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This is a real weird take. Auto tuned songs have been wildly successful in the past, and continues to be. When it's used subtly, it's nearly undetectable and th

This is a real weird take. Auto tuned songs have been wildly successful in the past, and continues to be. When it's used subtly, it's nearly undetectable and the average listener would never notice. When it's used aggressively it's a stylistic device, that makes a voice into something totally different. So it's not really even a corrective tool. People listen to and love autotuned music every day. Furthermore- auto tuned is not even really ubiquitous. Plenty of artists either keep their vocals unturned or only use manual pitch correction.

PaulHoule 4y ago
I don't mind autotune as an artistic effect. I'm not against Daft Punk. But, I can't stand to listen to very much rap after M.F. DOOM because it has all been infected by T-Pain. Personally I can hear the effect that "subtle" autotuning has and I don't like it. The fact is that "wildly successful" today is against a background of reduced expectations. Thriller sold 70 million copies, Bat out of Hell (somehow) sold 43 million copies. That's on a different order of magnitude than what seems possible today. I think part of what makes music interesting to listen to is the subtle imperfections and nonidealities. It hurts to listen to a pure sine wave but FM synthesis adds some richness, as does the three strings on a piano that are just slightly out of tune. Numerous artists that were productive and commercially successful in the 1970s failed to make a transition to the "music word processor" in the 1980s. They kept releasing albums but fans ignored them and will boo if they try to play anything but the old favorites. I think MIDI and the click track are part of the same problem as autotune... "Snap to grid" and a lot of what makes music interesting is just gone.
- millimeterman 4y ago
  > I'm not against Daft Punk. But, I can't stand to listen to very much rap after M.F. DOOM because it has all been infected by T-Pain. Why is overt use of autotune a less valid artistic choice when T-Pain uses it than when Daft Punk uses it? > Thriller sold 70 million copies, Bat out of Hell (somehow) sold 43 million copies. That's on a different order of magnitude than what seems possible today. This is mostly due to the monumental changes in the sales model for music since those days. Sales suffered massively at the hands of iTunes and Spotify - there's little correlation with trends in the actual music. > I think part of what makes music interesting to listen to is the subtle imperfections and nonidealities. I think MIDI and the click track are part of the same problem as autotune... "Snap to grid" and a lot of what makes music interesting is just gone. There's nothing wrong with feeling that way, but I would be cautious of projecting your preferences onto the rest of the world. I think it's clear that many, many people enjoy music produced in this style. After all, someone living a century before us could make the exact same arguments decrying recorded music in favor of live performances. Who wants to listen to the same thing over and over again? The subtle variations and imperfections between live performances are what gives music color - do away with them and all we have is a cold, mechanical, unfeeling facsimile of proper music.

PaulHoule 4y ago

I don't mind autotune as an artistic effect. I'm not against Daft Punk. But, I can't stand to listen to very much rap after M.F. DOOM because it has all been infected by T-Pain. Personally I can hear the effect that "subtle" autotuning has and I don't like it. The fact is that "wildly successful" today is against a background of reduced expectations. Thriller sold 70 million copies, Bat out of Hell (somehow) sold 43 million copies. That's on a different order of magnitude than what seems possible today. I think part of what makes music interesting to listen to is the subtle imperfections and nonidealities. It hurts to listen to a pure sine wave but FM synthesis adds some richness, as does the three strings on a piano that are just slightly out of tune. Numerous artists that were productive and commercially successful in the 1970s failed to make a transition to the "music word processor" in the 1980s. They kept releasing albums but fans ignored them and will boo if they try to play anything but the old favorites. I think MIDI and the click track are part of the same problem as autotune... "Snap to grid" and a lot of what makes music interesting is just gone.

millimeterman 4y ago
> I'm not against Daft Punk. But, I can't stand to listen to very much rap after M.F. DOOM because it has all been infected by T-Pain. Why is overt use of autotune a less valid artistic choice when T-Pain uses it than when Daft Punk uses it? > Thriller sold 70 million copies, Bat out of Hell (somehow) sold 43 million copies. That's on a different order of magnitude than what seems possible today. This is mostly due to the monumental changes in the sales model for music since those days. Sales suffered massively at the hands of iTunes and Spotify - there's little correlation with trends in the actual music. > I think part of what makes music interesting to listen to is the subtle imperfections and nonidealities. I think MIDI and the click track are part of the same problem as autotune... "Snap to grid" and a lot of what makes music interesting is just gone. There's nothing wrong with feeling that way, but I would be cautious of projecting your preferences onto the rest of the world. I think it's clear that many, many people enjoy music produced in this style. After all, someone living a century before us could make the exact same arguments decrying recorded music in favor of live performances. Who wants to listen to the same thing over and over again? The subtle variations and imperfections between live performances are what gives music color - do away with them and all we have is a cold, mechanical, unfeeling facsimile of proper music.