An American Idol flack has admitted that the group-sing segments of the weekly talent show are actually lip-synced by the hopefuls, presumably because the producers are afraid that any singers who just know they’re going to be voted off at the end of the interminable hour will go disastrously off-mic, altering the lyrics of songs like “Closer” and “I Kissed A Girl” so they’re actually about the inane commercial-break comedian or the way the steel fist of irony clamped down on Simon Cowell using “too Broadway” as an epithet against singers he didn’t like.
Alas, hoping that this revelation results in the immediate cessation of these group numbers is probably a bad idea for two reasons: First, the powers that be at Fox haven’t yet decided to cut the show to half an hour (or, even better, to a blipvert between reruns of Hell’s Kitchen), so cutting that number would probably result in a somehow-more-inane “ask the audience” segment; and second, every aspiring pop star in America should have to make jazz hands at least once in their lives. (Hey, I even did it back in elementary school. Trust me when I say it builds character.)
If someone on AI wants to wild out on live TV and say something off-script, they’ll find a way to do it, and there are probably much better opportunities than the group sing. I imagine it’s more due to the higher number of variables in the group performances and that asking a bunch of singers who aren’t trained dancers to do even basic choreography and sing as well as possible would be kind of cruel.
Technically, they’re singing OVER a vocal track, not miming to it, but it’s still not all live vocals no matter how you slice it.
Oh, really, AI? You mean they DON’T actually blend that well while performing live? Couldn’t tell. Nope, not at all. I could have sworn that a bunch of drastically different vocal styles would blend no matter what, but hey, who am I?
I just wish the AI people would have tried a little harder to not make it sound so perfectly meshed.
Amanda Overmeyer refusing to sing on these was one of the most entertaining aspects of Season 7.