Attempting to establish how much artists are singing live at their shows - and which parts are being covered by backing tracks - seems to have become a popular pastime among social media ‘sleuths’, who are constantly on the search for that ‘gotcha’ moment.
When TikTok user riiano7 posted a clip of Sabrina Carpenter performing on her current Short n’ Sweet tour, though - and suggested that it demonstrated that the vocals were “30% lip singing [sic], 30% backing track, 40% singing” - they probably didn’t expect the star to hit back in the comments.
Carpenter wasn’t going to leave it alone, though. “I sing live every show 100%,” she replied. “Would you like to speak to my audio engineers?”
To give riiano7 the benefit of the doubt, what they may have been suggesting is that the mix makes it hard to establish which of the parts you can hear is Carpenter’s live vocal. “I would [like to speak to your audio engineers],” came their reply, “Tell them to lower the backtrack voice as its [sic] way too high.”
@riiano7 ♬ original sound - ✦ Ri ✦ 💎
The debate around ‘live vs pre-recorded vocals’ seems to rage whenever a major artist performs at a big show or on tour - particularly female singers, it seems. Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour vocals have been endlessly dissected online, and Dua Lipa felt compelled to respond to accusations that she lip-synced during her headline set at the Glastonbury festival. “I don’t mime,” she told MailOnline after the performance.
This is almost certainly true, but it’s also the case that many artists do have backing vocal tracks, too, which is often the source of the confusion (particularly if these are high in the mix). There’s no way that one singer can cover every vocal part, though - particularly if the intention is to recreate the sound of a slickly-produced contemporary pop record - so some kind of augmentation (whether that’s backing tracks, backing singers or a mixture of both) is inevitable.
Sabrina Carpenter kicked off her Short n’ Sweet tour on 23 September in Columbus, Ohio, and it’s currently set to run until the end of March 2025. However, she also managed to squeeze in a performance of her mega-hit Espresso on Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show: check it out - complete with live vocals - below.
“We were messing with different keys and then we heard the second verse jump up. It sounds like she’s having this idea in real-time": Jack Antonoff explains that unusual key change in Sabrina Carpenter’s Please Please Please
“They believed that if you learn the song or even hear it before you record it, it's going to sound rehearsed”: Kathy Sledge on why producers Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards didn’t play We Are Family to Sister Sledge right up until they recorded it
