What do you think about Ayu's lip syncing ?

[Delirium-Zer0]

You can do auto-tune on the fly now actually. Soundboards are equipped to do it these days. It's not as precise as doing it after the fact in a studio, so it always sounds unnatural and robotic (so you won't hear it on anything but a dance track if the engineer or show runners have any idea what they're doing), but you can absolutely do it.

[Chris85]

Originally Posted by November4

Was it lip synced on all three dates? Because the bootleg recording I watched of Feel the love sounded very live, albeit it was only like 10 seconds so I dunno.

Actually if Feel the love was lip sync I wouldn't even care because it's one of those fun dancey songs that don't need emotion or a live voice lol

She sung it live only on 29th (at least these vocals were not edited)

[Chris85]

Originally Posted by Delirium-Zer0

You can do auto-tune on the fly now actually. Soundboards are equipped to do it these days.

You are absolutely right about it, BUT even with it you can't sound 100% identical two days in a row.

[channy]

Originally Posted by November4

^ What did she lip sync at AT06? Ladies Night?

Arena Tour 2006 had a lot of playback performances...

- STEP you (very obvious during chain-unchain sequences)
- Ladies Night (somewhat needless to add anything, just blatantly obvious)
- alterna (very clear voice during acrobatics, way she moves her lips etc)
- Pride & rainy day (at least suspiciously)
- UNITE! (probably the same pre-recorded track as heard on AT03-04 and later concert tours)

[Delirium-Zer0]

I've stated my thoughts elsewhere on AHS already, but it's more relevant to this thread so here goes:

There are two types of pop singers: vocalists/artists, and pop stars/idols. And there are two types of concerts: music performances and stage productions.

Pop artists who are known for their vocals, or for whom the concert is centered on a showcase of their musical abilities and songs, shouldn't be lip syncing. However, Ayu is not this type of pop artist.

She and her songs have always been popular more for their arrangements and lyrics than her vocals. No one calls ayu a great vocalist, she's not responsible for playing any instrumentation herself. For an Ayumi Hamasaki concert, she's going to put on display the stuff that's a major part of her branding - her personality, costumes, charisma, etc. Not her voice. Her concerts are not musical performances - if they were, they wouldn't have a gazillion dancers or crazy stage setups or background videos. They're stage productions, more akin to an acrobatics show where Ayu just happens to supply the score. I hate that, I don't like it at all, I agree that concerts SHOULD be about the music, so Ayu's smaller shows have always been more appealing to me. But she does big stage productions, and it is what it is, so there you go.

I've always known that Ayu lip syncs. She's been doing it for ages. Her shows before the encore are these scripted, choreographed, carefully planned theatrical performances that need to be, in her opinion, perfected before she does them. If there's a chance bad vocals will take you out of the performance, she records a track to lip sync along to.

WHY has this never bothered me in principle? Again, she's not a vocalist. I don't feel lied to when she lip syncs. It's still her voice, and she doesn't lip sync to the CD version, so I don't feel ripped off. Also, everything after the encore starts is all her. That's the "concert" part, where it's her and her band and her dancers are just up there having fun with her, and it's more intimate and natural. So because I get that, and that's natural, I'm cool with it.

Also, as others have said, this has ALWAYS been done. When the song needs to be uninterrupted, the lyrics need to be intact, and the vocals need to be on point - like when a singer is dancing & might run out of breath, or when the song is a ballad where control is difficult - then lip sync is a very, very common practice. My favorite pop stars when I was a kid were Paula Abdul and Janet Jackson, both very famous for their dancing - and they were also very obvious lipsyncers. And I could see it was happening, even as an 8 year old. It wasn't exactly hard to tell they were doing it because, like Ayu, they had very exaggerated mouth movements when they did it. I asked my parents and they confirmed they were probably not actually singing. I found it interesting - I mean I was 8, I wasn't gonna feel insulted or lied to then. As long as it was THEIR voices, I didn't care (look up Milli Vanilli and C&C Music Factory to understand why I had that particular perspective, if you're unaware of those artists' scandals). Artists lip synced in music videos, and since I was watching these concerts on TV anyway - and it felt like a big alternate music video - I didn't see why it would make a difference.

