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Why did miming become acceptable?
pearlsandplums
Posts: 29,594 Forum Member
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I'm watching the nation's top 20 80s songs and this thought came to me. From one of the clips (don't leave me this way) it seems you MUST mime on to totp. Was there a reason for this or just because it's "easy "?
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But then miming on a pop tv show is hardly a crime compared to a concert you are paying to go and see.
It's very odd. I've heard some huge acts (rod Stewart) sing minimal amounts live. I don't understand why anyone would go and see Britney / Cheryl Cole. Not a single live note
There were practical difficulties to playing live with lack of rehearsal time, lack of control over the sound, studio orchestra often having no feel for the music, bolshy musician's union etc. That said, no doubt some 'singers' were very happy that lip-synching was the norm.
I've seen Rod Stewart live and he definitely wasn't miming.
To be fair, running around on stage like a scalded cat during a performance, which is the penchant of many, must make actual "singing," (a minor contribution to the "experience"), difficult.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywXRyozAqPI
A bemused Jimi, live on the mic, 'Uh-huh - I think this is someone else's song'.
In today's world of miming music videos and autotune X factor, Jools Holland is still flying the flag for real musicians, with guitars actually plugged in. Whenever someone like Graham Norton says 'and now, performing their latest hit . . .' you know the 'musicians' are acting, not playing.
Never seen that before
Each artist would have needed a certain amount of rehearsal time as well as their own personal set up - band/click track/whatever else.
Also, with the line-up of each show needing to be 'current', it's likely that people were probably fairly heavily booked up as well so would have only really had the time to come in for a few hours, knock out a generic performance and be on their way again.
I know in the last few years of it's life they did insist on live performances wherever possible though, as far as i can remember.
a lot of the acts - as that's perhaps a better term to use, on TOTP weren't renouned for incredible live performances, so if they did play live they wouldn't have sounded terrible, especially if vocals were "enhanced" in studios. plus it wasn't ever a serious music show, so i doubt many people caren't if they played live or not, and perhaps people enjoyed it more because of the outfits and dance routines and stuff, instead of the band concentrating on playing live, such as the performances on The Tube tv show
i remember pete waterman saying something along the lines of he didn't want his bands singing live as they would sound worse than on the record and it would affect sales, so there was probably a lot of similar thoughts, either from the labels or the bands themselves
Thanx. So funny.
I remember a few punk and metal bands boycotting TOTP as they refused to mime - which is probably why those types of bands ended up with less singles success as less coverage.
I remember that as well, and my reaction was if they can't sing live then they have no talent so don't deserve success.
That's on my "To Watch" list for tomorrow.
Every time New Order played live on TOTP their songs went down in the charts.
Although people still bought Blue Monday by the bucketload.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efsrvBal2rA
I've always felt the same. If someone wants to mime on a TV show it doesn't bother me. I'm no fan of people miming at gigs but if you're going to watch Britney Spears for example, you know what you're going to get so it's hard to be annoyed.