No illegal behavior found! After 160 days, the Mayday "lip-syncing" controversy has finally settled.
160 days after Mayday’s “lip-syncing” controversy
Shanghai Culture and Tourism Bureau responded: No reported illegal acts were found
According to the Yangtze Evening News, the reporter received a reply from the Shanghai Culture and Tourism Bureau regarding the “Mayday Shanghai concert lip-syncing controversy”: “2023 During the Shanghai Mayday Concert in November 2019, the Law Enforcement Corps of the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism arranged for law enforcement officers to supervise the concert. After verification, no illegal behavior involved in your report was found. "
In early December last year, the up owner "Maitian" was found. "Farmer" received submissions from netizens claiming that there was "lip-syncing" at the Mayday concert. The up owner selected 12 songs filmed by fans at the concert and extracted the vocals for analysis. According to his judgment, among the 12 songs, "Cheers", "Love", "Contented", "My Lover Is Missing" and "Sad People Don't Listen to Slow Songs" were lip-synced.
As soon as the news came out, Mayday fell into a whirlpool of public opinion.
In the face of public doubts, on December 3, Mayday’s management company Believe Music posted on social platforms that at the upcoming Paris concert, they would “sing for 3 hours and really sing until dawn.” However, this statement was criticized Change the topic and avoid the important issue.
As the incident continues to ferment, regulatory authorities have also become involved.
On December 4, the Law Enforcement Corps of the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism publicly stated that it attached great importance to the suspected "lip-syncing" public opinion, and had required the organizer to cooperate with the investigation in accordance with the "Regulations on the Administration of Commercial Performances". After the relevant situation is verified in accordance with the law, it will be promptly Respond to netizens’ concerns. At the same time, the original video, audio and other materials of the concert have been submitted to the local cultural market inspection department.
On the evening of December 6, Mayday home team Ashin posted a long post in response to the question of lip-syncing, saying, "Except for real singing, there is no way to move you. Every roar, every performance, every sound comes from me who has relied on me for 24 years." "Voice", but was still questioned for avoiding the issue of true and false singing. After all, the songs recorded in advance also came from Mayday's own voice.
In the early morning of December 8, Mayday appeared for the first time after being questioned about lip-syncing, and live broadcast the entire singing process on the platform. This concert was held in Paris. During the concert, Mayday sang songs such as "Midsummer Light Years", "Long Live Love", "Party Animal", "Leave the Surface of the Earth", etc. In order to clear up the suspicion of lip-synching, Ashin showed off his strength by singing high notes many times. .
However, Mayday's hard-working performance this time was not understood by the outside world. Instead, it aroused greater doubts. Many netizens said: "It's off-key and ugly. If this is real singing, it must have been lip-synching before."
Last December Since then, the outside world has never stopped discussing this matter. Now that five months have passed and the lip-synching controversy has settled, the relevant news has also been on the hot search for the first time. Fans have expressed that "Mayday has finally been cleared."
Ten concerts will be held in 15 days this month
Last year’s concert in one place attracted over 300 million yuan
From last year’s up owner’s revelations to the current regulatory authorities’ characterization, both in terms of Mayday’s popularity and the degree of fermentation of the incident, This can be said to be the most influential lip-syncing scandal in recent years.
According to statistics from Blue Whale reporters, Mayday has arranged a total of about 70 concerts around the world in 2023, including 6 performances in Hangzhou and Wuhan in June; 7 performances in Shenzhen and Shenyang in July; and Quanzhou in August. 3 performances; 9 performances in Xi'an, Nanjing and Chengdu in September. In November, they held 8 shows in Shanghai in 10 days and sang nearly 300 songs.
For brokerage companies, behind the arrangement of high-density commercial performances is huge cash returns. Taking Mayday Shanghai Station as an example, a total of 8 shows were held from November 12th to 21st, with a cumulative audience of over 360,000. The concert grandstand ticket prices from low to high are 355 yuan, 655 yuan, 855 yuan and 1,055 yuan respectively; the in-field ticket prices are 1,555 yuan and 1,855 yuan.
Calculate based on 360,000 people, with an average ticket price of 1,055 yuan, Mayday attracted more than 300 million yuan in Shanghai. This does not include income from the sales of support items, and the average income per game is more than 30 million.
However, for singers, every concert is a double test of technology and physical strength.For example, in 2018, 57-year-old Andy Lau held 13 concerts in Hong Kong in 13 days. He was forced to stop because his throat became inflamed while singing, and he cried and apologized to his fans. Holding multiple shows in a short period of time will undoubtedly directly affect the singer's performance.
