Stuart Price, a Brit who has been part of the singer’s band on other tours and was one of the producers of her 2005 album “Confessions on a Dance Floor”, now holds the position of musical director of “The Celebration Tour”. He gave the most clueless explanation possible for the musicians’ absence. According to him, “the idea is to let Madonna’s original classic recordings shine.” The guy created the most glorious definition ever used to define karaoke.
The sound of the more than 30 songs that will make up the setlist in Rio will be pre-recorded audio and many have been well modified to sound more powerful live. In other words, they are a little far from the integrity of the classic recordings to which the producer referred.
If the music changes, what about the voice? It’s obvious that, in front of a million and a half spectators and needing to follow sometimes far from simple choreographies across a giant stage, Madonna must certainly resort to technology to showcase her best vocals.
She certainly won’t lip sync shamelessly and thus turn the show into a huge lip sync battle, like Britney Spears did in 2011 at Arena Anhembi, in São Paulo. But it’s best not to include Britney in the comparisons. This one broke all records for the club when it toured Las Vegas with a band of eight musicians pretending they were playing.
Madonna should use programs that boost her voice almost instantly, with a minimum delay between the moment the air leaves her throat and the sound is fired through the speakers aimed at the audience. It’s not a new feature, but the technology used is developing every day, especially in the current avalanche of Artificial Intelligence invading art and entertainment.
Always having access to the latest on the market, Madonna can use a program similar to the one that young star Olivia Rodrigo adopted on her current tour. According to technicians, the operation is so powerful that all she has to do is sing a verse, at whatever volume she wants, even just whispering, and the AI reproduces the verse in less than a second with the strongest vocal register Olivia has ever achieved. Or even stronger still, courtesy of technology.
