A history of playback and Britney Spears

[Tom13]

After some research, it's possible to define when the use of playback became normalized. Up until June 30, 2000, during the Today Show, TV performances were 90% live, as were her tours. Even on shows like Top of the Pops, where playback is the norm, she sang live... such as with Baby One More Time and Oops!... I Did It Again.

From this date onward, the use of playback intensified. This date corresponds to the show where she performed Baby One More Time, Lucky, and Oops!... I Did It Again.

We can see that it's catastrophic. I wonder if she must have received tons of criticism for this performance.

On September 7, 2000, at the VMAs, she sang a snippet of Satisfaction live, and then... poof. The live singer Britney disappeared.

 

On November 4, 2000, a live performance from the Oops!... I Did It Again tour was broadcast at the Radio Music Awards 2000. Again, the live parts were catastrophic compared to the backing tracks. The final note of Stronger could wake the dead!

Live vocals from that point onward were mostly limited to Not a Girl and Everytime. After that, only the base and some occasional live adlibs here and there in certain situations.

Sources, live performances section:

Britney Spears Live Performances - Wikipedia at :

List of Britney Spears live performances - Wikipedia

EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG

 

[PolySpears]

She actually did sing well in her live singing era

Spoiler

She sang Sound Off, You Oughta Know, Something To Talk About, and ballads live during cship

And she did sing live in 2001 for the NFL kickoff tho... although now it sounds like playback too 

But she is a queen at lipsynching 💅

Edited 2 hours ago by PolySpears

[Emil87]

She’s just not capable of singing live in the “baby voice” while dancing her *** off. Most artists who dance a lot require a backing tracking or pre-record their vocals altogether, as it’s really hard to do both at the same time.

I think she could have probably incorporated more live singing with the “Circus” era and onwards, when the dancing became much less challenging. But at we know now, her passion was already gone by then.

[DiamondCircus]

Just now, Emil87 said:

She’s just not capable of singing live in the “baby voice” while dancing her *** off. Most artists who dance a lot require a backing tracking or pre-record their vocals altogether, as it’s really hard to do both at the same time.

I think she could have probably incorporated more live singing with the “Circus” era and onwards, when the dancing became much less challenging. But at we know now, her passion was already gone by then.

Girl, where is the choreography for perfume and alien when she got busted lipping both?

Let's not pretend Britney's been dancing hardcore to the point she can't sing live, at the very least the ballads lol.

 

[monalisaney81]

6 minutes ago, DiamondCircus said:

Girl, where is the choreography for perfume and alien when she got busted lipping both?

Let's not pretend Britney's been dancing hardcore to the point she can't sing live, at the very least the ballads lol.

 

Too bad Britney can’t resort to screaming into her mic like Beyonce does. 

[DiamondCircus]

Just now, monalisaney81 said:

Too bad Britney can’t resort to screaming into her mic like Beyonce does. 

Britney doesn't need to, she did a fab rendition of "Something to talk about", which makes no sense to get busted performing to a cd that's skipping. 

[descg]

She focused on dancing starting with the Britney era, which was also because she was working more and more (the Britney era was where there was the most promotion). And already in In The Zone she was exhausted, but for example she sing Everytime live on SNL. But people give too much importance to playback, there are artists who are vocalists and there are artists who are performers (and sometimes like Beyonce or P!nk both). Nodoby's talk about the playback of Michael, Janet, Madonna, JLo, Shakira or any pop artist more respected than Britney, one ironic thing was at the VMA's in '99 when Chris Rock made the joke of the introduction of "Festival of playback: Britney Spears and NSYNC" and ironically Britney sang live in that performance and I think Nsync too (I don't remember the Backstreetboys) but Chilli from TLC was the one who did the playback (it was pre-recorded), Lisa Lopez was the one who did the rap live and T -Boz barely has any vocals in "No Scrubs", but the cliche was only on Britney or Boybands (like because TLC was "R&B/HIPHOP") are more respected (Fanmail's singles are pure pop No Scrubs/Unpretty is pop), the others first two albums of them were more R&B.

These 2 things are performances, and neither of them has anything to do with singing. In fact they don't even have any microphone.

Edited 1 hour ago by descg

[MattVan]

25 minutes ago, DiamondCircus said:

Girl, where is the choreography for perfume and alien when she got busted lipping both?

Let's not pretend Britney's been dancing hardcore to the point she can't sing live, at the very least the ballads lol.

 

Don't forget what she said about being in a "factory shutdown mode", and she didn't have any control in her perfomances and so on.. why would she bother to sing live?

[DiamondCircus]

2 minutes ago, MattVan said:

Don't forget what she said about being in a "factory shutdown mode", and she didn't have any control in her perfomances and so on.. why would she bother to sing live?

