Vocally Speaking – Passing Off the Beautiful Hair Wig as the Real Deal

Please, my dear reader, try to imagine a beautiful, sexy woman with long blond hair. Wow! You would say! And then imagine your disappointment when you find out that underneath of a beautiful blond wig is a partially or completely bald head. And that would have actually been fine if you had known about it in the first place rather than being shocked by the sudden discovery. Similarly, the concert ticket buyer is very often shocked when hearing that their favourite lead singer or solo artist does not even remotely resemble what they have heard on the record. The entourage, the show, the lighting and the musicians are exciting and glamourous - but the voice of the artist often sounds like they were run down by a truck and they have been using their “wigged” head as a brake. Then all of a sudden the “wig” falls off and the naked truth is revealed. The singer is “bald” and has been “heavily camouflaged” and apparently at best “toupeed”. Now almost everybody has lost when the truth has been revealed. The artist, the management, the audience and …who else you might ask? Let’s see. It is a documented fact that there are only a handful of major record companies and apparently their record labels are a very small part of a multinational corporation that also sells films, video games, publishing, clothing, detergent, light bulbs, etc. To those gigantic companies, as it appears to be, a loss on a music project can sometimes even be advantageous. How so? Apparently through creative accounting a loss of investment can actually result in tax advantages for another blockbuster CD release or even – go figure - a non-related division within the larger corporation that has been far more financially successful! With that in mind, needless to say, the manager, producer and the artist have to ensure that their production (in the studio and live on stage) has to be super successful in order to reach the TOP and not lose the deal. Therefore, the parties at the bottom of this structure must be especially vigilant that they are offering and promoting the real deal rather than the fake act.