I have no regrets about my New Year’s Eve – I spent the evening binge-watching my new favorite British-ish detective show, Shetland. But other people watched the live NYE shows, like ABC’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve. This year, ABC got Mariah Carey to perform at midnight, and it was an unmitigated (and hilarious) disaster. Considering the garbage fire that was 2016, the fact that the year ended with a really funny live blooper from Mariah is actually a little bit charming and quaint. Here’s the video of what happened:
Total mess. And isn’t it remarkable that producers did nothing to save her? The backing track wasn’t stopped. No one cut to commercial. No one came up to say to Mariah and the audience, “We’re having some technical difficulties, just give us a moment.” They just made Mariah vamp for several minutes live. At first, Mariah tweeted a “sh-t happens” message, but why shrug something off when you can turn it into a five-act drama? Which is what’s happening now:
The fallout over Mariah Carey’s chaotic New Year’s Eve performance continues as her team claims the singer was sabotaged in an attempt to get higher TV ratings for the ABC broadcast.
“I will never know the truth, but I do know that we told them three times that her mic pack was not working and it was a disastrous production,” Carey’s manager, Stella Bulochnikov, told Us Weekly on Sunday, January 1. “I’m certainly not calling the FBI to investigate. It is what it is: New Year’s Eve in Times Square. Mariah did them a favor. She was the biggest star there and they did not have their s–t together.”
Bulochnikov added that she was “furious” with TV executive Michael Schimmel and New Year’s Rockin’ Eve production company, Dick Clark Productions.
“They acknowledged that they knew her inner ears were not working,” she said. “They did not cut to a commercial. They did not cut to the West Coast feed, they left her out there to get ratings.”
A source tells Us that emails were sent to Dick Clark Productions on Sunday, “asking why they are suspiciously silent and let Mariah take all of the hits today when they are responsible for the mess.” The source also confirms that her team “did call it sabotage.”
Dick Clark Productions responded to the allegations in a statement to Us on Sunday night: “As the premier producer of live television events for nearly 50 years, we pride ourselves on our reputation and long-standing relationships with artists. To suggest that dcp, as producer of music shows including the American Music Awards, Billboard Music Awards, New Year’s Rockin’ Eve and Academy of Country Music Awards, would ever intentionally compromise the success of any artist is defamatory, outrageous and frankly absurd. In very rare instances there are of course technical errors that can occur with live television, however, an initial investigation has indicated that dcp had no involvement in the challenges associated with Ms. Carey’s New Year’s Eve performance. We want to be clear that we have the utmost respect for Ms. Carey as an artist and acknowledge her tremendous accomplishments in the industry.”
While I don’t think that Dick Clark Productions maliciously intended for Mariah to look foolish, I also think Mariah’s management has every right to be mad and to demand some answers. What happened to Mimi was unprofessional on the part of the production company and producers working that night. In any case… I love the shade here: “Mariah did them a favor. She was the biggest star there and they did not have their s–t together.” Ha! It’s weird but I sort of agree with that.
Photos courtesy of Getty.
Of course, she could have just SUNG the song.
Her inner ear feed wasnt working which between the screaming crowd and the different speakers playing different parts of the melody makes it very difficult. It would sound like a woman trying to sing along in the club. She probably just thought they would fix it asap, except they never did.
You should watch what happens with the next song…
If she just SANG, even half way, it would disqualify the idea of “sabotage”.
What a royal arrogance to pit her laziness as the fault of others EVEN IN the face of technical issues.
Her mich worked fine enough for her to say the audience can sing and to complain the whole time, so…. nobody acted correctly, basically.
… But if she couldn’t hear the music, how can you expect her to sing along with it?
But if we can hear the music, why couldn’t she, I don’t understand? It also seems to me that she DID try to sing to music at first, but she started singing the verse at the same time as the background music started doing the chorus, so she stopped for that reason, not because she couldn’t hear the music?
The sound system is set differently if the singer sings to music coming from the speakers, not the earpeace. Hers was set to the earpeace. As soon as it’s set the way it was for her, she could not hear the music properly. The music she’d hear from that position would probably have the wrong volume (causing her to use the wrong volume), would have echo and a slight delay, which means her timing would be slightly off too. And god knows what else. She’d sound like a karaoke singer.
tealily, do you understand how professional stage sound systems work? I hope that the several explanations on here can satisfy you that ALL musicians on stage have an earpiece. I for one, agree that she might have been sabotaged. On the other hand, tech difficulties happen all the time and it’s unfortunate that this happened, whatever the reason.
She can’t hear the song without her ear piece working. That’s why she couldn’t just sing it.
And yet before inner ear mics, singers managed to sing their songs just fine. SMH.
Before they used to actually play the music, not a track with speakers singing. I was actually surprised listening to the track that not all of it was lip synced, just the back up and the really high parts, and I knew she couldn’t hit those parts all the time now or probably ever. Yes this one is definitely the production’s fault, because they could have stopped it and went to another location, which they should have done. They like the publicity!!! Who are they kidding. I liked Mariah’s initial response too, with Sh(*t happens and happy new year, wish it had been left at that.
MorningCoffee, recorded tracks? Outdoors? With a screaming crowd? I’d like to see you try.
Agreed and @ Morning Coffee, before in ear monitors there were actual monitors on stage.Without any monitor a vocalist can’t hear themselves and really can’t sing the song.
The whole thing was a giant debacle.
The last off-West End show I went to had some issues with the backing tracks; the cast ended up doing a couple of numbers acapella and nailed it.
Mimi OTOH unfortunately no longer has the voice to do this – hence why the high notes had been painfully obviously pre-recorded.
I agree with Jesie, if you are not a singer, you wouldn’t understand just how impossible this situation was. In an indoor venue with acoustics and a quiet audience you can pull off a song without any type of monitor, but in an outdoor crowd this is impossible. She wouldn’t be able to hear herself and no one else could hear her either.
But we could hear her talk just fine?
I take the word of musicians for it, but if someone could explain it a little better, I honestly don’t understand…
When a singer performs on stage and if there’s a sound system involved, they have special speakers – monitors (on the floor, or an earpeace) where they hear both music and, if they sing, their own vocals. Basicly, they have a different set of speakers with different adjustments of their vocals/music (depending of the need). The speakers we (the crowd) get the music from are directed at us and the “right” sound actually goes only to our direction. What the people on stage get from “our” speakers is a distorted version and an echo.
