Fil Henley provides convincing evidence that Taylor Swift lip synched – or mimed – her songs during her recent ‘Eras’ tour. Keep in mind that the tour raked in two billion dollars, a hefty sum by anyone’s terms, funded by the expensive tickets (starting at $49, but going up to $500, with an average of $204). Henley proves beyond reasonable doubt, using millisecond analysis of the audio, that the tracks – at least the ones he presented – were pre-recorded. Whether that applied to all of her songs, may be something of a surmise, but a reasonable one. They were paying to watch her dance, as Henley concludes. Which they’re free to do, so long as they know they’re doing it.
Speaking of dancing, Fred Astaire could supposedly re-perform his own dances almost move-perfect. The key is ‘almost’. According to Henley, no one can sing the same song exactly, right down to the most minute frequency.
Besides the apparent fakery, three things exacerbate this: One is that the songs seem to have been deliberately produced to sound as though they were live, with popping ‘p’s’ and so on. Like the studio recordings, they were also likely auto-tuned, as are so many ‘singers’ nowadays, and so par for the course.
The second is that the legions of fans likely don’t even care. They’re probably happy to shell out all that money, along with time traveling and waiting in line, just to see their idol ‘shake it up’ on stage, and being within a mile of her presence.
The third is, as we’ve written before, Ms. Swift’s deleterious effect on her young fans, especially girls. Whatever the travails of her own life, her initial songs may have been sweet and all about high-school crushes and the rest of the schmaltz, but her more recent lyrics brought out the darker and sexually explicit side. Readers should peruse Patricia Snow’s essay, ‘Taylor Swift’s Sexual Revolution‘ for a glimpse of her tragic and sad life. No parents would want their own little girl to follow that tortuous path.
Swift’s mimicry is not the main problem, even if it’s still a problem. After all, it is reported that the great Luciano Pavarotti lip-synched on at least two occasions – the last at the 2006 Olympic games due to sever cold, and another in 1992, leading to significant controversy and refunds.
While we’re at it, here’s Rick Beato comparing the Beatles with Taylor Swift, especially in their song-writing creativity. No contest. Swift’s songs are mass produced, based on tracks and beats that could be used for any generic song, upon which simple melodies are overlaid. The Beatles had complex chord changes, their melodies and lyrics personalized, each song unique. Then again, the Beatles had the help of the ‘fifth Beatle’, George Martin, a classically trained musician, who upped their own repertoire from the early ‘She Loves Me, Yay, yay, yay’, to the vagaries of the ‘Long and Winding Road’.
Now, to compare the Beatles with J.S. Bach…
I suppose the easier the music, the easier to mimic. Would it be fakery for AI to lip synch to AI? Some say that soon – even now – we won’t even need human performers or composers. I dispute that, for one can always sort of tell when music comes from the heart, or from a machine. And even the machines must learn from humans. The real answer is to return to live, real, personal music in small venues, that resonates with the soul. Even – especially – with all its imperfections.
This is all part of a broader falsity in which so much of our culture is entangled, the loss of truth and of God, of being true to oneself and to others. In a universe without an objective moral foundation, where nothing really makes sense or in the end matters, why not fake it?
We may take, on the contrary, today’s saint, Dina Belanger, an accomplished concert pianist before becoming a nun. There’s no hiding or synching while performing on a grand piano on a stage, and my own hands sweat just thinking about it. The truth of her playing was part of the greater truth of her life, as she followed the Truth with all she had.
A final point: In one of my talks, I ask people whether there’s any point to knowing Taylor Swift’s birthday. (December 13th, 1989). Many say, it matters to her family and friends, but not to us. Who cares?
But – sed contra! – that is the memorial of Saint Lucy, patroness of light. Taylor Swift was raised a Catholic, with a very devout grandmother (as is so often the case). Imagine what would happen if she converted, or, as the case may be, reverted to the Faith of her youth? What an example she would give! We can pray to that virgin-martyr for Ms. Swift to return to the light, and maybe, along the way, to offer her music and voice ad maiorem Dei gloriam, and, we may add, ad caritatem et veritatem. Â
