Mariah Carey's New Year's Eve performance bungle caused by technical problems: representative

After a brief, flawless Auld Lang Syne, it was all downhill for Mariah Carey on New Year's Eve.

A representative for the superstar cited technical difficulties for a disastrous appearance on Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve with Ryan Seacrest, which aired on ABC and was the subject of widespread mockery on social media.

Apparently unable to hear her own pre-recorded musical tracks, Carey stopped singing at times and it became clear she was lip-synching her performance. When pre-recorded vocals cut out, her own voice couldn't be heard by the crowd and millions watching on TV.

Carey's mood seemed to range from frustration to resignation as she struggled with the technology. Telling the revellers jammed into Times Square that there had not been a sound check for her hit song Emotions, she lamented that "we're missing some of these vocals, but it is what it is."

"Let the audience sing," she decided as she paced the stage.

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"I'm trying to be a good sport here," she said, adding her own sarcastic review of the performance. "That was ... amazing."

The next song, We Belong Together, went no better. At times, she lowered the microphone from her mouth and the music, vocals and all, kept playing.

"Unfortunately there was nothing she could do to continue with the performance given the circumstances," Carey spokeswoman Nicole Perna said Sunday.

A representative for Dick Clark Productions did not immediately return an email seeking comment.

Carey later tweeted about the night, starting with a brief profanity, throwing in a couple of sad emojis and concluding with, "Here's to making more headlines in 2017."

On Twitter, commentators called the fiasco a fitting end to a traumatic year for the music industry, marked by the deaths of Prince, David Bowie and George Michael among others.

One tweeter, referring to the 2016 presidential campaign, joked that Carey's show had been hacked by the Russians.