If she sang to that, it would sound off, because we’d hear the correct music but she’d be singing to a distorted one.
In her case she was not even supposed to actually sing. It’s completely possible her voice wasn’t even in her monitor, because she didn’t need to have it there. In that case she might not even hear herself at all.
It’s a nightmare singing in an extremely loud and open area like this without a monitor. You can’t hear yourself at all. Non-singers don’t seem to understand how important that is, but it really is crucial. Even the best singers need to be able to hear themselves at least a little.
Seriously, record yourself singing a simple song you know well while using noise cancelling headphones, and you’ll see what a mess you make of it.
Also, cedar falls, there’s a vast difference between singing acapella in a theatre without music, and singing without being able to hear yourself singing. Those performers didn’t have music, but they could hear themselves.
What she couldn’t hear was the prerecorded track. Therefore, she couldn’t mime properly.
But she had a mic, why wouldn’t she hear herself when singing in a mic?
She couldn’t hear her pre-recorded vocal track because her inner-ear piece wasn’t working, so she couldn’t properly move her mouth with the lyrics. She was never going to sing live in the first place. That’s the point.
I saw Keith Urban live in Nashville on NYE, because it was free and we were here and why not. He was highlighted, filler-ed, cheesy, and hilarious, but he sang live. He gets all the props for that. Plus, right before midnight, he sang a medley he’d put together, made up of songs from many of the artists who passed this year. It was really touching. Bonus points: during that song, Nicole Kidman made a surprise appearance onstage. She dances like a goob and it was amazing to behold.
Anyway, live singing will always get my respect. I understand that her monitor wasn’t working, but she was never never never going to sing live in the first place. For that, my sympathy is lessened
“She was never going to sing live in the first place”
This is manifestly untrue. I mean even the clip linked above called you out before I did. The song is Emotions. The vocals from the chorus are lifted from the record; seeing as even the original was done by her background singers thats to be expected. The high pitched scream at the end of the verse is also from the record. Thats also not unusual, extremely high notes like that are almost always pre-recorded. But thats it for the recorded vocals. There are NO lyrics playing during the verses. Not even a faint backing track. She was clearly going to sing live. Look, I have my issues with Mariah and I love a good pile on but could it at least be fact based.
Fair enough. I’m still not team Mariah. The way she handled it was amateurish and unprofessional, she apparently didn’t rehearse, and she’s acting like the ridiculous diva she always has been.
She couldn’t be bothered to show for sound checks or rehearsal, she sent a stand-in. Ridiculously unprofessional considering how long she has been in the business.
I agree with you, NewYearNewShambles: she was never going to sing live. (Which is fine by me, by the way.)
“Auld Lang Syne” was lip synced badly (perhaps because she couldn’t hear the prerecorded voice track in her monitors). When “We Belong Together” came on, she said, “Let’s just enjoy the album version,” in other words, she knew what was coming: the song as it appears on the album, to which she was going to lip sync (but by then, it was going to be too obvious). The problem with “Emotions” was that the prerecorded vocal track never played, so she was left with nothing to badly lip sync to! (And I say “badly lip sync” because of the missing ear monitor prerecorded voice track.)
C’mon Mariah and Co., give us a better excuse than the one you are giving us now, because Mariah totally let the cat out the bag during the performance, through the things she blurted out to the audience. Technical difficulties, definitely. But which ones?
I agree with lightpurple. I get that her inner ear mic wasn’t working but at some point she could have just removed it and started singing the song. She could also, as some artist have done said cut the music, let’s start this over. She’s been in this business too long to not remember there are options. Beyonce rolled down a flight of stairs but kept on performing. Girl didn’t miss a beat.
I’m not saying that the production shouldn’t be held responsible for a unreliable ear mic but Mariah is a professional singer who should anticipate problems such as this. She could have also said we’re going to skip this song or come back to it. Or how about can I get another mic please. All that talking she did to the audience, she had time to talk to the production crew to ask for a mic or do it without the mic. There are some singers that don’t use inner ear mics.
On a positive note at least no one can say she was pulling a Millie Vanili. She was actually trying to sing live.
She did remove her ear mics, but the event was so loud she still couldn’t hear anything. She couldn’t hear her own voice. You can be the greatest singer in the world, but if you sing without being able to hear yourself at all, it’s not going to go well.
This wasn’t one of her concerts where she’s in control. She was playing right before the countdown, so she had a strict deadline. There wasn’t two minutes to regroup and start over, as soon as there was a hold up the best she could hope for was that the crew would get the monitors working and she could jump into the song. Which is another reason why not hearing was a huge problem. If you can start from the beginning you’ll be off key and off tune and it will be messy, but you’ll get through it. Trying to jump into a song when you can’t actually hear it…it just doesn’t work at all.
She couldn’t tell the audience they needed to stop screaming, because it’s New Year’s and they’re there for that more than her. She couldn’t play a different song, because that doesn’t solve the problem of not hearing anything and not being able to run over her allotted time, and anyway since she was using a backing track not a band so that call was up to the production crew, not her. There’s really no reason they’d have had the backing tracks for other songs anyway.
That’s just another excuse saying she couldn’t hear the music, yes she could. Doesn’t matter if it was her show or not, she could have told them to stop, skip to the next song, or did it without the music. It’s just an excuse to say she couldn’t hear the music. Singers were singing live even on NYE in Time Square before ear mics became a thing. It has always been loud in Time Square during NYE performances. Those singers heard the music just fine without ear mics. There were moments where she attempted to sing and she made those attempts in the right place proving that she could hear the music.
But she couldn’t hear herself, and she could barely hear the music. She couldn’t be sure she was coming in at the right spots (she actually wasn’t quite) and she couldn’t be sure she was singing along with the track even half-decently. She tried, and it didn’t work for her. It wouldn’t work for any singer.
A different song would have made no difference. The monitors would still be down, she still wouldn’t have been able to hear herself, and more importantly, there was no time for that anyway. She was performing just before the ball drop, every second was accounted for with no wiggle room and making changes to the program was absolutely not her call. If she demanded another song start it wouldn’t have happened, since if that’s what the director wanted they’d have already done it.
