I happened across the Sirius Hits station yesterday looking for ideas for songs to put on a playlist for a friend's wedding reception. I've come to the conclusion that there are no real voices left in modern music.
And I'm not really talking about the hip-hop/dance music... at least the electronic instrumentation in those genres lends itself a little better to mechanical sounding voices. Plus, they're not trying to fool anyone into thinking that's how they sound when they sing.
But then a song like Train's "Hey Soul Sister" comes on and tries to pass itself off as something natural when it's the most processed shlock I've ever heard. I remember Train from ten years ago - "Meet Virginia" - Dude has never sounded as good as his record label is making him sound now.
I know ranting about pop music is something you normally grow out of at 14, but I feel like I'm being lied to when I hear a song that has such obviously manipulated vocals, and a little frustrated that no one else seems to hear (or care about) the robotic-ness of it all.
Haha yeah they have taken this auto tune too far. I hate it, I agree. Cher started this some years ago and since then its more and more and more, and even some songs are 100% auto tune, its crazy. Some people seem only to be able to sing with autotune.
Cher didn't really start it as much as her producer was the first to abuse it for musical effect in a mass market setting. But whatevs... splitting hairs.
Anyway, I agree with the OP that it's an ugly, unmusical characteristic of modern pop. I also agree with the OP about the effect being most awful in Nashville and ostensibly "organic" pop stuff, where the robotic purity of the voice stands in such sharp contrast to the instrumental arrangements.
Sadly, I think the most we can hope for is that the algorithms used by Melodyne/Autotune/etc will become less detectable -- it's just so much cheaper to process a track than it is to do take after take until you get it right, especially when the industry is intent on selling people on the basis of their looks more than any inborn talent they may possess.
It would not be used this much if the masses did not keep buying all this pop music bull .
TPain and Lil Wayne actually were singing on the vocoder for that We Are The World Haiti song. Seriously it like cheapened the whole intention of the song. They have to continue their vocoder bit in a song to make money for Haiti?
don't listen to music
Autotune is for people without singing talent, which explains it's widespread use in the music industry today.
How's this for autotune? Bon Iver with his take on how to use the tool... it's pretty creepy sounding, and not really a song - but a worthy experiment... Not one i would probably listen to again, but hey
I'm just glad i live in Australia, and we have 'Triple J' radio here - they don't play any of that processed pop at all, and play *gasp* people with musical talent (for the most part!)
Bon Iver does go for that haunting sound...he had a show here at the Hollywood Forever cemetery this past summer...
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