Music Blogs

You may or may not be aware of the furore that has been raging over at The Daily Mail website this weekend. In a move that has gone on to spark literally hundreds of comments worth of condemnation and online debate, Cheryl Cole appeared to mime parts of a song she performed on last night's X Factor. Shocking stuff - were you watching? If not, see the video below and make up your own mind.

The evidence is inconclusive to say the least - she certainly sounds authentically breathless to these ears - but that didn't stop the Mail reporting this morning that both Cole and fellow guest Whitney Houston "appeared to be singing over pre-recorded vocals".

"Miss Cole, 26, who performed an energetic Janet Jackson-style dance routine with a group of backing dancers, apparently sang the first verse [of] her debut solo single live," the report begins, "But then she appeared to lip-synch through the rest of the song." They then go on to quote an audience member who has a dig at the Girls Aloud member and X Factor judge for sounding "a little shaky" to begin with before the performance of "Fight For This Love" "miraculously came together".

"It was fairly obvious she was miming," the anonymous audience member complains. "Even the live bits were sung over a very prominent backing track."

Yahoo! Music is no expert in lip-reading or the breathing techniques employed by the professional pop star, but frankly it finds the whole debate rather tiresome. Since when has pop music been about authenticity anyway? It's not as if Cheryl was performing at some backstreet open mic night full of nodding jazz sages and bearded musos. It was X Factor. It's about entertainment. About creating a spectacle. Fans of Lead Belly, Nick Drake, Elliot Smith - we're sorry, but the X Factor is not concerned with the likes of you (though it does feature twins who look perennially haunted by the ghost of the gun-toting former). The only sincere thing about X Factor is its contestants' explicit yearning for fame, and that's fine - all the best pop music is about playacting, artifice and escapism. If Cheryl Cole needs to mime to make better pop, then she should be able to go ahead and do it without reproach from fools who can't see that the most important thing about her performance were those trousers.

What do you think? Does it matter if Cheryl Cole mimed? Why?