I’m not sure why you think she’d rather have had what happened happen if it was as easy as just choosing to start singing. As you say, she made multiple attempts. Why would she do that if the issue was just that she couldn’t be bothered? She could have just walked off the second she realised the monitors were down, but she stayed there trying to get things fixed and then trying to jump in and join the song.
Oh, and in the past this event was nothing like it is now. Even 20 years ago (when everyone was using monitors), people were able to spread out in Times Square so much more and those who didn’t care about the performances hung around the edges. Now if you want to be there you’re there all day, all crammed into the barriers right near the stage. It’s so much louder these days.
Ok so I am gather most of you on here are not professional musicians again, before in ears there were on stage monitors. Those black boxes in front of musicians, they play the music, be it a backing track, a live instrument they are playing what you are trying to sing to/play with. Without any form of monitor YOU can’t hear what you are doing, so attempting to blindly play would sound like a jumbled up mess especially if you can’t hear yourself amidst the crowd noise. I cannot believe I am defending Mariah, but this was bad on the part of the production and wholly unprofessional ally singing.
First of all, singing high notes like mariah does in freezing temperatures is nearly impossible. Your throat naturally opens up in the cold and can get dry and damaged very very easily.
Secondly, you NEED the ear peice or else you cannot hear the music. If you tried to sing along without you are basically singing deaf. You will be off key and soind the worst. The ear peice works as the music and playback of your voice.
Lots of times for these performances, artists will sing along to a backing track, but she couldn’t even do that! Only the audience could hear the track. So unprofessional.
I jjust wanted to ask, if she couldn’t hear the music on stage, how were her back up dancers dancing to the music?
and hitting their cues? that one lead guy was even nudging her along in the set, keeping her on track, it looked to me anyway.
The dancers didn’t have to hear their own voices!
Also, the dancers most likely had in ear monitors that were working.
This entire performance is just like 2016 as a whole. It was supposed to be so great but they took it for granted & didn’t make SURE it was good. She could have tried but she was too lazy & “sh7t happens” so we will just wander around not knowing what to do rather then taking agency. This train wreck has been happening for a while and everyone ignores it, splashes glitter & saying it’s fine. It looks fine….sorta. It’s not fine & this is proof but it’s been on slow decline for decades.
Yes to everything you said MC2
Just like she doesn’t know J.Lo she didn’t know the words to her song.
I don’t know Trump. Still don’t know him…..She gives us such amazing moments. I am planning on using many quotes from this performance in my life & made my husband watch just so he’d know what I was talking about when I look at him and say “Just walk me down.” When I really mean “I want to be anywhere but here & I am pissed but I will stand here & look pretty until I am able to escape.” These moments happen a lot at my family gatherings. When I leave I will say “well, that was…..ah-mazing! It just don’t get any better.” She lives, breaths & will die in the shade.
I live in Nashville and several of my friends are professional touring sound techs. They basically said that singing live in that environment without an ear piece would be similar to a deaf person singing. You just have no proper hearing to regulate your pitch.
People are right the situation is a nightmare. It happened to Adele as well where the piano being off and having something messing with the music threw her off a bit. She still nailed it. Unfortunately Mariah never sings live at these things anymore. I’ve seen her perform at Rockefeller twice and she was the only act to lip sync her songs
Grammys 2016. Adele didn’t quite nail it, though, it was so-so.
Ironically there was a thread/discussion on CB pretty much identical to this one. A lot of people simply don’t have the faintest clue what singing on a stage in front of a large, loud audience entails.
I’m going to say it again, and yes, I’ve read all the bits about ear pieces and monitors, she could have SUNG the song. I cannot stand fake “live” performances, no matter who does them. Rehearse, do soundchecks, and PERFORM. If you are a singer, that means you actually sing. If you need monitors on the stage, then have them. So much of this was fake. Backup vocals without visible backup singers? Sorry, no. There are performers who would never have gone for all this fakery. They would have actually performed.
Yes she could have sung it and been terrible due to not hearing herself and then everyone would rag on her for that.
I don’t know why nobody here wants to listen to people who actually understand live performance tech.
I am half expecting some upcoming performance on some talk show or something coming soon, with hopes of it to go viral to prove to all she can sing. It will likely be rehearsed to hell and back and short. But i think she will do it. Half think she will. Half bcs she also does not seem like she cares to prove anything that much? Lets see!
Honestly, Mariah is another one of those I believe nothing from. Add her to the list with Taylor Swift, the majority of the Kardashians, all the real house wives and Jennifer Lawrence. I’m sure there’s more well known liars I just can’t think of them.
D. Trump
I think that one can just blanket a ton of people who I don’t want my keyboard to learn the names of.
I’d love to say America was hijacked, but it was a democratic election and except for California and new York he won most of the country. The red washed map doesn’t lie, America isn’t a hostage, they got in the car willingly.
Lingling- DT won because of gerrymandering, voter suppression, Russia & the FBI tainting our election. That is not free democracy & Americans should not acquiesce when we would be up in arms if this happened in another “democratic” country. We would be the first wagging our finger but we do nothing for ourselves. All the lying down is driving me nuts and it wasn’t just CA & NY- if you believe that then you are telling yourself something to justify taking this up the….We got in the car but most of have a gun to our head & that’s not free will.
@Lingling:
My county went red, my state went red, even though I voted blue. It’s like my vote didn’t matter at all when all you look at is the red/blue map. So no, I did not get in the car willingly. I am very much a hostage.
From what I hear, she didn’t exactly have her shit together either and had skipped a soundcheck for the song that got messed up. They may not have helped the situation, but it sounds more like entitled diva behavior from Mimi.
Agreed. And this sabotage was supposedly done in an effort to improve ratings? Not unless the network’s promos promised a year-end goof-up by Mariah. Live TV, nobody knows what’s gonna happen. She’s delusional.
I heard that too.
Sounds to me like both are at fault. Mariah seemed unprepared and unprofessional (she’s been performing live for 25+ years, and that’s the best she could manage the problems?) and the production didn’t provide adequate equipment or do anything when the show went down the crapper.
Why is Shetland British-ish, young lady? It’s British. Just Scottish rather than English. I love Shetland because of my undying crush on Dougie Henshall. Is it on Netflix? If so, I recommend to all crime viewing fans. Lovely landscape, too. The one with Brian Cox is my favourite.
Yes, it’s British, but it has a Scandinavian feel to it too. Like it’s half-British and half-Norwegian. I hate the Brian Cox one, it was so depressing!
