©iHeartRadioIf you watched the Living Room Concert for America Sunday night on FOX, you may have been surprised at just how good the Backstreet Boys sounded, even though they all recorded their parts on their version of “I Want It That Way” separately. But it turns out the first version of the performance sounded so good that the producers were afraid nobody would believe that they’d actually sung it in their homes.
The show’s producer, Joel Gallen, was the one who edited the five parts into one song, but iHeart executive John Sykes tells Variety, “It was actually too good we heard the first tape. That’s how well they did it. So we actually had to bring up the voices in their rooms so people knew that they were really singing.”
“This band is so good and so well rehearsed. Each artist shot their scene and it was synced up, and then the editor cut in their part of the song,” he added.
Variety also reports that nearly all of the performances in the special — filmed in places ranging from New York to Miami to Hawaii — were shot with iPhones manned by each artist’s friends and/or family members.
Sykes also revealed that during Mariah Carey‘s performance, recorded in her home studio, she kept the door of the studio open into her apartment, so she could keep an eye on her twins — because the family is quarantined, she didn’t have nanny to help her.
Sykes also dished that because Mariah is Mariah, she made sure to have a little fan in front of her so her hair would blow dramatically.
Ratings for the fundraiser were strong. If you didn’t see it, you can watch it on YouTube for the next three days.
