On New Year’s Eve, all eyes were locked on their television sets throughout the country focusing on Times Square in New York City. What usually is a reward for musicians, performing there on this special occasion, turned into a mess for singer Mariah Carey.
As millions watched from all over the country, Carey’s performance at Rockefeller Plaza on New Year’s Eve turned ugly from the start as sound problems led to her not being able to hear her backup vocalists, causing her to be off on her singing of her hit song “Auld Lang Syne.” The night didn’t get any better for Carey as a recording of her song, “We Belong Together,” kept playing while she gave up on lip-syncing, which confirmed to her audience that she had in fact been lip-syncing. Carey verbalized her frustration on stage telling the audience “I’m trying to be a good sport here.”
This performance left people in shock as these primetime performances usually go flawlessly. “I was watching the performance on TV with a bunch of people and I was really confused as to what was going on. It was a mess and I was surprised they kept showing it,” sophomore Noah Siman said.
Since the debacle, there have been debates as to why the poor performance happened. Mariah Carey and her staff has put the blame on ABC’s “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest,” blaming the poor performance on technical problems caused by them. Carey’s manager told the New York Times that they kept showing her disastrous performance “to get ratings” and that they “did not have their [act together].”
The other side denies these claims and blames it on Carey’s poor performance. A veteran audio producer was on hand for the performance and claims that there was no wrongdoing on their part, according to The New York Times. “Every monitor and in-ear device worked perfectly,” Goldstein said. “I can’t comment beyond that and don’t know what her nontechnical issue may have been.”
The disputes between the two sides have continued and it doesn’t seem like there is going to be a clear answer as to who is at fault, but the one thing that everyone can agree on is that this performance was a disaster.

Joey Voyta

Staff Writer