Ohhhhh. Noirish. Gotcha. Yes – the whole landscape thing makes it feel like that. Have you got to the last series yet? Bonzo and I cried for poor (won’t say who in case it’s a spoiler).
I haven’t seen Season 3 yet! No spoilers!
*zips great big gob*
I LOVE Shetland! Great show.
Honk for Henshall!
Another Dougie fan here. Kaiser, if you like Shetland you might find his latest series “In Plain Sight” worth a watch too. It is only three episodes long, but I really enjoyed it, and the period setting was beautifully done.
She didn’t rehearse and was the only one to have problems this night.
Maybe it’s also her fault.
Poor Mariah. She’s always had a chronic case of not-my-fault itis. She really needs to see a doctor about that! 😑
I cannot be team Mariah. For sure someone could have stopped her and there was a problem with the production (I kept thinking why keep the camera on her face when she is messing up the lip-sync so badly?) but she’s not a rookie. She could have done that herself. I had plenty of thoughts after watching this but it all came down to this: she can no longer sing but she thinks we don’t know that. It’s been obvious for years. She was not disciplined enough to cultivate and take care of her voice. She is lazy and has no work ethic. I mean the woman can’t even walk by herself, what the heck is up with that?!
All the great divas who still sing like they used to trained like athletes to protect their gifts. They made sacrifices. Now, no one is asking her to do that. If she doesn’t want to, that’s her choice but don’t pretend like you have something to offer to the audience. “It was number one”. Omg, it’s Lindsey telling us she was in movies once.
I will gladly believe that she felt liberated from Tommy Mottola after the divorce and didn’t want to be a show poney anymore, but her expensive lifestyle needs to be maintained and if she can only get money singing, well then decisions have to be made. Mainly, “how do I keep my voice?”
I don’t even find her amusing at this point. The diva persona is doing nothing for me. She’s just a grown-up shying away from any responsibility thanks to the enablers around her.
I agree. She lacks work ethic and she is incredibly vain. But I have read that her dramatic voice change is due to errant nodes growing in her larynx or something. Apparently Celine, Adele and Jennifer Hudson have had the same problem but risked the surgery and it paid off. Mariah on the other hand has rejected the surgical option (and perhaps she has a good reason?).
I’ve also read that the voice issues are from medication.
Either way she doesn’t seem to want to adjust to that reality of not having that voice that she did 25 years ago. If she’s worried about her core audience not adjusting to that, she’s going to have to bring them along. But as she lives in her own little MimiBubble, that’s not going to happen.
I agree. She lost her voice many years ago and I roll my eyes when people say she’s the greatest singer of all time. She has a crap attitude and I don’t find her likable in any way. I respect her songwriting ability and the voice she USED to have in the 90’s, but that’s it. I don’t even believe her “technical difficulty” story. Why wouldn’t they cut to commercial? Why wouldn’t a tech person come on stage and assist her? Why keep going with the 2nd song?
I didn’t think she was lip synching the entire song this time. If she was we wouldn’t have just heard the background vocals on the chorus, we would have heard her recorded versus. But doing the verses of the song all we heard is the music playing, no singing. Only thing that was faked was those high notes right before the chrous. I don’t think she will ever be able to hit those notes again.
“Auld Lang Syne” was lip synced badly (perhaps because she couldn’t hear the prerecorded voice track in her monitors). When “We Belong Together” came on, she said, “Let’s just enjoy the album version,” in other words, she knew what was coming: the song as it appears on the album, to which she was going to lip sync (but by then, it was going to be too obvious, so why bother). The problem with “Emotions” was that the prerecorded vocal track never played, so she was left with nothing to badly lip sync to. (And I say “badly lip sync” because of the equally missing ear monitor prerecorded voice track.)
Mariah totally let the cat out the bag during the performance, through the things she blurted out to the audience. Technical difficulties, definitely. But which ones?
Yea it was sabotaged by her. If you’re going to lip sync at least know the lyrics to your OWN songs.
We’re going to being hearing sabotage and rigged a lot I think this year thanks to Twitler. I just saw the clips on GMA and it was embarrassing. How coincidental she has a reality show with Seacrest, Captain of the Inferior. Like @lightpurple said above, how about just singing!
Twilter! I like it.
Now, I don’t follow Mariah much but I’m going to post my opinion anyway. Just kidding (sort of)
I did watch the clips and she was ok, I thought she chatted with crowd and was waiting for the music to restart, but it didn’t. She lost my sympathy vote with the way she ended her set, stalking off the stage like a brat. No grace there, at all, no humility.
Thanks for your post yesterday Nancy, I did get back to read it, and I replied 🙂
I wish I could take credit for Twitler, but I “borrowed” it from someone on this site. Thought it was perfect. I was calling him trumpty dumpty and that didn’t go over too big! On to Miss Mimi…..she is a diva and acted accordingly. I guess any press is good press to these women ala the Kardashians. She is promoting her reality series, but not knowing her own lyrics and lip syncing wouldn’t get me to watch. And lastly, the posts….I think we’re too hard on each other sometimes….and I felt you were being picked on needlessly by some troll and I speak up for my FRIENDS!!
A total lipsyncing mess. I don’t think she can sing or perform anymore. Why are people still giving her their time I will never know!
A professional would improvise not just wander around the stage like a useless muppet and stomp off in a huff like she did.
And stop wearing leotards 3 sizes too small… ridiculous…. someone needs to tell her that!
Do I think ABC is more than happy to have the blame fall on Mariah? Yes. And I don’t feel sorry for her, since she doesn’t seem to bother with preparing for these performances.
Well, it’s not technically lip-syncing. It’s a backing track that most popstars have, even Gaga in her concerts.
You can hear silent places vocally, just music, for Mimi to sing and other places where she would be over the backing vocals. The high whistle would be mimed. With the in-ear monitor not working, she couldn’t figure out where she was supposed to come in in many
places.
She did completely lip-synch the first song, Auld Lang Syne. It was a recorded song with the recorded vocals in the forefront. And she was standing, not a pop song, no choreography. She should have performed that song herself easily.
