When someone talks about lip syncing, Britney Spears is bound to come up in conversation. I remember when “Womanizer” was just released, I went to LA to record my demo song “Burner” (a song heavily inspired by Britney’s sound). I just had a conversation with someone in the studio on about how I felt my vocals were really weak, but got given the advice to study Britney closely, because most of her vocals were thickened by layers of background vocals, usually done by others.
It’s been insinuated countless times that Britney can’t sing, especially live. It’s been proven many times that she was lip syncing during her shows. Fan made videos on YouTube would dispute that with montages of Britney’s old performances from her days leading up to her first album and insinuate that Britney fell victim to her own image and the pressures of the business.
All discussions aside, I’ve always assumed she didn’t get her record deal just because. Record companies like a safe bet and that means you either are good at what you do or you are already famous for doing something else. This philosophy could be backed up by pre “Baby, Hit Me One More Time” performances, which shows Britney still developing her distinct Britney sound and singing pretty well live.
In an attempt to prove all the critics wrong, Britney recently sang Bonnie Raitt’s “Something To Talk About” during her Las Vegas show. It was clearly just to make a statement and the statement came through loud and clear to everyone. I love this song and when I heard that she had sang it live to prove a point, I was very worried. Would she have pulled a Britney on it? Would she have added her childlike sound on this song and would that even work on this song.
I was very happy to discover she hadn’t. In fact, the pre “Baby, Hit Me One More Time” singer came through loud and clear. She was clearly fed up with everything said about her and returned to her roots. A strong, confident singer whose voice could be adapted to many genres, not just what we know her for nowadays.
Britney made a choice somewhere along the way that she wanted to have these elaborate shows with a high emphasis on dance routines, but she does have the talent to back it up. Point taken. I also don’t think we’ll see this from her again, but she will return to doing it the way she’s done it for years. Remember how Madonna would always be flawed for her live singing, because she was dancing in her shows? I think many artists deliberately try to avoid the discussion about it.
