Wings of Pegasus exposes a miming Taylor Swift

[sclay]

Hello all,

Fil Henley from ‘Wings of Pegasus’ just dropped a video exposing Taylor Swift for miming across her recent world tour, which reaped her a reported $1B plus.

For those who know Fil, he’s a thorough professional, and provides detailed, objective, data-based quality analysis. He’s highly respected among his peers, and a genuinely nice ‘bloke’.

I’m certainly no Taylor Swift fan.
Regardless, this is fraudulent, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this explodes, given Fil’s compelling analysis and widespread respect; and of course Swifts recently acquired godess-like status. Patrons should demand their money back, and then some.
All the ’Swifties’ are gonna be going bananas over this. Others will of course defend her till the end , saying “its about the whole show. Who cares if she’s not singing”…

Reminds me of that song

" …what will we be " Singin in the 80’s? ".

What will we be singing in the 20s? Nothing anymore.

Cheers, Shane

Taylor Swift's $2 Billion tour revenue... for miming?

[jjw]

So, I watched the video. I’m not a Swiftie at all and I wouldn’t be surprised if she was miming during her concert performances, but I don’t think he proved it by any means with this video. Some thoughts that came to mind while watching:

1. Where did he get these recordings? Are they user-uploaded recordings made on smartphones? How well does this pitch-monitoring software work on such low-quality recordings?

2. He keeps saying there is lots of ambient noise on the recordings and that there should be no similarities in the curves from one concert to the next. I find that a very strange assertion. The signal is the sum of the performance and the ambient noise, you should see a mixture of both in the resulting curves.

3. He finds bits and pieces of the graphics that overlap nicely between concerts, I don’t find that surprising. I mean, she is singing the same song! Can a singer hold a note at the same pitch and length to the degree that he shows? I have no idea, but he hasn’t demonstrated that they can’t. But I can imagine that an F# quarter note might look just about exactly the same in two different live performances.

4. He needs a control analysis. To overcome the above problems, he should do the same analysis on concerts where he knows the singer is singing live. He should show, as he repeatedly claims, that there should be nothing in common between the curves from different concerts.

As a general comment, I think he’s kind of fooling people by saying “this is objective data, this is fact” over and over again.

One question for those who might know: Does Taylor Swift have a live band playing behind her at concerts?

[brianlarsen]

Fans aren’t buying tickets to see TS play her guitar and sing songs like you would hear in a pub.
They are buying into a global phenomenon with all the tech, show, razzamatazz and most of all feeling part of a ‘movement’ or similar.
I believe holograms of ABBA occasionally go on tour
With all the ‘is that real or AI?’ emerging, the problem of miming (while valid) pales into insignificance in my book…

[Socio]

First time I’ve heard of Fil Henley, though I’m not that into X factor. Not a fan of Swifty either, hopefully, one day he’ll do a video analysis of the phenomenon known as @brianlarsen whom is rumoured to mime on AVoYP recordings

[brianlarsen]

@Socio

@brianlarsen whom is rumoured to mime on AVoYP recordings

esp. when it is done to a song in which the prosecution is playing lead guitar
We’ve come full circle @sclay

[roger_holland]

@Socio

whom is rumoured to mime on AVoYP recordings

Those really aren’t rumors … Just stop investigating…caught red-handed

Greetings

[brianlarsen]

You are sooooo mean, Rogier!

[roger_holland]

and I was just typing something very sweet… … and in that last part I didn’t make the obvious easy joke of mentioning some names again

So it’s safe to say that all the great artists are doing “it”…Don H,Taylor S ,Brian L,Freddie M ,Beyonce etc…

The list of artists who could have done it better too is much, much bigger

[sairfingers]

@brianlarsen

I believe holograms of ABBA occasionally go on tour

The difference with the ABBA thing is you know it’s not real and you buy the tickets knowing that it’s not real. My wife and I went to the ABBA voyage show in London this summer and you go for the whole experience. You have holograms synced to the original vocals and a live band playing the backing music. Huge surround sound, laser lights and all sorts of special effects. Super spectacular, but as I say, you know it’s not real.

[J.W.C]

I’d have been more surprised if she wasn’t lip syncing while on tour. Pop stars lip syncing during their “live” performances is almost de rigueur, these days.

[brianlarsen]

@roger_holland

Those really aren’t rumors … Just stop investigating…caught red-handed

Talking about ‘swift tailoring’,
I ran up that red dress on an old Singer sewing machine I found in the local dump a couple of years ago. (I don’t often wear it, as it’s made out of very heavy upholstery fabric I bought at an auction )

[sclay]

Sorry John , but you are mistaken, perhaps not understanding what the actual situation is. Fil is no fool, his analysis and methods are sound, and he’s highly respected by those professionals in the industry who speak out against this fraud.
Fil’s sometime oft mention of being objective etc, is a result of the many fanboys and girls of said musicians who baselessly slander Fil for revealing the hard facts.

The piitch monitoring software works perfectly fine. I have seen it in action in dozens of Fils analysis videos, and is widely used. I have even used it myself to prove a point on my own voice. Fil’s analyses have been verified many times by other industry professionals.

Some of of Fils analyses are currently being utilised in pending legal proceedings.

You can be 100% confident that Fil has checked and verified the authenticity and source of the various recordings. This guy is no Youtube hack. He is very meticulous. While no-one is infallible, Fil’s rigorous methods and record stand the test of time. I personally have not seen one single person debunk or successfully contest even one of Fil’s analyses. Nor have I heard of any megastars, or billion dollar publishing companies ever go after him.
Why?
Because his analyses reveal the simple truth, over and over and over again.
This miming crap, as well as things like autotune, pitch correction etc has become a virus in the music industry

You have also perhaps misunderstood his point on ambient noise, which he has explained many times in his videoes, for the benefit of new viewers. He is stating that although ambient noise will obviously differ across different concerts, the isolated vocal recording, being live, should also similarly vary. In these cases of miming, the data matches across several concerts; a simple impossibility, unless it is the exact same vocal. Ie recorded.

@jjw

He finds bits and pieces of the graphics that overlap nicely between concerts, I don’t find that surprising. I mean, she is singing the same song!

Again, you perhaps misunderstand the technicalities here.
It is an impossibility - yes a literal impossibility - that vocal data can match across even 2 different performances, even from the same singer. We are talking tonal nuances spanning 100ths and 1000ths of a second. To have them match with such precision is, as I said impossible.
It would be like you running the 100m, then going back to the start and running it again, treading in EXACTLY the same spots, with the EXACT same pressure, at the EXACT same time.
Every vocal performance ever done in history is as unique as a fingerprint.

Re your point about a control analysis. One, he doesnt need one, given, as stated above, that every single vocal performance in history is entirely unique.
And two, Fil has done analyses of singers who have sung part of the performance live, and mimed other parts. The recent saga around Ken Tamplin, a well known vocal coach, is one such example.
Fil has also utilised the live comparison in various videos. It is not required here as any control analysis, as Fil has proven the exact same vocal data exists across various ‘live’ concerts.

Taylor Swift is 100 % miming, as are many, many other performers.

Cheers, Shane

[roger_holland]

Yes, I still remember the story in detail and also that going to a festival with your daughter … and the painting in which your father looks down on you with disapproval

I also remember it in detail because I read it this morning again while looking up the video

I already ordered the Christmas tree yesterday (it’s always a special organically grown blah etc so you have to order early)… so guess what I’ve been thinking about for 2 days now (something with pink )

[sclay]

I have to say that, for once, I entirely disagree with you Brian.

But…I still love ya mate

Cheers, Shane

[sclay]

A very important point Gordon.
If the audience is aware of what they are buying tickets to, then there is no problem.
Not sure how many know they are a listening a recording though.

In my view, if you are a singer, and offer a live concert, then mime, that is fraudulent.

Cheers, Shane

[mattswain]

@sclay

In my view, if you are a singer, and offer a live concert, then mime, that is fraudulent.

I agree with you although I think it becomes unclear when the artist uses multiple vocal tracks and they are singing live albeit with a considerable safety net which I believe is quite common now. They’ll argue they are singing live and it’s unfortunate their voice is lost in the mix. I can’t say I agree with them but they’ll be able to afford better lawyers than me!

[jjw]

Hi Shane @sclay ,

Thanks for the detailed response. It’s absolutely true that I don’t understand the technicalities involved. I haven’t watched any other video by this guy and based my post above strictly on what’s in this video. So, I’m not going on his past record (which I don’t know), but just what he shows in this video.

@sclay

It is an impossibility - yes a literal impossibility - that vocal data can match across even 2 different performances, even from the same singer.

I buy this, in the sense that an exact match of a performance is impossible. Maybe I’m missing something, but this graphic doesn’t seem to show an exact match:

The curves are similar, but not exactly the same. If both represent the same identical vocal track, wouldn’t I expect them to be exactly the same?

[jgottwals]

Unfortunately Music’s days were numbered as soon as it became a “business”.

Now and for some time now, its just business. Period.

Has been for several multiples of decades, in my opinion. Colonel Tom Parker, for example, had very little musical talent. Made a fortune in the “music business.”

Prince was a great one for calling out his colleagues (although rarely by name) for doing this type of thing.

If you’ve ever sung live to an audience and tried to move around at all whilst doing so, you’ll understand just how hard (i.e. impossible) it is to deliver pitch perfect vocals whilst dancing frenetically.

An honest musician delivers what they can to the “show” aspects of their performance whilst maintaining as much musical integrity (i.e. playing their instrument and or singing) as possible.

Anything else is just business.

[brianlarsen]

@sclay

for once, I entirely disagree with you Brian

Now wouldn’t life be really boring if we all saw eye to eye?
You too x

[sclay]

@jjw

The curves are similar, but not exactly the same. If both represent the same identical vocal track, wouldn’t I expect them to be exactly the same?

Ive managed to find this in Fil’s video.

The one on the bottom looks like its been pitch corrected, which is a post production ‘effect’. This means that in certain parts of the song, vocal notes have been literally ’ dragged’ up to or down to the line, so it falls on the note exactly. You will notice this bottom one is the Official Eras Tour Music Video, which would have been been widely distributed on various platforms for promotional/ marketing purposes. Pitch correction is pretty much an industry standard these days, which is why much music today sounds so mechanical, lifeless, and crap.

The one on the top was used in the Tokyo concert, and appears not to have been pitch corrected at this point of the song, or the tour. So, exact same recording, but slightly different effect at this exact point ( if you can call pitch correction an ‘effect’)

You’ll notice that in the subsequent couple of graphs where Fil introduces some more live concerts, it matches at this point more readily. They’ve obviously switched recordings and used the pitched corrected version OF THE SAME RECORDING in the concerts; I would say, due to input, advice etc from sound engineers on tour with them. Perhaps to do with the venues, or perhaps it was thought the non-pitch corrected version they used in Tokyo needed replacing for some reason.
So this only reinforces the fact that they are the same recording. They are playing around with the same recording, using obviously a post production technique.
ie. Impossible it is live.
Again, there should be no exact data match anywhere; and there are plenty, despite ambient noise, post production pitch alterations etc.

Cheers, Shane