Did you see that Diva’s of Christmas special…whatever it was called. Mariah preformed her famous “All I want for Christmas” and she lip synced 100%. Indoors, controlled space. Not only did she not dance, she literally didn’t move! Didn’t walk around the stage, nothing. She got carried to the spot and when the song was done she got lifted from that exact spot…lol. It was ridiculous. She hasn’t been able to sing/preform for a long time. I don’t know why she keeps getting these jobs. Especially, LIVE on freaking New Year’s.
I’ve seen a lot of pop stars take out their ear pieces mid-performance and singing without them, so I am really interested in a professional opinion about this. Good end to the year though, that’s true)
Yes I have too, and wondered about them, but also I see some wearing 2 and they only remove 1.
I know absolutely nothing about music and performances and why things happen they way they do, so I won’t comment on that part of the issue.
I do want to know- when celebs go on talk shows, do they get paid or is it just park of the package? like, maybe not to promote a movie, but just to visit the show? I’ve always wondered that but never asked.
They get paid to present awards? to sing at awards shows? Inquiring minds need to know!
TIA!
They get a minimum, SAG union payment for the American talk shows, anyway. It’s somewhere just under $1,000 currently, so that’s not why they’re doing it. Accommodations, transportation and sometimes hair, makeup and clothing are also included, but not always. I remember way back when, when David Letterman gave one of his interns a “wedding present” by having her appear on the show and perform a bunch of times so she could get paid each time. It gave her the payments, and if you did it enough times, would qualify you for SAG health insurance as well. (You have to earn a minimum amount on SAG sets each year, or work a set number of days, to qualify for their healthcare. I believe it’s currently somewhere in the 75 days or $30k range/annually.)
If the ear mic is playing up and the venue is subdued enough that they’ll be able to hear themselves singing, taking it out is by far the better option.
This wasn’t a regular live performance though, where the audience are relatively quiet unless instructed to sing along. This event is extremely loud, especially as it nears the countdown. People are yelling and cheering and not just watching the concert like they would usually do. You have to scream just to be heard by the person standing next to you. Mariah couldn’t hear her own voice over that, so she really needed the in ear mic. She tried taking them out, but it solved nothing for her. She then asked that the monitors be fixed. They weren’t, so that was pretty much it.
She was in a tough spot. She was the last act before the countdown, so as soon as there was a hold-up it was all over really, there was no time for her to start over. If she’d been 30 minutes out she probably would have handled it a lot better, as there would have been room to improvise.
I know nothing about the technicalities, but it sounds like there could have been faults on both sides. What I do know is that the recent, excellent, Ron Howard directed Beatles documentary, Eight Days a Week, talks about the Beatles Shea Stadium show noise. The screaming was so incredibly loud that they could not hear themselves at all. And how did their two and three part harmonies and guitars and bass and drums sound? Bloody brilliant. Compare and contrast.
Actually, many of the Beatles concerts during that time were absolutely awful. By their own admission they were playing and singing terribly. They couldn’t hear themselves, but the vast majority of the audience couldn’t actually hear them over the screaming either so it didn’t really matter.
The Rolling Stones have talked about the same thing.
Yup. Seeing a lot of opinions from people who don’t understand the technical aspects of a production such as this, outdoors, in the cold with a screaming audience. But that’s pretty much business as usual and Mimi’ll be alright.
Yep, the Beatles didn’t exactly produce sonic masterpieces for those concerts. But they also didn’t need to – the screaming girls weren’t really there for the music.
The biggest crowd I’ve ever been in was at a Stones concert. Loud? Holy crap it was loud. Ditto FIFA games. I couldn’t imagine the amount of noise approximately a million people would make. I do hope I get the chance to find out though. What a rush to be in the middle of a million people.
Not to mention the big difference the Beatles were actually playing the instruments. You can kind of tell where the song is by how you are playing the instrument, and if you hear Paul or any of them talk about those concerts they all said they stunk, but the crowd didn’t care. Honestly, Mariah was a great singer, not a great musician and voices do have a tendency to lose range and tone with age.
I’m not sure they sabotaged her, but I do feel the production handled this wrong for the publicity they received. They really should have switched off to something else and tried to restart it.
I’ve never heard any stories of the Beatles storming off stage in the middle of a performance, though.
Didn’t Beyoncé rip it out of her ear at the last Obama inauguration? Everyone was like “oh my God, she couldn’t hear herself but she still crushed it!” Then it turned out she was lip syncing and it was basically just a pre-planned thing for the dramatics of it.
To me, she seemed like an inebriated, slurring mess that had not rehearsed. She was being paid probably multi millions of dollars for a three-song gig that, even if everything had gone as planned, was meant to be mostly lip synching. Even if the technical difficulty was real, which I doubt, she might have been able to recover and save the performance were she not drunk/high as a kite. She showed such contempt for the show and her audience. Not feeling sorry for her.
Apparently she did it for free, and everybody got their money’s worth.
The Beastie Boys song immediately came to my mind…
They posted a screenshot of J. Lo liking a meme shading Mariah and this performance on Instagram and somebody said that at least Mariah lip-syncs her own vocals not Ashanti’s vocals. I died.
I’m always here for a J. Lo drag, especially if she comes for Mariah. Stealing her melodies wasn’t enough? She is still coming for Mariah?
Yeah, JLo should not open that door of criticizing someone else’s vocals.
It’s not shade if it’s true
Jlos a grown ass woman and she can do as pleases
Jlo killed her performance on NBC and Mariah has killed what’s left of her career, this is her karma after shading everyone last year
Now she should eat humble pie and retire
If I was going to lip sync another artist’s vocals, it certainly wouldn’t be Ashanti’s. Yikes.
I 100% agree with her management. ABC effed up huge. And then the producers thought, “yeah, let’s just leave it.” It is a bit curious. Were they trying to get a viral hit? Well it worked. But at Mariah’s expense? That’s not cool.
You’d think the production company would have backups of equipment set up in case something like this happens, too.
I actually believe Mariah’s side on this, after reading the latest stories. She did do a sound track but had a stand-in for the dancing. You can see her ripping out her earpiece right at the start, when they lifted the feathers away.
What’s Mariah bitching about? Look at all the free publicity she’s getting! She has that crappy”reality show” to promote.
