Last week, I pushed my flight back a day so I could go to D.C., to watch the inauguration.
I felt I was so close to the big event. I didn’t want to miss it. There were so many people from all over the country in D.C., that day, I couldn’t even get close to the Capitol. When I heard the national anthem, the voice and the rendition were very beautiful.
The singer was Beyonce and now there are rumors going around that she lip-synced the performance.
I didn’t care at first; however, I realized this had become an important issue to many.
Furthermore, my editor (I did an internship in Philadelphia) asked me what I thought about Beyonce’s lip-syncing. I told him that I didn’t know whether Beyonce lip-syncing or not was really important.
In my opinion, the most important thing was the inauguration itself.
It was a successful inauguration, and the United States elected a great president.
The idea of lip-syncing is a little bit sad, but compared to a singer not being in tune/rhythm at this very important moment, I preferred the former. It was not Beyonce’s solo concert.
If Beyonce lip-synced at her solo concert, I would be very upset. I paid hundreds of dollars to enjoy a live performance rather than a prerecording.
I thought about it for several days. Should I really care? Why did a lot of people care so much?
In my opinion, there were mainly two reasons. First, Beyonce possesses the talent to sing live. There is no doubt that Beyonce is a talented singer, a mainstream artist, and even the queen of pop music. This is a song she has sung hundreds of times.
What was the problem? According to the statement of the Marine Band on Tuesday, “It would have been impossible for Beyoncé to do a live performance alongside their musical accompaniment because they didn’t have enough practice time.”
Therefore, two hours before the inauguration, the Marine Band got the command that the national anthem would use the version Beyonce recorded the previous night in Washington, D.C., which they had recorded in case of bad weather or equipment problems.
Second, it is about the authenticity of music, live or recorded. Why do a great deal of singers or bands host a lot of concerts?
An increasing number of people are paying attention to live music because they are different from the recorded music.
Although live music is not as perfect and flawless as recorded music, these imperfections and flaws are the charm of seeing it live.
This made me think back to several years ago when Chinese people were shocked by a report that CCTV (China Central Television) had cheated us for decades.
All the singers that had sung at the most important annual Chinese New Year’s Eve show on CCTV were all lip-synced.
CCTV had to apologize to the hundreds of millions of viewers and they claimed that they would gradually transition from lip-syncing to live singing.
After several years of efforts, most of the singers that sing now on the show are singing live. This made some talentless lip-syncing singers leave the stage of this big show, but it improved the quality of the show.
But that’s why people wanted Beyonce to sing the national anthem live at the inauguration rather than using the recorded song.
Nevertheless, there is a difference between Beyonce’s scandal and the annual show. The annual show is for entertainment, while the inauguration is for the nation. I think that we may have blown this situation out of proportion.
Rather than focusing on Beyonce lip-syncing, we should have concentrated on the historic event.
Wanfei Wu is a second-year graduate integrated marketing communcations student from Yunnan Province, China. Follow her on Twitter @WanfeiWu.
