Saturday Night Not-Quite-Live

[shifter]

Anyone catch the Ashley Simpson snafu on SNL this last weekend? I happened to be channel surfing and ended up on SNL a few minutes beforehand. Ashley Simpson, little sister to ditzy Jessica, was the musical guest this week and her second performance exposed just how "live" it was.

quote:Source: http://jam.canoe.ca/JamMusic/oct24_simpson-ap.html

Singer Ashlee Simpson's "extra help" may have been exposed when a Saturday Night Live audience heard her voice -- singing the wrong song -- while she held a microphone at her waist.

Her record company blamed a computer glitch and she blamed her band for Sunday morning's incident, which cut off her planned performance of the song Autobiography on the network comedy show.

Simpson had performed her hit single Pieces of Me without incident earlier in the show. When she came back a second time, her band started playing and the first lines of her singing Pieces of Me could be heard again.

She looked momentarily confused as the band plowed ahead with the song and the vocal was quickly silenced.

Simpson made some exaggerated hopping dance moves, then walked off the stage 35 seconds into the performance. NBC quickly cut to a commercial.

"What can I say?" guest host Jude Law said with Simpson standing next to him at the end of the show. Live TV.

"Exactly," Simpson said. "I feel so bad. My band started playing the wrong song. I didn't know what to do so I thought I'd do a hoe-down."

Her record company, Geffen Records, said there was a computer glitch. Instead of some pretaped electronic percussion, the recording of Pieces of Me started mistakenly performing, the record company said in a statement.

But it sounded suspiciously like a guide vocal that's a common -- although almost always unspoken -- concert aid. Either the singer "lip synchs" by mouthing words to a backing tape or has a live microphone and sings along to the tape, making the voice sound more powerful than it is.

Such vocal tricks have been used before on the show, making Saturday Night Live not entirely live, said a show insider who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The worst part of it all was that she blamed the band at the closing credits. The band didn't play the wrong song, the tape track engineer did. I think almost everyone knows that most of these "singers" hardly ever truly perform "live". Sometimes it's due to an intense dance routine that makes it impossible to sing decently, while other times it's simply because the singer cannot hold a tune without some extra "help". But the whole point of SNL is the fact that its live. If your going to perform on the show, it should at least be a true live performance, mistakes and all. It's what sets the show apart.

[Oreo]

Yeah, I actually hadn't seen the show in a while and I watched this weekend. Normally I watch [u] Mad TV [/b] but the "GAME" was on...so I watched SNL....I think that was the funniest part of the show...up until she blamed her band...then I thought it was a pretty lame excuse. Anyway, I've never been so happy that a baseball game was messing up [u] Mad TV[/b] which I got to watch after SNL anyway!

[RabidKitten]

SNL...pfft, the only reason I watch SNL anyway is for Weekend update. Chicks with Scars are Hot. *thumbs up* That and I was working for NBC when they showed the "contravercial" Al Sharpton show, so even though it wasn't broadcasted to Rochester, I got to watch it. I was one of Two people in all of Rochester who got to see it. It was great because they made fun of all the cities that wouldn't air it because they'd never see it. Tina Fey called us "dorks" heh..hehe *snort, pushes her glasses up* That's so hot...

[camster]

yea, that was pretty funny. I didnt read the whole article, since i've already read 2 stories about it, so I don't know if the video is on there or not, but if its not, here it is: https://home.comcast.net/~mr.mojo/Oops.wmv
what was with that "hoe-down" anyways? I know she was surprised and had to do something, but, come on.

[Spike]

I Love SNL! It is hilarious, and I watch it in History sometimes. My absolute favorite would have to be where they mocked the Presidential Debates and Kerry was like 7' tall and Bush was like 4'. Then Bush kept goin...."Yeah...we're workin' hard.....yeh....eh...it's hard work....ya know....workin' weekends.....orderin' in......we're workin' hard...." LOL Wow was that funny. We still quote it in History.

[ys8er2323]

oh we got the crappy "pre-recorded" feed. They showed like 5 seconds of the band playing then it went to the picture of jude law for like 2 minutes and then the credits came up.

I saw the video on a site, both of her doing the hoe-down and then at the end blaming her band. That was pretty messed up. She apologized yesterday I believe and then she came out in the Radio Music Awards making fun of herself by pretending the band was playing the wrong song. Seems like all the criticism has impacted her. Her band played so loud yesterday you could barely hear her and what you could hear was not all impressive.

Poor Kid, She just can't get a break:

http://www.wesh.com/entertainment/3850767/detail.html

[RabidKitten]

I heard over the radio the other day that her agent says that she as Acid Reflux Disease (My 75 year old grandpa has Acid Reflux Disease!) and it swells her vocal chords. She sang in the test run that they do before the show, but she ended up crying afterward, they called her doctor "Doctor Sugarman" and he said "Don't let her sing" so they put on the clip for her to lipsync to. That's at least what it said on the radio yesterday. I personally think that she's not talented at all anyway, so no skin off my nose.

[DJHyperbyte]

quote:Originally posted by MiamiGuy

she came out in the Radio Music Awards

Exactly. This was part of her equipment according to a technician of the show: