Oh No She Didn't? The Beyonce Brouhaha

All right, we all saw beyonce sing her heart out and her lungs out at this week's inauguration. Did she or didn't she? Lip syncing, that is it. Here is the story. Reporter: You can do it at a... See More

All right, we all saw beyonce sing her heart out and her lungs out at this week's inauguration. Did she or didn't she? Lip syncing, that is it. Here is the story. Reporter: You can do it at a presidential inaugust ragts. ♪ Bright stars". Reporter: You do all that. And you can still get thrown under the bus by all all people, the marine corps band. It was their tuesday a.M. Statement, later retracted in part, that beyonce had not performed the anthem live but was lip syncing to her pre-recorded track. Which set twitter aflame and saw celebrities weigh in. All permers do have to do it at some point. At first I thought it was going to be a little blip on the radar, then the blip turned into a tear, turned into a rip, turned into a tidal wave. It was insane. A new yorker humor piece demanded president obama's resignation. This headline on the website jezebel captured the over-the-top no-she-didn't reaction. "Beyonce lip synced at the inauguration, betrayed the world." It was a huge event because beyonce has carefully crafted her career over the course of the last 15 of more years in such a, dare I say, perfect way, that any misstep from beyonce is huge news. Did this mean that beyonce, like her 2007 duet with shakira, was just a beautiful liar? Or was everyone not understanding who run the world? ♪ Who run the world ♪ if you've been to any concert at an arena, you've heard a backup vocal, and you probably were partying. You probably were having the greatest time ever. Sure, there was the scandal of milli vannili, in which rob pilatus and fab lip synced to tracks that had been sung by others. ♪ Girl you know it's true ♪ ♪ ooh ooh ooh I love you ♪ with britney. There's been an audible disparity between what the crowd hears and how she is singing on stage. This audio is what she is singing on stage. ♪ and played at the wrong time, this vocal backing track turned ashlee simpson's "saturday night live" debut into more of a debacle. ♪ shows like "jersey boys" benefit from some off-stage singers to fatten their harmonies. Riverdance throws in some pre-recorded taps. At the 2009 inauguration, the cold forced cellist yo-yo man to hand-sync. And in today's music world, a whole lot of pop stars perform on tv or live onstage to some sort of vocal track. Few audience members seem to mind. Seasoned performers know how tough it can be to play truly live in a outdoor environment with minimal set-up time, like a halftime show. ♪ elton john said just last year, that's why he'd never play a super bowl gig. You would want to play live, wouldn't you? Of course you want to play live. But I don't think you can. In all fairness to everyone who's done one before you may be able to sing live, but it's reelly hard. Beyonce, who's doing this year's super bowl halftime show, has yet to comment. James taylor and kelly clarkson did sing live at the inauguration, and now counter-arguments have arisen asserting that she did, in fact, sing the anthem live. Bolstered by this clip, listen closely, and you can hear beyonce singing live, over her pre-recorded track. ♪ In air gave proof through the night ♪ bobby has had years of experience as a producer. He analyzes classic songs track by track on his blog and has his own take on what he believes went down at the inauguration. How can you tell that the version we're hearing is the pre-recorded version? There's always one tell-tale sign that most people overlook. It's not the attack of a phrase, most vocalists that are lip syncing will get that right. It's the end. So for instance, with beyonce, right at the end of the song, the last two phrases, she gets the first. And the release of free is just a little different in the prerecord. Missed it? So did we. That's why we called in the expert. And then, "of the home of the brave," "brave," once again, she takes a little bit longer than the pre-record. You can see, she takes a breath. Just a little off in the prerecord. Reports have stated that beyonce and her people made the decision to use her pre-recorded version the night before the inauguration. Why would an artist like beyonce decide to go with that pre-record as opposed to doing it live? There's a basic insecurity, that vocalists have especially in that situation. They're either going to be out of tune, or they're going to be out of time. It might have been, well, I'd rather not take a chance. I'd rather go to the pre-record. Why, if she was gonna go with the pre-record, would she sing full outnto a microphone as well? So she'd look like she was performing. Because you can't look like you're doing it unless you actually do it. Hence beyonce's dilemma, and our own. As listeners, more than ever before, we demand vocal perfection, especially from the superstars we have come to admire the most. But at the same time we crave authenticity. I think beyonce is always held to a different standard because she is so talented and so successful. Everybody wants her to be perfect. We love beyonce. We wanted her to be 100% authentic at the inauguration. Yeah, we did. And she was capable of it. And she did it, at least once. We heard what she did. So yes, our expert says she lip synced the anthem. And yes, she also sang it. Either way, it's worth remembering, that it really was a terrific performance.