I’m not a professional singer in the sense that it’s not my job, but I’ve sung lyrical music since the age of 8 and had 10 years of training in non-lyrical music, and have sung live countless times, in different venues, with an actual band and with NO ear monitor. I only ever have two things with me – sheet of music and one foot speaker. One time the foot speaker went out and I relied on my sheet music (that’s what it’s for) so I will not excuse Mariah Carey. She was going to half ass it, half sing it because she can’t hit the high notes anymore (that’s what happens when you overuse your throat and do not use your diaphragm). Sing over a track? OK, fine, not everyone gets to sing with a band. But she was not going to sing live, that’s why this has blown up. She got caught faking it and she couldn’t even pick up the pitch or melody by herself, to her OWN SONG. She could not hear the track, she could have gone off acapella like most do.
The production company, aware Mariah was not going to sing live, should have triple checked everything to make sure the artist did not flounder, so that’s on them too.
Ugh! I’m sorry but she is NOT an artist!
I think she is. She had an amazing voice, if a bit untrained, and she composes. She is an icon. But her voice is gone. Any singer worth their salt knows it’s a NO to sing with your throat instead of lungs and diaphragm. Many people shout at Christina Aguilera for doing this – however the only thing she is guilty of is of shout-singing.
I’m sad Mariah Carey has been reduced to lup sincing and base tracks. She is as bad as Ashlee Simpson and we all know there is no real comparison between them.
Could you hear yourself singing? Because that was the problem here. Not the backing track, not even that she couldn’t hear the music, but that she couldn’t hear her own voice. The first thing she tried was taking out the ear monitors, but this event is extremely loud, and she couldn’t hear her own voice at all.
Everyone else managed fine, except for her. Maybe she lost touch with her own talent or whatever, but she could have done something. Saying “oh she couldn’t hear herself” is not a justification for what happened. This isn’t a Fifth Harmony girl we are talking about, this is Mariah Carey. She was relying on a track to lip sinc and she’s aware enough to know that anything can go wrong in a performance and to carry on. Well, maybe she forgot how to do that… which is a pity.
No. The problem is that Mariah is lazy and can no longer sing.
You kind of disqualify yourself when you say one speaker. Like someone else said, it’s like singing along to a song in a club, you can’t hear your own voice. Singing on key isn’t muscle memory, it’s not like you can do it if you can’t hear the sound you’re making.
I dont need to hear my own voice. I have perfect pitch and I’ve been trained. THIS is exactly my point. You can definitely sing without hearing yourself especially if you have the corresponding sheet of music.
Mariah Carey is a LEGEND. Her voice? Amazing. But she did not take care of it and her technique wasn’t the best, but she had raw talent. that’s why I’m saying she half assed it. She still tries to sing like she did some 12 years before instead of adapting, like other singers out there do. Jon Bon Jovi isn’t hitting the same notes. Barbra has adapted a bit, too.
She was left exposed when all she could have done was sing it out. She’s not 100% to blame, the production company played their part.
But have you performed in a concert setting where the sound drowns out your voice? I think Mariah is a selfish, entitled, wacky drama queen coasting on her past but I actually believe her side.
Times Square would be super, super loud. I think the only thing you can do in this situation is press one ear shut so you can at least hear the echo of your own singing voice from your closed ear.
About a minute in she says to her backup dancers in a drunken slur “just walk me on down” referring to the few steps she had to go down ah the beginning of the performance. And the two men basically carried her down by each arm. She was drunk.
Im surprised she even started saying all these accusations becuase honestly it seemed like she had no fucks to give.
That was the first compromise. They couldn’t lift her because she didn’t provide any assistance. She didn’t even try.
When later in the number the one dancer does lift her up she doesn’t help at all, she’s a dead weight. He can barely get her down the stairs.
I read on another site that the dancers screwed up and she was pissed, like, all right, just walk me down.
That’s what I noticed, too, even before that– after she slurred “I jus’ tryna be goo’ sport” she had to go on some kind of platform to “sing” her last song and it was like she was unable to get up two steps on her own without one of the dancers shepherding her up.
I just can’t. I’m a professional musician. I play the harp which is not an easy instrument. All performers have times when they mess up royally but you just keep going and get through it. That’s the test of a professional. You keep going. And if you do that you get back on track and most people don’t even notice.
Same with theater. I’ve been in productions where there were huge screw-ups, but you find a way to work around them and keep the show going.
And for any of the examples y’all mentioned: did you have thousands of people screaming during these performances? No? Then of course you can hear yourself.
It’s not the same thing. People saying she couldn’t hear herself aren’t excusing her, just stating the truth of the matter.
Exactly. She is certainly not the first singer to have “technical difficulties” and she didn’t even try to keep going and entertain. She’s a veteran in the biz and should have been able to handle it.
ITA. I’m getting tired of the “she couldn’t hear herself” excuse. It’s not an excuse. She could have carried on but chose not to wether because she can’t sing live anymore or because she simply did not care is bad either way.
But apparently she tried quite a few times prior to the start to get them to fix the sound issue. She walked off because she thought she was being sabotaged.
I watched the video and was more disturbed by her nude body suit on a freezing night. Do we really need celebs to be basically naked in winter to feel entertained now?
^^^This! Would much rather have seen her bundled in an amazing coat/cape and fuzzy hat–would have been much more New Year’s Eve–and maybe if she was not squished into a waist trainer/Spanx to try to make herself look better in that dreadful bunch-crotched leotard, she would have had some breath to use for singing…
Come on-that’s Mariah though. Did you really think she was going to go out there in anything else?
Grain of salt because I don’t know these people myself, but one of my fb friends is friends with the people on this tech team. She said according to them, everything was working fine and Mariah had a meltdown. The prompters were working, her ear piece was working, etc. Again, I don’t know them and it’s he-said-she-said, but it wouldn’t surprise me if she did it to get talked about and get sympathy, since no one else seemed to have any glitches.
I believe this, because in a situation like this one, I have no doubt that everything was double and triple checked and there was back-up for everything. I’ve worked tech before and there was always back-up plans for anything that could go wrong. The only thing that makes sense is that Mariah was drunk and having a meltdown.
I’ve worked in live TV and while I’m no Mariah fan, and think she’s a spoiled, obviously unprepared diva (Page Six had a whole story about how they were about her even showing up on time for the countdown, since she’s so notoriously late to everything) BUT you don’t leave her on-air to struggle if you actually care. Cut to break, or let Seacrest vamp, while you frantically try to fix it. They may have been doing that behind-the-scenes, but when they didn’t cut away or even send a damn tech or two onstage, Mariah’s team is right: they wanted to watch her flail. This is doubly confirmed in that they left it in the (delayed) West Coast feed; where screw-ups are pulled all the time … Including in that similar Ashlee Simpson, Saturday Night Live mess up where she stopped “singing” before her lyrics did. (SNL cut it from the West Coast airing.)
