Caught on Camera - The Worst Playback Fails in Music History

Things can get pretty uncomfortable on stage when the playback fails. Some stars can certainly tell you a thing or two about that. Especially during expensively produced television broadcasts, they like to fall back on the voice from the tape. It's the viewer who demands absolute perfection. Unfortunately, it's annoying when the playback goes wrong.

Playback on TV is the norm

It's a sensitive subject for fans: their musical idol is just moving his lips to a recording. A world collapses when the show is also exposed and an embarrassed audience is left behind.

Particularly in the TV sector, playback is more the rule than the exception. The audience should get to hear what they are used to from the radio or from the CD. Not to mention the financial aspects, which in the show world are of course above all else. If several artists perform one after the other in a live show, in theory everyone would have to have completed their own soundcheck in advance.

In practice, a situation like this would take up far too much time and therefore cost a lot of money. It's often just for show. It is precisely the authenticity of a musician that touches the fan. However, backing track techniques have been an effective tool since at least the 80s, and are often used in both the rock and pop business. Certain tracks and song elements in the studio can be cut exactly to the show, making a live show more predictable. The following clips show how not to do it.

1. Justin Bieber

Human error. There's no other way to describe it. When your body needs come at the most inconvenient of times, there's nothing you can do. Justin Bieber sneezes his in-ears out of his ears and the audience is treated to a load of Bieber slime. No problem, the band is still playing.

2. Mariah Carey

The diva par excellence will not have found her appearance at the turn of the year 2016/17 very funny. Nothing went right. But as long as the emotions come across well, who cares. This shows how important a sound check would have been in advance. Visibly depressed, Mariah Carey finally leaves the stage. Later, there were even reports of tears.

3. Ashlee Simpson

It seems that it is not even clear which song will come out of the box. Ashlee Simpson – the star herself – tries to remedy the situation with a pleasant dance improvisation. However, it is difficult to overcome the confusion.

4. Iron Maiden

For the German TV channel ZDF Kultur, the performance had to be perfect – no question, nothing could go wrong here. The show was called “Peter Illmann's Treff,” in which musicians would lip-sync to a playback as if they were performing live. The program directors had no idea what kind of show Iron Maiden would deliver here. The band makes it very clear to the audience that they don't think much of playback.

5. Kraftwerk

We go to the Paradiso club in Amsterdam. Kraftwerk member Falk Grieffenhagen comes into the picture. You can see him scrolling through a text with his finger. Is he really surfing the net during a live gig? However, it has to be said that the electronic pioneers only use Grieffenhagen as a video operator. The rest, the audio operators, seem to be quite focused on the task at hand. Well, it should be clear to everyone by now that live does not always mean live. Even if the voice comes from a tape, there is still a little live character left.