sounds much better with a handheld mic instead of a headset mic. There was a show on the Dangerous Tour where Michael's headset mic wasn't working, so he had to switch to a handheld, and his vocals sounded so much better then. It was like listenting to the BAD Tour.
Click to expand...

It beats me how those really expensive headset microphones (during MJ’s shows) came up against such problems so frequently.

MJ had the luxury of using the most advanced technological on-stage equipments, yet he could not get rid of such problems at all.

Such issues come from other songs as well, for example, during the performance of ‘Heal The World’ in Bucharest (HIStory Tour, 1996). MJ’s headset microphone stopped working at all towards the end of that performance. As a result of that, MJ had to resort to a handheld one (most likely borrowed from a backing singer)!

[video=youtube;5qQf9lvUVs8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qQf9lvUVs8[/video]
 
Billie Jean was lip synced much more often than live.. the ratio isn't even comparable (accept when ad libs came in) and when Mikes headset would "go out" that was often simply them not ready with the mic from switching from lip sync to live during songs that's switch over.. it happened quite often!!
 
KOPV said:
Billie Jean was lip synced much more often than live.. the ratio isn't even comparable (accept when ad libs came in) and when Mikes headset would "go out" that was often simply them not ready with the mic from switching from lip sync to live during songs that's switch over.. it happened quite often!!
Click to expand...

Billie Jean was live on the Victory Tour, Bad Tour and Dangerous Tour. It was only on the history tour that he started lip synching the song. So no, it was not lip synced more oftan than live.
 
KOPV said:
Billie Jean was lip synced much more often than live.. the ratio isn't even comparable (accept when ad libs came in) and when Mikes headset would "go out" that was often simply them not ready with the mic from switching from lip sync to live during songs that's switch over.. it happened quite often!!
Click to expand...

Billie Jean was sung live on the Victory Tour, BAD Tour and Dangerous Tour. It was sung live more times than lip synced
 
I'll have to somewhat eat my words.. youre righ when it comes to number of times sung live.. now if we're talking about what we as a total have heard, there's more circulated lipsynced Billie Jeans that live.. have it be the few different History concerts that aired, any award performance, Motown 25. we've been given more of that.. So I think it's fair to say most have seen more lip sync though (youre right) he's performed it live more. of course now with youtube things are changing on that regard too though.
 
Speaking of headset mics, I always wondered if the audience could tell that Michael was using playback. I always felt it was obvious to hear the change in quality and voice when he switched from playback to live in songs like Billie Jean or Beat it.

Also wonder if he had a speaker built into his mic. Watching Amateur performance of MJ performing Earth Song, it always sounded like the vocals followed him on the cherry picker, almost as if it were live.
 
I prefer it sung live as well. Just because, in my opinion, it feels more of a connection between Michael and the audience. Hearing every syllable and breath he pronounces or makes right at the same moment… However, a lip-synched version wouldn't have been disappointing, because as many stated before, it is all about the experience. Michael was a performer in every regard. If a basic singer who's famous only for his singing abilities would lip-synch, it would be disappointing, but Michael Jackson used his pre-recordign vocals as a means of improving the whole thing, which is a valid and just reason...
 
chris123678 said:
Speaking of headset mics, I always wondered if the audience could tell that Michael was using playback. I always felt it was obvious to hear the change in quality and voice when he switched from playback to live in songs like Billie Jean or Beat it.
Click to expand...
I think that depends on a lot of things. When you're up front, like I was at 2 HIStory concerts, you have the speakers blasting in your face, you can't really tell what's what, because it's so loud it becomes noise in your ears, rather than music and singing. I couldn't tell when he was switching from lip sync to live. At one point his voice had become like it sounded like he was screaming. I mean, literally screaming. Of course he wasn't, it was just the affect the loudness had on my ears. Maybe at other parts in the stadium it sounded different, I don't know
 
Last edited:
Michaels Lover said:
I think that depends on a lot of things. When you're up front, like I was at 2 HIStory concerts, you have the speakers blasting in your face, you can't really tell what's what, because it's so loud it becomes noise in your ears, rather than music and singing. I couldn't tell when he was switching from lip sync to live. At one point his voice had become like it sounded like he was screaming. I mean, literally screaming. Of course he wasn't, it was just the affect the loudness had on my ears. Maybe at other parts in the stadium it sounded different, I don't know
Click to expand...



Did the audience seem disappointed that he used playback?
 
Personally, I like the Live vocal performances. It's normal that his voices changes comparing to the Album version, it's life. But for the HWT in most of the concerts his voice wasn't good to sing live.
 
1nn5 said:
Personally, I like the Live vocal performances. It's normal that his voices changes comparing to the Album version, it's life. But for the HWT in most of the concerts his voice wasn't good to sing live.
Click to expand...

His voice was in pretty bad shape during the HIStory Tour. When he did sing on that tour it sounded painful. I don't like lip syncing, but I understand why so much of it was done on the HIStory Tour.
 
I think also we have to consider he didn't sing it the same every tour.. I mean Dangerous for example since everything was faster tempo - he didn't sing it as clear and parts some times he literally whispered..
 
KOPV said:
I think also we have to consider he didn't sing it the same every tour.. I mean Dangerous for example since everything was faster tempo - he didn't sing it as clear and parts some times he literally whispered..
Click to expand...

I agree. Billie Jean never really sounded like the studio version when played live.
 
Galactus123 said:
I agree. Billie Jean never really sounded like the studio version when played live.
Click to expand...

Ahh but that's the beauty of it. Some people want to see something familiar in a different context. I love the twists that comes with live performances. The inability to reproduce the same results live as in the studio is great thing imo.
 
I prefer it 100% live, no matter if he sounds bad or good :) if I want to hear clean vocals I just go for the released studio version.

Galactus123 said:
I agree. Billie Jean never really sounded like the studio version when played live.
Click to expand...

I think the DWT rehearsals is the closest to the studio version..
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top