In the 25 years since Mayday was founded, it has gone from 20 concerts a year to 70 concerts a year now, with an average of concerts every week. Such a high-density arrangement inevitably raises questions from the outside world. During the lip-syncing controversy, some netizens questioned whether Mayday was a "mechanical voice" or a "vibranium lung"? Some fans also think that after playing too many shows, their voices cannot bear it, and using lip-synching or pad sounds is a helpless move.
For singers, lip-synching in a commercial business is illegal and illegal.
According to the "Regulations on the Administration of Commercial Performances", any act of deceiving the audience through lip-syncing shall bear civil liability and administrative liability. Audiences have the right to require the performance organizer to compensate for losses after leaving the venue in accordance with legal provisions on consumer rights protection; the performance organizer may seek compensation from the responsible performing groups and actors in accordance with the law. The cultural administrative department of the county-level people's government shall impose a fine of not less than 50,000 yuan but not more than 100,000 yuan.
After more than 100 days of investigation, the Shanghai Culture and Tourism Bureau responded that "no illegal behavior was found after verification." This response also directly cleared Mayday of the suspicion of lip-synching.
Mayday officially announced again in April this year that it will hold 10 concerts at the Beijing National Stadium (Bird's Nest) from May 18th to June 1st. According to Damai, the cumulative number of people wanting to watch Beijing Station exceeds 800,000.
Facts have proved that even after the lip-synching controversy, Mayday’s appeal is still there.
Mayday has become a cash cow?
Behind the intensive performances is an over-commercialization strategy
At the Chengdu concert in 2023, Mayday lead singer Ashin said: "Some people believe that music treats Mayday as a cash cow. If Mayday doesn't want to sing, no one can force us. If Monster, Ma Sha, Shitou, Guanyou, and Ashin want to sing, and no one can stop us."
Although Ashin publicly denies the view that "I believe music uses Mayday as a cash cow," the data does not lie, and the performance market is booming. Under the general environment, such a high-density arrangement reflects the radical commercialization strategy of the brokerage company.
Believe Music was officially established on July 1, 2006. It is a record company established by Chen Yongzhi and Xie Zhifen together with singers such as Mayday and Liang Jingru. Chen Yongzhi and Xie Zhifen are both senior managers from Rolling Stone Records and have a considerable degree of professional reputation in the Chinese music and recording industry.
According to the Tianyancha app, it is believed that the major shareholder of Music Culture Media (Beijing) Co., Ltd. is Xie Zhifen, with a shareholding ratio of 92.5%, and Chen Yongzhi holds 7.5%. The company's business scope includes organizing cultural and artistic exchange activities, project planning and public relations services, copyright agency, intellectual property services, performance brokerage, etc. In May 2011, the company invested in the establishment of Believe Music Culture Communication (Shanghai) Co., Ltd.
senior performance manager Sister Shan told Blue Whale reporters that in the past, singers mainly made money by selling records. The more tapes or CDs sold, the more famous the singer became, and the corresponding advertising, film and television revenue will continue to increase, and the more profitable the company will be. , so record sales were the core of music companies' business models in the past. But in the Internet era, tapes and CDs are gradually disappearing, and digital music has completely revolutionized the business model of the music industry. For music companies, the income from releasing records is far less than that from holding concerts.
As mentioned above, Mayday attracted more than 300 million yuan in 8 days in Shanghai, with an average income of more than 30 million yuan per game. Calculated based on the number of 70 concerts a year, the May Tianguang concert can achieve 2.1 billion in ticket revenue in a year, not including the sales of support items and other income.
"How many CDs can one concert ticket buy? On the one hand, there are high economic benefits, and on the other hand, it is the physical burden on the singer. It is obvious to the agency how to choose between the two." Sister Shan said jokingly.
According to the "2023 National Performance Market Briefing" released by the China Performance Association, the overall economic scale of the performance market is 73.994 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 29.30% in 2019, reaching a record high.There were 440,600 performances nationwide (excluding performances in rural areas and entertainment venues), a year-on-year increase of 123.55%; box office revenue was 50.232 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 150.65%; An increase of 83.01%.
In the hot market, performance companies and brokerage companies are bound to arrange singers for commercial performances as much as possible. This is undoubtedly a huge physical and psychological challenge for singers.
Mayday's album "Poetry of Post-Adolescence" released in 2008 has a song "The Place in My Heart That Has Not yet Broken". The lyrics sing about whether a simple child has changed and learns to grow by following the rules of the game. When people's hearts become the market, when the market becomes the battlefield, how many ideals are buried in the battlefield, singers chase sales, reporters chase clicks, no one is kinder than anyone else...
Once upon a time, Mayday's classic songs allowed fans to see what they love most about music. Pure original intention. Until the end of last year, the lip-syncing controversy once pushed Mayday to the forefront. Many people began to question that the band had lost its true heart in the face of huge money and traffic. Now the regulatory response has directly cleared the suspicion of lip-synching. This This is undoubtedly the best news for fans.
