New Year's Eve this year was definitely a memorable one. It marked the ending of one horrible year, and hopefully the beginning of a wonderful new year, but it was an embarrassing start for one very famous singer. Mariah Carey, a singer whose career has spanned over 30 years, was beginning her performance at 11:38 PM on December 31st, 2016. It started off as you would normally think it would, but as she continued farther into the performance, you would have probably began asking yourself, "Where are the vocals?"
For those of you who didn't see the performance on live television, on a video clip on Facebook, or live in Times Square, the first half of Carey's performance was missing vocals. Well, at least, just her vocals. As a performer myself, I know how terrifying this can be, and I could also relate to how she could have felt during this mishap. I've only sang solo in front of, at most, 100 people. She was in front of millions. During the few days after her memorable performance, she became the laughing stock of the social media platforms, just deepening the wound. Numerous people took to their Facebook posts with accusations of lip syncing and others who say they know exactly what happened.
From a performer's perspective, nobody in the audience would have known what went wrong. It was a technical issue, and I can almost guarantee that normal audience members have no idea how the microphones and soundboards for this gigantic event even turned on. It is not a simple process, nor is it easy to keep everything on track, but what could Carey have done differently to make the performance a lot less, well, awkward?
Mariah Carey should have rolled with it slightly more than she did. What I've learned about performing solo is that anything could go wrong, and it isn't always your fault. Your accompanist for the piece you are singing or playing could accidentally turn two pages instead of one, piano pedals could stop working, and a stuck valve, the worst nightmare for any brass performer, could spell doom for the entire piece. Does the audience care? No. Do they want excuses? No. They came there to hear Carey sing, and they expect nothing less. Granted, Mariah was complaining about her earpiece not working 45 minutes before going on stage, and her publicity team has tried to pawn the blame off on Dick Clark's technical crew, the organizers of the massive event. I have never performed in front of large screaming crowds, but, according to all the different Snapchat videos I have seen of her live performance from Times Square, the music was audible enough for her to carry on her performance without an ear piece.
The audience was met by the background music for "Emotions," one of her big hits from the 90s, and no lead vocals: the most important part. Occasionally a faint whistle tone could be heard, which, it seemed to me, was a sad attempt to recover the song and the fans she was losing by the second. These turn of events are what lead people to believe that she was lip syncing her entire performance, and she refused to sing the song because it could have been worse than the lip synced vocals failing to occur. "If she was lip syncing, why was she carrying a live microphone?" I asked myself, very confused. Keep in mind, this is just three minutes into the video I've been referring to.
The performance goes on with Mariah Carey's hit "We Belong Together," which was going well as it seemed until the chorus. I knew that the song had sounded good...just a little too good. The video was incriminating. Carey took the microphone away from her moving mouth, but the words were still as loud and as clear, as if they were recorded in a studio (LOL). Even after her mouth had stopped moving, lead vocals kept pouring through the speakers. I'm surprised that Carey's team even tried to bounce back from something like this. This is horrible. EXTREMELY horrible.
Why couldn't she sing, just like everyone else who was performing? Was it that she is getting much older and her vocal chords can no longer sustain the notes that she used to be able to hit? If that is the case, then maybe, just maybe, she should call it quits and do movies, like many current actors and actresses have done before and are currently doing now. Was it that it was too cold and the temperatures in Times Square, coupled with her age and wear on her vocal chords, could have ended her career for good? If so, that is completely understandable. Cold temperatures are not ideal for singers at all. Take Idina Menzel, for instance. New Year's Eve 2015 was where Idina had one of the biggest mess-ups in her entire career. She sang "Let It Go" from the hit movie/musical, "Frozen". Near the end of the song, there is a note belted way above any of the others, and somehow, she fell extremely flat, which turned heads, was met with hands over ears, and a multitude of laughter by the internet the following day. She owned it, and she did not try to cover it up.
At that moment my heart broke for her, because she is one of the best performers of the modern era; however, my heart cannot break for Mariah Carey. It was shameful and completely horrendous. I don't blame fans for leaving her high and dry, because if I was tricked like this by someone I love, I would tell them goodbye without even blinking an eye.
