Should Chiff & Fipple Pardon Ashlee Simpson?
- Yes
- No
- Chiff & Fipple should punish Ashlee Simpson
- Who is Ashlee Simpson and what are you talking about?
0
voters
Should we?
The practice is so common, it’s only surprising something like this hasn’t happened before. I say we put a stop to it. What’s the punishment?
Susan
i forgive her.
…depends on the punishment. I mean, should she be forced to learn how to play the whistle as punishment?..then yes. Although, how will we be certain it is really her playing it, or her just ‘fingersyncing’? 
Aww, she’s probably punishing herself enough. She’s just a kid. Can you imagine how embarassing that would be? It’s like everyone knows they do it (as Susan remarked) and it’s generally accepted (I guess) by fans of that type of entertainment. - So the technical crew screws up and then she takes all the $#!^ for it. I feel sorry for her.
I feel sorry for both of OJ’s kids.
I selected “Who is Ashlee Simpson?” Then I turned on the news, and there she was. Now I remember why I don’t pay any attention to pop music…
Would her penance be having to go back on 7th Heaven?
That was one great hoe-down.
You can only forgive a person if you’re angry at them.
I’m not angry at Ashlee Simpson, because if I were she I would be doing the same thing (making millions of dollars pretending to sing because my sister is famous).
However, I am angry at the music industry as a whole. People like Sinéad O’Connor, who has a tremendous live voice and used to sing a capella quite often, are driven out of the music industry because of their political beliefs or because they’re not pretty enough and are called insane by the papers, while people like Ashlee Simpson, Britney Spears, and Avril Lavigne who lip sing all the time get the adoration and awe of all the press and industry because they’re pretty.
It wouldn’t have been a big deal if it hadn’t happened at Saturday Night Live. It’s another nail in the coffin of what used (10-15 years ago) to be the best TV show in the USA.
I saw a sound engineer on TV explaining that most big time performers have tracks to enhance (replace?) their vocals on bad days. I’ve been to some concerts with old rockers (my age) who certainly could have used some vocal enhancement (CSNY).
I’m still learning the whistle and have never played in a session, but I have played with a few other students. I gather one of the benefits of session playing is that, on a bad night, a player can skip a few rough spots, take an extra breath etc. Is that like lip syncing?
A side note is that I’m 3000 miles from home in Seattle, in a hotel, seeing morning TV that I never watch at home. I’m amazed that Today, Good Morning Amer. are continuing updates on Ashlee Simpson every 1/2 hr, 3 days after a bad moment on late-night TV. It’s clearly the most important story in the country this week.
Yup. I can’t even watch it any more.
The Simpson fiasco made the news not just because of the lip-synching, but because the performance totally collapsed after the glitch. Simpson looked like a deer in headlights, kinda hung out on stage for half a minute, then walked off. This is worse than being exposed as a lip-syncher, the poor girl came across as utterly unable to do anything when the machine stopped singing for her.
This we know from trad music, that mistakes abound, embarrassing mistakes happen now and then, and freak occurrences happen too (pads falling off!) Part of learning music is learning to deal with these things—a
big milestone for students is the ability to keep playing after a mistake, rather than being completely derailed.
But, the Simpson girl was just recently rebranded as a made-to-order pop star, to capitalize on her celebrity. She was barely prepared to perform in public at all, and she definitely wasn’t prepared to deal with the vocal track misfiring in a live performance. With some experience, she might have told the band to segue into another song on 3, and just sing that. She’d still be busted, but it wouldn’t be on CNN all day.
Caj
Anything to get away from the cut throat politics of Coburn Vs. Carson, I reckon.
She could escape punishment, if I’m allowed to finger sync the whistle/flute on St. Patrick’s day after eight hours of playing.
Alas, I have come to believe that nobody in popular music actually sings at all anymore, either on CD, radio, concerts, television all which can be manipulated by the use of technology. So what is real these days!
But then who cares, she will be unknown in two years and thrown in the ashcan of one hit wonders, or in drug rehab!
MarkB
Exactly. SNL is supposed to be a premier space, and you should have to prove yourself before you perform there. One of the reasons is because it’s supposed to be live. We’ve seen many famous acts falter when they play there. So now, the music industry arrogantly puts this poor girl in a stage she couldn’t possibly be ready for, and uses lip-synching to cover up. They probably think we’re stoopid.
But it’s not her fault. The whole system is screwed up.
I take it this person is a pretty girl who has a single out, on the strength that she has a sister who also has released singles, and that she lip-synched to her single on a live show? And the synch was off because of technical difficulties?
If you took all lip-synching off TV, what would all the tape-spinners do with their time? This girl has provided employment for many people by not being able to sing live. Give her a medal.
It wasn’t just off. It was a total messup. They played the wrong song (they repeated her first song instead of playing the second) and she left the stage, embarrassed. The “band” continued to “play” as if nothing unusual had happened.
If things had gone as planned, it would have been just another forgettable performance; as it is, it’s still keeping us entertained, several days afterwards. It actually was the best thing that could have happened in this case! 
Maybe if I started whistle-synching some studio-massaged highly-reverbed production, I would make more money at gigs than I do now 