Pop Music

Sure enough, even Bruce Springsteen was using recorded tracks at the Super Bowl. He really sang, though. Apparently this is supposed to make a big difference.

"The Super Bowl performances are all on tape," (Super Bowl producer Hank) Neuberger said. "There is no way you can set up a full band in five minutes with microphones, get all the settings right, and expect to get quality sound. The Super Bowl has been doing that for years with virtually all the bands."

According to Neuberger, Springsteen's vocals were the only part of the performance that was not pre-recorded. After all, he is the Boss -- not Ashlee Simpson. (Springsteen's label PR had no comment for SPIN.com by press time.)

"It's not fraudulent, it's the opposite of fraud -- it's not like Milli Vanilli," said Neuberger, referring to the pop/dance duo who won a Grammy 1990 for Best New Artist only to have it withdrawn after it was discovered they didn't sing on their album.

"There were too many variables keeping the instruments in tune while playing outside in cold weather," he continued. "You can't control the environment, so the smart decision is to record the performance and play along with it... It's too big of an event to risk something going wrong. Television and music are not always a happy marriage."

See, I get this. I understand that even if you have a whole stage pre-set, you're not going to bang up a whole band in five minutes and get it to sound good.

So why bother? Just play records at halftime. Or better yet, let's go back to these guys:

By the way, here is an example of an event that was apparently not too big to risk something going wrong:

Ah well; at least this actually happened:

Still funny.

 Tags  backing tracks Bruce Springsteen Super Bowl The Beatles Up With People

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