As others have pointed out, Mariah wasn’t actually full-on lip syncing, unlike Ashlee, she was using a backing track, which included the music, background vocals and SOME lead vocals (the high notes, etc.). That’s super common for ANY performer, especially for a televised, outdoor performance, because you want the voice to sound good for the at-home viewer, who are hearing a very different mix than the performer themselves or the crowd on hand.
It was someplace extraordinarily loud — she wouldn’t have been able to hear herself speak, let along sing — and it’s not like she was singing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” where it doesn’t matter where she came in. If she couldn’t catch the tune, she had no idea where the song was even playing. She did appear to be looking for cues all around and she didn’t lose her cool and start screaming or cursing or anything.
I took the “just lead me down” as a change in choreography, not an indication she was inebriated and couldn’t walk, because she was focused on trying to catch up with where the song was. She’d actually posted a Twitter picture earlier of those guys carrying her during the rehearsal, so I assume she was trying to un-complicate the motion in order to try and focus on catching up to the song.
AND she stuck it out through what must have been hella embarrassment for more than a full song, trying to catch up again and again. I think she actually genuinely was trying to be a good sport, just as she said, and plenty of folks would have stormed off long before. So, yeah, I admit I feel some sympathy for her in this one, small instance, even though I generally believe she’s a narcissistic, exhausting mess.
Thank you for your insight into this. I know Mariah’s antics make her not well liked but it just bugs how so many people are saying she coulda just this or that while having no clue or experience about these types of performances.
Great post.
+1
Well said, and I agree with you generally she is a narcisstic exhausting mess, but in this instance you are right. Crap happens on live tv, but they left her out there for the viral publicity effect, and that sucks. Not a Mariah fan either, but this mistake isn’t even half her fault.
Also, I am dumbfounded, when you hear a track with just background vocals and the high notes why people think she was lip-syncing the whole song. If she was lip-syncing the camera could have gone wide and none of us would have noticed how bad she was lip-syncing. Also, what exactly did anyone expect when there are no musicians or back up singers to be found on stage only dancers without mics.
My take is that the whole set was going to be lip synced, which is fine considering the environment. However, there were technical difficulties throughout the whole set, not just during Emotions.
My issue with Mariah and Co, is that they aren’t being forthright about which technical difficulties they had. That Mariah couldn’t hear in her ear monitors? Absolutely, for Auld Lang Syne was an unsynchronized lip sync. That the prerecorded lead vocal track for the audience didn’t play during Emotions? No one at Team Mariah want’s to admit this. Later when We Belong Together started playing, Mariah herself said, “Let’s just enjoy the album version”…which is exactly what was played.
This performance needs to be viewed as a whole, and both Mariah and the producers played a role for which they are responsible, whether or not they want to accept it.
Thanks for this.
@S
I’m with you. Thanks for the explanation. I think they could have stepped in and helped her too. And her initial response of s*it happens, Happy New Year made me laugh. It really did sum up 2016 though! At least the whole Hollyweed sign thing gave us something to laugh at in 2017.
This was a pretty big fail for multiple people — tech people, producers, etc… it’s one of the biggest shows of the year, have your stuff together. Mariah assumed they were professionals who would fix it quickly, but they never did. That’s not on her. Lots of people here are trying to drag her for having someone else attend sound check, but a lot of pop stars do that – sound check is for the tech people, not the singer.
However the Sabatoge claim is pure Mariah diva behavior. But I’ve been a fan since the Dreamlover/Fantasy days so I will put up with a lot lol. 🙂
Did the producers force her to wear the glittery body stocking?
There was something said about an afternoon 3 pm rehearsal that went fine. So why the glitch a few hours later? In watching the incident it seems like there was no ear feed and they left her out to dry. Shame on them. Yeah she’s a mess but so what? No excuse for letting it go on and on.
Exactly, and I agree with S’s post above. They left her hanging out to dry and did it for ratings, probably.
The fact that the director didn’t cut away from a performer clearly struggling with technical issues — that is the smoking gun for me. This is live TV: stuff happens, and when it does, there are ways directors can minimize the embarassment. But I guess embarassment IS the show these days: whether or not something goes viral is the measure of success, not whether or not something is good. I’m no Mariah fan — I used to be in the 90’s, but in the ensuing years she’s become a parody of herself. But in this instance, I think she has a good point. I’ll let other, more musically knowledgeable people debate her actions, but the director’s actions were clearly not in the performer’s best interests.
How could it have been for “ratings” when it was LIVE and those wanting to watch the show were ALREADY watching?? It was awkward to watch but normally when something like this happens they cut to commercial and fix the problem. Anyways, this is the most news coverage Mariah has gotten in a while so she might benefit more than Dick Clark Productions lol !
Did you watch the clip online?
No I watched it live as it happened.
It was live on the east coast but it wouldn’t be live on the west coast three hours later. By then, whoever watched it on the east coast would have sent out tweets and stories about Mariah messing up so everyone on the west coast would want to watch and see what all the fuss was about.
But they probably would have already seen the clip of her performance on-line well before the West Coast feed.
Same way any live show gets ratings these days: viral clips. Nobody watches TV anymore, just YouTube. It was definitely click bait. You clicked, didn’t you? So did I.
No I watched it live as it was happening…not on-line. The issue is, normally just some random person will post clips on to YouTube, so how would Dick Clark Productions benefit from clicks? Unless ABC.Com had clips up.
Guy on tv this morning was saying she sent her stand-in to the sound check so she wasn’t even there. Also, supposedly her people asked what time the ball drop was. She is a mess and a joke and that is pretty much her selling point nowadays. I thought it was great
Well, she definitely went to the rehearsal, as she posted pics of it on Twitter the day of. https://twitter.com/MariahCarey/status/815303438619832320
They were checking when the ball drop started. At some events the countdown starts 60 seconds out, at some 20, at some 10. She was the last act before the ball drop began, so they were double checking their timings.
People twisting it into ‘hur dur, Mariah doesn’t know what time midnight is’ are being deliberately obtuse.
