CMU School of Drama


Monday, January 02, 2017

Mariah Carey’s Manager Blames Producers for New Year’s Eve Nightmare

NYTimes.com: Mariah Carey suffered through a performance train wreck in Times Square on New Year’s Eve as malfunctions left her at a loss vocally during her hit song “Emotions,” struggling to reach notes and to sync the lyrics and music.

The trouble continued when she gave up on another of her best-known numbers, “We Belong Together,” while a recording of the song continued to play, a confirmation that she had been lip-syncing.

But on Sunday, a dispute erupted between Ms. Carey’s representatives and producers of ABC’s “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve With Ryan Seacrest,” on which the singer was performing.

3 comments:

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Alex Talbot said...

I've read a bunch of comments and articles on this topic, and I'm still unsure who is to blame, if anyone. It seemed, from my point of view, that while there may have been audio issues, the talent and her manager acted in a completely unreasonable manner. I read an interview with her manager, where he suggested that the singer storm off stage and throw her microphone at whoever the tech was backstage. Whether or not it was Maryland Sound's fault at all (and from their report, it was not,) that is a completely unreasonable response to technical issues for a performance. While everything around these failure is still unclear, it seems to me that no matter what, Mariah Carey and her staff lashed out in a way that was completely unreasonable considering the situation and the pressure on the staff for this production. But I'm curious to read into more opinions on this topic.

Ali Whyte said...

It's always hard during a performance to place blame. If a light cue goes awry was it the stage manager calling it wrong? Did the board op press the wrong button or respond to the wrong "go"? Did the designer change a cue and forget to tell anyone? There are so many opportunities for miscommunication and human error in live performance, and often no way to fix something that's going wrong onstage without stopping the entire thing. I would like to believe that the producers wouldn't sabotage an artist for selfish reasons, and from what I know about technicians, they were probably doing everything they could from where they were, but if it were something not plugged in correctly onstage, there was likely nothing they could have done about it. I think it really is impossible to say exactly what went wrong, especially with so many conflicting sides and stories, but I think everyone involved should still be treated with respect and validity without pointing fingers.