Madonna Mouth

Everyone's talking about Madonna's upcoming Super Bowl performance, as they should. She is THE Queen of POP, after all! Rumor has it that Elton John made yet another dig at her, saying "Make sure you lip-synch good!" Let's ignore his minor grammar mistake, shall we? He is an icon, and deservedly so. However, it all gets me thinking. I don't know if any of you watch Wendy Williams (talk show host de Jerzey, PREMIER!), but those of you who do may recall when she spoke about this issue a few weeks ago. Wendy stated that she'd rather see Madonna, and other dance-type performers, like Janet and Britney (in her hey-day) lip-synch and dance, as opposed to stand and actually sing, and I agree! I'm no doctor, but I'm pretty sure it's almost physiologically impossible to sing beautifully while doing a complex, physically taxing dance routine. Even the strongest people can only exert their bodies to a certain extent. Y'all may not believe me, but even Beyoncé (allegedly) rerecords live versions of her dancier tracks for performances, adding vocal flourishes here and there to fool us into thinking that she's singing live, and that's fine! I'm down for buying into the illusion. She has the ballads to prove her vocal prowess. You have to be practically immortal to be able to dance and sing at the same time. Beyoncé is one of the best dancers out of all POP stars currently around, so if she has to (allegedly) mime the dance numbers, that's fine with me. I want to see her shake her groove thang. Lots of people can sing; not everyone has the capacity to memorize and then perform a set of intricate choreography.

With all that said, Madonna has practically reached god-like status, and understandably so. After years of complaints about her (alleged) lip-synching, she sang live on her last two tours. Using what sounded like auto-tune type plugins to work out various vocal kinks, she was able to dance and sing at the same time, which takes some sort of immortal stamina - I think she made a deal with the devil. The only other performer who's able to do both simultaneously is P!nk, and she was a gymnast for years.

Anyhow, I love Madonna for her music, performances, and most importantly, impact on pop-culture and feminism. Whether she sings live or not at the Super Bowl won't matter to me. I just want to see her DANCE! So all of you complaining about the lip-synching situation (including you, Elton - and I say that respectfully. Love you!), shut your traps and sit down. Madonna was made to MOVE. :)

Unapologetically,

Gregory