A lot of people say “everything nowadays is an autotuned mess, at least the crappy musicians in 1995 had to be talented enough hit the notes.” But I’m not sure I buy it. I think autotune is more of a cost-cutting measure than a talent-saving measure. Studio recording has always involved a lot of coaching, practicing, and recording and re-recording to get something “album worthy.”
Of course, with autotune you – 1. Don’t need to provide as much voice coaching, since any tiny errors they make can be corrected; and 2. Either don’t need to pay rent for equipment/space or else have more bands able to use it in a day, since you don’t need to re-record as many times. I’m not convinced that the average talent level is down, just that the average talent level is more or less the same – they just don’t need to practice to perfection because computers will do it for them. Of course, this leads to the vicious cycle of worse live shows because they haven’t practiced the song tons of times for their album recording.
Am I on to something, or is autotune really just an excuse to hire less talented people because they’re purty and marketable? If I’m right, then it doesn’t make autotune any less annoying, it may just redeem the artists however little bit.
Twas ever thus. Jerry Lewis hired Snuff Garrett and Leon Russell to make his son, Gary, into a pop star. It took all of the technology of the day, and they only got this far: - YouTube
Well, we weren’t talking about ALL pop stars. Just the Ashlee Simpsons. Who is actually more talented and FAR cuter than Gary Lewis, but I’m too unfamiliar with current pop charts to know of a better example.
And how long did George Martin have to massage those tracks?
I don’t think The Beatles (or, in the future, Michael Jackson) are really a good example, because then we’re talking about the upper echelon, the extremely talented. Those are rare, I think, for any era. I may accept the comparison if anybody knew the length of time between the “popular, ubiquitous, manufactured trash” from then (something like The Monkees maybe) with a similar artist from now.
it depends what you mean by “talent,” I guess. I have to imagine the current crop of pop stars/starlets are at least competent (e.g. the little I’ve heard from Bieber that didn’t sound auto-tuned to hell at least makes me think he can sing) but the whole corporate marketing machine behind all of them turns them into basically the McDonald’s of music. Consistent, mediocre, filling, but no real substance. Katey Gaga Miley Zac Jonas pretty much exists to market ear candy- the musical equivalent of junk food- to tweens and teens who’ll vacuum money out of their parents’ wallets just for a brief bit of fantasy. so, I guess they’re competent performers. whether they’re actually musicians is something I’m not qualified to determine.
I definitely think that today, what an artist looks like is more important than their actual singing ability. Blame the saturation of visual media (the internet, TV etc.) Artists today are focus-group tuned, prepackaged product, not merely singers.
I blame Britney Spears. It all started with her (and pop music has been (extra) absolute crap ever since!)
Wow, bad example. You can find a bad performance from anybody, but Gary Lewis put out several good records. If he had some coaches, so what? Tiger Woods and Tom Brady have coaches.
No, you can go back all the way to the founding of MTV. Once videos became the way songs were introduced, looks became as important, if not more, than talent. Exhibit A: Milli Vanilli.
The problem - as it appears to record companies - is that talented people can be difficult to manipulate, and often have their own ideas. Since the 70s the pop charts have increasingly been filled with models who will follow orders at the expense of people with actual creative abilities.
As a wise man once said, video killed the radio star.
It used to be you could be ugly as a dog but it was okay as long as you could sing well. But now a singer has to also have the “visual”. So when you’re looking for somebody who’s good looking and able to dance, autotune makes the search easier by making it possible to compromise on singing ability.
The problem isn’t so much a lack of talent, as it is a music business that’s shooting for the lowest common denominator. Little wonder the industry has been flailing for more than a decade now.
See, this is why I don’t think Rap and Hip Hop even qualify as music. None of today’s “artists” in these genres are “musicians” and couldn’t be accurately described as such. Seems like real music and real musicians went out the window sometime around the late 90’s
I’m the last person to listen to rap willingly, but, aside from the lyrical content (which I generally don’t like), I don’t find it bad… just different. It’s still music, it’s just based around rhythm as opposed to tonality; the difference between a percussion show and a brass show.
I think the real issue is that the formula has been perfected. The industry were always in search of a minimax solution that balanced risk and payoff, but apparently now they’ve found it.
Pop has always been heading in this direction, but 30, 40, 50 years ago, there was still room for genuine creativity in the Top 40–Brian Wilson, Lennon/McCartney, Prince, Kate Bush, etc. Now all individuality has been squeezed-out and instead everything is safe and homogenised.
It has absolutely nothing to do with white or black, it has everything to do with the quality of the music. Gimme some Motown or Funk with backing bands over any two bit rapper today with a machine.
You’re entitled to your musical preferences, but your rant that rap isn’t music is still just a version of “Those damn kids and their racket…”, only targeting a genre three decades old and for which the peak of fuddy-duddy derision was about 20 years ago.