Over the years, Taylor Swift has been hit with many accusations that she does not actually sing live and instead relies on a backing track – something her supporters have firmly denied. But one prominent vocal analyst has just proven that she does indeed rely on lip-syncing and backing tracks.
In a YouTube video he published this week to his 434,000 subscribers, prominent vocal analyst Fil Henley, who has a YouTube channel called “Wings of Pegasus,” proved with objective audio analysis that Taylor Swift lipsyncs – or mimes – during the Eras Tour.
He points out that when you analyze the audio from show to show, the audio matches up perfectly down to the millisecond with zero pitch variation – something that would be physically impossible if she were singing herself.
“If we get vocal lines that match each other… It can’t happen,” he said. “Even with a clear vocal of a singer, doing one performance and even just singing a few notes and singing a few notes again, those vocal lines will not overlap, in terms of the detail – your hundredths of a second of your vocal cord vibrations.”
“It’s impossible to sing over your vocal lines that you’ve just done – it very much is like a fingerprint,” Henley concluded.
He pointed out that even the air hitting the mic – which Henley calls a “plosive” – is exactly the same from show to show, adding evidence to the fact that the tracks are pre-recorded.
To further prove his point, he used pitch detection software to show visually how the pitch and timing are exactly the same from show to show.
“This shouldn’t overlap at all,” Henley said. “It shouldn’t be anywhere close. But then when we line up the pitch, we see that it is a perfect replication. That is something that is simply impossible to do with human vocal cords – to sing to that detail.”
“We’re looking at hundredths of a second here and [there is] a pitch variation of zero cents,” Henley said. “So, this is the same audio file.”
He then did the same analysis with two more shows and concluded the same thing.
“It’s the same audio that’s been recorded in the studio to sound live – because it’s got the plosives left on there – but it’s that same audio that’s being mimed to. It is one vocal that’s been pre-recorded before all of these performances that Taylor is then miming to,” he said.
He also asserts that based on his analysis, even the pre-recorded live performance has been heavily pitch-corrected.
“Something that I will say about the live performance and this vocal is that it is heavily edited from a pitch perspective,” he said. “I mean, it is borderline autotuned – it might be autotuned – because it is so stuck on these lines.”
“This is a pre-recorded vocal that has been heavily pitch-corrected, borderline autotuned,” he concluded.
“That is fact,” he said. “This is objective data that we are looking at. It’s undeniable.”
Needless to say, this is some pretty devastating news for Swift that is sure to impact her reputation as a live performer, and it led to a lot of reactions in the comments of the video.
“Bands should be legally required to reveal whether or not what fans will be seeing is live or mimed,” a commenter wrote.
“One guy in his studio room exposing a billion dollar, money making machine. Love it,” another fan wrote.
“My adult daughter told me once that I was naive expecting anyone in concert to actually be singing. She insisted that no one could dance like that and still sing. Broadway performers do that 8 shows a week, and (fingers crossed!) none of them are lip syncing. Of course, she also refused to believe that I could hear auto-tune/pitch-correction. I feel very old,” another fan added.
“When she was accused by Dave Grohl, she said during a performance that ‘My band plays live for over 3 hours.’ She did not say that she sung live. Words matter,” another person said.
“1000 dollar tickets. That should be illegal,” another person added.
“The important secondary issue is they chose to pitch correct the studio ‘live’ performance. That’s an additional disgrace,” someone else added.
Clearly, people are not happy about this revelation.