Pre Con it was the same story babe, she was busted at the HOB lipping to a cd playing, she's been busted many times pre con.

 

[MattVan]

4 minutes ago, DiamondCircus said:

Pre Con it was the same story babe, she was busted at the HOB lipping to a cd playing, she's been busted many times pre con.

 

As a Britney fan (and a singer myself), singing with her famous baby voice (unnatural for her voice) and doing a lot of dancing (yes, legit dancing) is not so good for the voice. She tried and failed many times (citing that Stronger perfomance when she cracks badly). So, that's when playback and lipping became more evident.

[DiamondCircus]

Just now, MattVan said:

As a Britney fan (and a singer myself), singing with her famous baby voice (unnatural for her voice) and doing a lot of dancing (yes, legit dancing) is not so good for the voice. She tried and failed many times (citing that Stronger perfomance when she cracks badly). So, that's when playback and lipping became more evident.

Interesting how great she sounded during POM when she did "Something to talk about", I don't know how she can't sing Do Somethin, or Radar live.

[devilsadvocate]

Yet when she was allowed to sing in her natural voice she could sing and dance at the same time … i wonder why they hated this voice so much 

 

[descg]

47 minutes ago, DiamondCircus said:

Girl, where is the choreography for perfume and alien when she got busted lipping both?

What part of that Britney was forced to work in a slave modern thing of nowdays called "conservatorship" have you not understood by now? and therefore she did not care about his actions, Pretty much she was standing there on stage.

Edited 1 hour ago by descg

[one2threesaymyname]

i always found funny how the oops tour  the prerecorded vocals even had vocals cracks to sound more like a live performance, just check Stronger performance in london and rock in rio, it's the same audio. It was never live.

[DiamondCircus]

Just now, descg said:

What part of that Britney was forced to work in a slave modern thing of nowdays called "conservatorship" have you not understood by now? Pretty much she was standing there on stage.

What part of Pre C Ship she was busted lipping many times do you not understand? We're not going to blame the C Ship on her not singing live now.

[MattVan]

2 minutes ago, devilsadvocate said:

Yet when she was allowed to sing in her natural voice she could sing and dance at the same time … i wonder why they hated this voice so much 

 

She wasn't marketed as a R&B singer, but more like a Lolita Pop singer. Remember she was just 16 years old when she was signed.  I doubt she had control about her art (but sometimes she could squeeze her ideas throughout her whole career)

[descg]

Just now, DiamondCircus said:

What part of Pre C Ship she was busted lipping many times do you not understand? We're not going to blame the C Ship on her not singing live now.

You are in a Britney forum and you are what? a hater or a fan?

Yes she was a more "dancing" focused type of perfomance? AND? And what increible performances...

Yes! AND?

[pieceofphil]

There are many factors that led to playback. First the convenience of her not having to strain her voice and therefore her health as much as well as production focusing on her dancing and show value (which was time consuming enough without getting her to sound right too).
As well as everyone did it back then, even though I think many artists or their teams were way more clever to use prerecorded vocals that actually sounded live.
Especially later with Britney and In the Zone era were she astonishingly sang live for the times square special before the release of ITZ, but didn't for performances with a more controllable (audio engineered) environment like the ABC special or her tours. Whereas other artists either sang fully live or at least had prerecorded vocals for most of the televised performances or tours and she would just lip songs from decades ago without any alteration. Which could still be defended by her being so in demand that she needed to rest her voice and production value not seen by her team.

The epitomy of lipsync that was POM... I can't defend that other than her not wanting to do more than stated in her contract or controlled by team con which was cheap in not pimping any of the older songs or at least pitching it a bit to fit her subtly darker singing voice back then (on CD).

What we all can agree upon is that she has been robbed of her voice in more than one way, the circumstances are up to speculation as she never set the record straight as to whether it was her decision or of her team/label.

[DiamondCircus]

Just now, descg said:

You are in a Britney forum and you are what? a hater or a fan?

Yes she was a more "dancing" focused type of perfomance? AND? And what increible performances...

Yes! AND?

What does being a hater or fan have to do with speaking facts? Britney was busted lipping many times pre con.

Was she dancing during many of the songs she got caught lipping? Many are ballads, let's not act like her lipping was due to the con.

[Userxxxxxxxxxyes]

She was singing live every year multiple times in her prime and before and after her prime sometimes during dancing but thats rarely, but she also used lipsync indeed a lot

i think people think that she is doing it all the time because her voice is damaged to the point that she always sounds like a different person when she is singing sometimes she did have a deeper voice sometimes bigger sometimes babyvoice somtimes soft sometimes it sounded damaged sometimes it sounded good sometimes not and she was always playing with her voice all the time she made a lot of unique voices while she was singing