A lot of big name artists do that all the time; it’s not just her.
Russian tampering theory in 3….2…..
OK, I might sound as if I’m one can short of a six-pack when I ask this, but after watching this fiasco, how is it that her dancers were able to hear the music so well they were dancing in perfect unison while Mariah couldn’t hear the music well enough to sing? This woman is supposed to be a “seasoned” performer with years of experience. Here are dancers with less experience in show business performing with more poise and professionalism than her. Am I missing something here?
Because dancers can do prepared choreography even without music, and rehearse that way frequently. AND if they lose their spot, they can rely on the count of someone next to them to get back in sync. Not to mention that if they do get lost they CAN vamp in the background without completely ruining the performance, because they’re not the central element … Unlike, say, if someone is singing the wrong lyrics into a hot mic. (And we know it was hot, hence the lip syncing claims being inaccurate, since we could hear what Mariah was saying to her dancers.)
Dancers are actually counting off and preforming a well-rehearsed set of moves, not reacting spontaneously to the song as it plays. As the only singer, and central focus, Mariah didn’t have anyone else to rely on to know exactly where the song was. Sure, if it was a concert set-up she did nightly, she might have been able to tell from the dancers alone, but this was a one-off, so it’s not that realistic for her to know based solely on where they are in their routine which, face it, wasn’t exactly smooth sailing either. (Because the dancers were relying on Mariah as well.)
I’m not a Mariah apologist, nor even a fan really, but the dancer’s going through their motions, versus singing live, are just not at all the same thing.
Interesting, thanks for explaining.
I just asked that question myself, above.
They couldn’t hear the music well, but they could feel what they were doing with their body and if caught out could see others doing the movements. The music isn’t essential to them, nor Mariah.
Mariah’s major issue was that she couldn’t hear her own voice. For a dancer, that would be like trying to dance while your whole body is completely numb. You’d know you’re moving, but without a mirror (or for Mariah, a monitor) you’d have no idea if you’re doing it right.
She is exhausting. Why do we make excuses for celebrity behaviors. Why do people put them on pedestals even with their “diva” behaviors. And she is too old to be wearing those outfits. Hang it up.
Henshall fans- did you watch In Plain sight on ITV last month?
Eh, technical difficulties or not Mariah has never been much of a “performer”.
Beautiful voice but live, in concert she is truly awful…..always has been.
She’s a straight-up hot mess, and has been so for years. She exists in her own universe. I don’t know why anyone thought she’d deliver on NYE.
At least her dancers kept going. True professionals right there.
Long time lurker here. I have a theory; what if there weren’t any technical problems that the production could find-which is why they stayed live on her? They were waiting HER out to find her way out of HER personal “glitch”. When you re-watch the end part of the video, the look on her face registers like a brick just hit her that she is “done” and her singing career is gone. It’s just a fleeting moment and then her narcissistic diva-ness kicks back into gear.
I re-watched it. She did get off but she kept trying to get back on track. At the :30 mark right when it switches to ‘Emotion’ she look her right ear piece out then tried to put it back in. So that piece may not have been working properly. She moves across the stage to a speaker (hard to tell with that video quality) to maybe hear where the song is.
I don’t mean to be brilliant here, but she should’ve just mouthed the words like she was singing, and then everyone would’ve thought audio was out. it would’ve been a technical glitch, NOT the goddess’s fault. Boom.
No amount of years any of us have spent as a musician, knowing a musician, or learning about the technical aspects of a musical performance can make what Mariah did here right.
Saying that she’s behaving ridiculously is not a personal attack on all musicians. This is her g*ddamned job. If any of us, at a 9 to 5 office job, stormed out of the office like a brat because the printer stopped working… we would be fired.
This is not about the technical difficulties she experienced. It’s about the way she handled them. She didn’t rehearse, she was probably drunk, and when difficulty arose she acted like an unprofessional, petulant, spoiled child. I’m not saying she has to handle sh!t with grace if she doesn’t feel like it. That’s obviously not who she is. But I can call her out when she acts like a total a$$shole.
Earlier in the Christmas season, she released this music video for her version of “Here Comes Santa Clause.” It was horrendous and borderline obscene. The woman in that video was not an “artist,” I’m sorry. She stood there with a vacant expression on her face, half-heartedly attempting to lip sync, and barely moving so that her nipples wouldn’t slip out of the glittery suspenders that were covering 20% of her breasts. Mariah is a ridiculous person. She’s beyond the benefit of the doubt in situations like this, for me.
Except she did rehearse. Someone above linked to a tweet she put out showing her AT rehearsal. And all went fine in rehearsals. She stormed off at the end because they hung her out to dry. I won’t refute the fact that Mariah is ridiculous.
Except that the main point of NewYearNewShambles’s post is: “If any of us, at a 9 to 5 office job, stormed out of the office like a brat because the printer stopped working… we would be fired.” So Mariah supposedly rehearsed. That doesn’t negate the on-point analogy in NYNS’s post.
The Dept. of Education has lowered the bar so that ‘reading comprehension’ is the only hoop we have to jump through anymore, never mind analyzing what we’ve read. Apparently they set the bar too high. I am surprised these days when I come across a post that doesn’t sound stupid.
At least people are talking about this instead of her split with James Packer…… *eh hem*…… Intentional or not, that’s a brilliant way to get some Poor Mimi attention instead of her being a crazy gf/fiancé/wife (which we all already know). It’s for sure better gossip for her brand to discuss the music than to discuss her personal life.
Blame someone else for her embarrassment
I definitely don’t think it was sabotage, but yes they did f*** it up, not her. Not a fan, but I thought she handled it calmly and in a funny way. It happens, whatever. Is it going to ruin her career??? Umm doubtful.
THis has been a train wreck in the making for awhile!!! Anyone remember these performances???
https://www.google.com/amp/screenertv.com/television/mariah-carey-nearly-tone-deaf-billboard-music-awards-2015/amp/?client=safari
And another….
http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/video/happened-mariah-careys-voice-rockefeller-tree-lighting-27383427
I think her management team seem to at fault here as well. If you watch her ”reality show’ Mariah’s World. Her manager seem to be a little bit of a money grabber and doesn’t seem to really know how to manage Mariah professionally. There is something very off with her manager, watch her show to see what I mean.
Have we ruled Russia out?
.
bahahahaha!!!