If I'm watching a band or singer on TV who's know for their musical ability - a great guitarist, or a really creative drummer, or a gifted vocalist, or someone playing a piano with one hand & a harpsichord with the other - THEN I'm gonna feel lied to if they're miming, you know? Finding out someone like Shiina Ringo was lip syncing would kinda be heartbreaking (oh god if any of you have heard that an artist like her does this please don't tell me lol). My favorite concerts are about the band or singer putting their skills and songs on display for the audience, yes, but Ayu's concerts aren't (typically) about that. They're about the staging and story and her charisma and costumes and stuff. So she's gonna lip sync, just like every other non-vocal-oriented pop star always does.

[orangeakira]

I hope I can word this nicely without getting disliked.

Ayu really doesn't have a nice voice. She'll never be on the same level as someone like Adelle or Utada. I didn't start listening to her from the beginning because of her vocals. I got into her for the entertainment. The crazy music videos, the diverse songs, the amazing photoshoots.

If I were to go to one of her concerts, it'd be for the entertainment, not the vocals. I'd go for the costume changes, and the special screens, and the songs, and the energy, and the overall atmosphere. It's not just her voice that draws me in, it's the whole performance. She can lip sync all she wants. It's a minimum aspect of the concert, it's not going to deter me from attending.

I'm 99% sure Utada never lip syncs at her concerts, but a part of that is because she's not rushing around with 15 different costume changes, and isn't dancing around, and interacting with backup dancers, or performing around a pole, or on a chair, or in a pool of water hanging from the sky. Hikki can really sing and she's never had to rely on anything else. But what ayu does isn't a bad thing. It's just that singing isn't the number one priority at one of her shows. Not only that, but because ayu is moving around so much she needs to save her energy.

Ayu has always been for the entertainment value, and she's always done a fairly good job at that.

As long as she sung it live at some point I'm fine with it. If she starts miming the words to a studio track with studio vocals and it's blatantly obvious that someone put one of her CDs into the speakers and hit play, then I'd have a problem.

[Andrenekoi]

^Hikki is far from being an amazing vocalist, some of her performances has more misses than hits vocal-wise... She has no control, breathing issues and is always composing songs out of her range... Still can put tons of emotion on her voice and shits on everyone else when it's about writing and producing music.


I don't care about lip-synching if the performance is good enough, like this one...


Ayu mostly lip-synchs during energetic performances, physical stunts and songs that are out of her healthy range nowadays, IMO they are all valid reasons for doing it, and even so she sometimes sings even with choreography (like 1Love during Future Classics, live vocals with heavy support from the back vocals). She is a performer more than anything else (even more than she is a lyricist IMO) and that's what I expect from her... Still, she sometimes take amazing advantage of her vocal limitations in order to bring rawness to some performances...

[truehappiness]

Utada isn't really that good of a singer imo. With her... it is more that there would never be any reason whatsoever for her to lipsync so we don't get it from her. She really doesn't tour much anyway. I think of Ayaka Hirahara or Angela Aki as really good Japanese vocalists who are probably well known for their voices and sing live all the time like Adele.

Ayu does really well in a stripped down setting though. The more things are going on, the more likely that her vocals are going to go haywire.

[primavera♥]

^^Omg that forgiveness performance

It will always give me life. It's just a beautiful song and what she does with it here is flawless.

But yeah, good example of her and her emotion. I just teared up watching it again

[November4]

Originally Posted by channy

Arena Tour 2006 had a lot of playback performances...

- STEP you (very obvious during chain-unchain sequences)
- Ladies Night (somewhat needless to add anything, just blatantly obvious)
- alterna (very clear voice during acrobatics, way she moves her lips etc)
- Pride & rainy day (at least suspiciously)
- UNITE! (probably the same pre-recorded track as heard on AT03-04 and later concert tours)

What... :/ Pride and rainy day lip synced? And I thought STEP you was live... Or maybe it's at the CDL. I'm pretty sure STEP you has been done live a couple of times.

Originally Posted by orangeakira

I hope I can word this nicely without getting disliked.

Ayu really doesn't have a nice voice. She'll never be on the same level as someone like Adelle or Utada. I didn't start listening to her from the beginning because of her vocals. I got into her for the entertainment. The crazy music videos, the diverse songs, the amazing photoshoots.

