Yeah, pretty much. A perfectly tuned sound is the style right now. Give it a few years and it won't be. People will get tired of it and latch on to something else, as always.
Auto Tune?
- Thread starter Taylirious
- Start date
Yeah, imperfections are more interesting. A favourite band of mine in the 90's would create their albums to sound like their live shows, as they felt their live shows were very much a part of who they were in their sound. Then something changed and their shows were flipped into sounding more like their studio albums, which were starting to sound more polished. There was one album in particular, not sure if they ended up using autotune or not, but it sounded very mechanical and lacked that certain energy they were famous for. Big difference for them, and a clear departure in their philosophy. Thankfully, they must have known that method wasn't very popular with their fans and stayed away from it for subsequent albums.
My favourite example of autotune is the Beach Boys' Summer in Paradise album, released in the early 90's, famous for being one of the first albums to fully be composed on a computer, and infamous for being possibly the worst stinker in their catalogue. It feels so much like an autotune demo.
My favourite example of autotune is the Beach Boys' Summer in Paradise album, released in the early 90's, famous for being one of the first albums to fully be composed on a computer, and infamous for being possibly the worst stinker in their catalogue. It feels so much like an autotune demo.
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Are we speaking of "modern pop music" as something distinct from pop music of the past? It's really not.Pop music has always been made for the masses, and as such the most popular tools and techniques of the time are employed. Today, it's AutoTune. In the '90s, it was that grunge sound. In the '80s, it was synthesizers. In the '70s, it was a disco beat, etc. Same as it ever was.
That's true, but before modern technology they were forced to hire actual talented musicians. In the 1960s it was "Find some talented musicians, then find a way to market them to the masses". Now it's "Figure out what you want to market to the masses, then find some hot person to be made into it".
Pitch-matching has existed in recording for the better part of its existence. It wasn't as simple as it is now--it was usually a tedious manual process--but everyone did it. Even George Martin. (If we're talking "talented musicians in the 1960s.)
Auto-tune just replaces the old EQing and flanging tricks and tape-speed manipulation with a press-of-the-button computer program.
And the idea that the whole sum of modern musicians is somehow less talented than of that a half a century ago is utterly ridiculous.
Auto-tuning isn't inherently a bad thing, just it tends to be used in bad ways.
Returning to another point, it's true that the record company signed a lot of the grunge bands because grunge was popular at the time. The difference is that most of the big grunge bands were playing in small clubs before they every got popular, a notable exception being Alice in Chains (And in the 60s the big exception would be the Monkees). How many of the current popular bands formed on their own and toured small clubs before being signed?
Returning to another point, it's true that the record company signed a lot of the grunge bands because grunge was popular at the time. The difference is that most of the big grunge bands were playing in small clubs before they every got popular, a notable exception being Alice in Chains (And in the 60s the big exception would be the Monkees). How many of the current popular bands formed on their own and toured small clubs before being signed?
There's no need to toil in obscurity anymore when you can put your videos on YouTube or wherever and spread by word-of-mouth. That's how a fair number of acts get signed nowadays.
"How many people are achieving success by doing something that would make no sense at all anymore?" is basically the question you are asking here.
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