Monday, May 09, 2011

Britain's Got Talent contestant merely plays some records & smiles, claims band management

It looks like a contestant on Britain's Got Talent has a nice little act worked up: she plays Bond records, and then stands in front and mimes playing violin. Norman Lebrecht has a statement from Bond's people claiming that she's just standing there, pretending:

Electric violinist, Alexandra Parker, chose to perform one of BOND’s tracks, Gypsy Rhapsody (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dKpKIG9hgY), from the quartet’s best-selling album, Shine. Instead of ‘covering’ the track in the acceptable way (in this context, by creating and playing live over a backing track), Britain’s Got Talent simply broadcast BOND’s original album track whilst the BGT entrant seemed to “play along” on the clip aired to the public on Saturday’s show.

Says BOND’s manager, Terri Robson, “copyright, moral and legal issues aside, it is a questionable practice to mislead the public in this way. It could be compared to a violinist performing along to Nigel Kennedy’s recording of the Four Seasons and claiming it as their own interpretation or a singer singing along to a Girls Aloud track.”
Alexandra Parker hasn't respond to the claims yet, but it seems inexplicable that such an act would be put out by ITV in the first place. It seems quite duplicitous to have a talent show - where people's good money is being used to vote - if one contestant isn't actually demonstrating a talent at all.

Or maybe it's all a terrible misunderstanding, and I'll bet Michael McIntyre has got a hilarious routine worked out where he'll mime someome miming someone else's music.


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