Throughout her career, pop sensation Taylor Swift has faced speculation that she does not actually sing all of her songs during her live performances and instead relies on lip-syncing and miming. Obviously, these claims would do some serious damage to her reputation, and in a terrible turn of events for the pop star, one expert has actually confirmed it.
In a YouTube video published recently, notable vocal analyst and musical artist Fil Henley used audio analysis to demonstrate and confirm that Taylor Swift does indeed lip-sync — or “mime” — her vocal performance during the Eras Tour.
Henley argues that the evidence is clear, pointing out that her vocal performance remains exactly the same at every show throughout the tour.
“You can hear that across all of these shows, [her vocals] are perfectly in sync,” he said. “Her vocal is starting at the exact same time, finishing at the exact same time.”
As Henly explains, this is not physically possible.
“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.”
He says the different vocal performances are “like a fingerprint,” noting that they vary slightly from show to show, even when the same song is performed.
As Henley points out, even the “plosives” — the bursts of air hitting the microphone — are identical across performances, which would only be possible if the vocals were pre-recorded.
Henley was able to prove it.
Using pitch detection software, Henley compared two of Swift’s performances, and the software clearly showed that both the pitch and timing were identical, which Henley argues is physically impossible for any human singer.
“This shouldn’t overlap at all,” he 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,” he added. “We’re looking at hundredths of a second here and [there is] a pitch variation of zero cents.”
“So, this is the same audio file,” Henley concluded.
Henley conducted the same analysis on some other shows and reached the same conclusion: Taylor Swift is using a pre-recorded track and lip-syncing over it.
“And just to clarify, when I say that it’s the same audio, I mean the same audio file,” Henley explained. “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.”
What’s even more condemning is that the pre-recorded vocals aren’t even “live” either. Instead, the tracks have been heavily pitch-corrected to the point that he describes them as “borderline autotuned.”
“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 declares. “This is objective data that we are looking at. It’s undeniable.”
Needless to say, this is some pretty terrible news for Taylor Swift that could do some real damage to her reputation, and it led to a lot of reactions in the comments of the story.
“If she is out there lip syncing and not singing on the stage, she’s a fake and it’s fraudulent. I cannot stand Taylor Swift if this is true, she does need to be sued,” one person wrote in the comments of the story.
“She doesn’t respect her Fans .. she Should be Sued … ripped off her fans around the world .. with the cost of her tickets being outrageous ..,” another person added.
“She’s got all the teenagers Brainwashed,” another person wrote.
“She’s a fraud,” someone else added.
“Those that paid thousands to see her should rally and file a multi million person law suit against her,” another person added.
“It’s disgusting how she misled fans honestly,” another commenter added.
“A con artist,” someone else said.
Clearly, people are not all that happy with this news.
