In a world where some of the most inane garbage is being put on youtube and their creators going on to gain minor celebrity status, it’s nice to see something of actual talent and merit going on to gain notoriety. I’m talking about the Gregory Brothers’ (and wife/sister-in-law) hit series, Autotune the News. Autotune is a program used to alter pitch, and these guys have applied it to politicians and newscasters to actually convert their speech into singing, alongside their own hip-hop commentary. The whole thing is brilliant, but the program itself is a very large concern. I’m not even talking about using the program to give voices a robotic tone, a recent trend that Cher started with “Believe” and has since been abused by the ilk of T-Pain, Lil Wayne, et al.
No, the problem I have with it is actually the very reason the program was created. It was invented to correct pitches that a performer makes during the recording process. It’s absolutely swept through the pop music world, and now “artists” don’t actually have to hit the pitches to have them recorded. And to make matters even worse, the technology is even appearing at live performances. Producers argue that “fans pay top dollar, they should see the artist in their top form.” The problem is, that isn’t THEIR top form; it’s the computers. In my mind, this is absolutely no different than the Milli Vanilli scandal in the late early 90s, but there is no end in sight for this disgusting trend in the music world.
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