I think Ayu has a beautiful voice. So does Madonna. They aren't good singers but have a beautiful and unique voice sound that made them famous. I'd prefer a fragile and high-pitched voice like that over Adele and Mariah Carey any day.

[KillTime111]

Like everyone has basically mentioned, it's very normal for artists who put on large shows to have a few songs lip-syncing. You can definitely tell when Ayu is lip-syncing because she over excentuates her lips a little. It's good to say she does use a new live recording when lip-syncing as to not sound like the original song too much. For most performances where she's high in the air, or sitting on something fragile like a hoop or something, is when u can tell she's lip-syncing. It bothered me a little bit when I first noticed it back in 2002 or so, but I realized she puts so much effort into everything that having perfect vocal cords during some of her performances isn't always possible. She's a great singer AND performer, n sometimes I feel it's hard to balance the two. Gotta hand it to her-.

[SKYia]

To be absolutely honest I don't mind her lipsynching at the moment. I did mind it before when her voice was awesome to me, but right now it's so different from what I loved that I prefer the synch and still enjoy the show than not being able to bear the sound at all.

[ayu-suits]

I would like to believe Feel the Love was sung live but they just edited the DVD version heavily... but it was really a lipsynch - then it was a really good lipsynching.

Now it made me think if Ayu was a perfectionist like that, I wonder if her backup singers do lipsynching as well haha.

[owlflight]

Like others have said, Ayu is not known for her vocal prowess and technique. I like her voice for the emotion she puts into it and if that means a few sour notes, so be it. I don't mind if she lip syncs a few songs but never a whole concert. Now if my other favorite J-Pop artist Ayaka ever lip synced, I would be upset. She is a singer with an incredible voice and sometimes her live performances are much better and more powerful than the studio recordings! All this brought to you by someone who has very little music/vocal knowledge but is a fan and knows what she likes to listen to.

[Yoake]

I don't mind Ayu's lip syncing. As I'm a musician, I know how hard it is to do a whole concert. I'm always tired after a concert. I'm sit during the whole thing. So, I can imagine how exhausted a concert can be when you need to sing and move at the same time and when you are under pressure because of timing. Ayu and others singers need those "breaks" during the concert to be able to finish it.

[November4]

Originally Posted by KillTime111

Like everyone has basically mentioned, it's very normal for artists who put on large shows to have a few songs lip-syncing. You can definitely tell when Ayu is lip-syncing because she over excentuates her lips a little. It's good to say she does use a new live recording when lip-syncing as to not sound like the original song too much. For most performances where she's high in the air, or sitting on something fragile like a hoop or something, is when u can tell she's lip-syncing. It bothered me a little bit when I first noticed it back in 2002 or so, but I realized she puts so much effort into everything that having perfect vocal cords during some of her performances isn't always possible. She's a great singer AND performer, n sometimes I feel it's hard to balance the two. Gotta hand it to her-.

Dude did you photoshop Ayu in your signature? Because she looks flawless! On the pics I took with her she looks a bit plastic surgery gone wrong. o_o;;; I swear, her face looks totally different depending on make-up and time of day...

[emi♡]

I think I'd rather hear something beautiful than something fucking awful.

I'll never ever get over the horror of that one Pride performance where she completely ended on the wrong note.


When singers are off, even a little, it just distracts me so much. tbh for most musicians, I listen to them for their music, not their actual voices, so I don't really mind if they're lip syncing as long as they don't look ridiculous.

Ayu has looked ridiculous on a few occasions, and I've been somewhat embarassed for her, but you know, she pumps out a lot of shows and she works hard, and people can't always be 100% perfect. Like Yoake said, it's not easy being on stage and performing for hours, especially when you're the ONE thing everyone's looking at. It's hella exhausting.

I don't want to hear that in her voice. I'm there for the show.

I do think Ayu has a really nice voice, and it's really unique....but she's never really been so great at the singing. She's gotten better, and she's really trying...but. She'll just never be at the level of other great singers. That's just the way it is. I don't expect her to be. I expect her to put on a good show and have good music.

[Ashen Twilight]

I'd rather have lip syncing than that You were...~evolution fiasco back in 2009.