Autotune.

Inspiration always hits at the most inopportune times. For me, it’s almost always around 3am when I’ve spent the last few hours, desperate to fall asleep. Which is fine - if I’m not going to sleep anyway, I might as well be somewhat productive with that time. But the thing is, at 3am, your thoughts are not always the most coherent. 

So I’ll tell you what this is NOT. This blog post is not an analysis on the link between negative attitudes towards autotune and anti-vax, covid-denying conspiracy theorists … like it says in my notes app.

I swear, it made so much sense at the time. 

On this particular loopy night, I’d decided to watch another episode of ‘This Is Pop’ - a Netflix documentary series, looking at events and trends in contemporary pop music. A few minutes into the episode, I realised that this was where the whole ‘Usher sparked T-Pain into a deep depression’ thing (which I’d seen trending on Twitter a couple of days prior) had come from. According to Usher, T-Pain had “fucked up music” by … using Autotune.

Fuck’s sake, Usher.*

Ultimately, the whole episode ended up with a sort of retribution for T-Pain kind of vibe - and rightly so, what a sweetheart - but the comments made, along the way, about Autotune and the types of people who use Autotune just really, really, really, REALLY, irked me. 

It was nothing we haven’t heard before. Snarky smirks, accompanying quips about ‘singers who can’t actually sing’ and Autotune being used as a “crutch” for people who aren’t as talented as they seem. 

These kinds of arguments have cropped up en masse yet again, following the release of Billie Eilish’s single, NDA. In this case, Billie is used as an exception to the rule. Hoards of fans have rushed to the comment section of Youtube to reveal the very obvious fact (as if anyone was saying otherwise) that she is using it as an effect, actually, and doesn’t need Autotune, actually. 

I got so excited, coming across the first half of her brother/co-writer/producer etc. Finneas’ tweet in response, “Y’all act like auto tune is this crutch people lean on when they can’t sing”  for it all to come crashing down to a very - I’m really sorry - basic level, ending with “Almost every single pop star’s vocals are DRENCHED in melodyne and you probably can’t even tell. Auto tune is completely different.” 

Well done to everyone who knows that Autotune is the name of a specific plug-in that is not the same, but does similar things to other existing plug-ins and software. I hope you’re applying this same (and really annoying) energy every time your housemate lets you know they’re about to use the hoover.

‘that is a Dyson vacuum cleaner, actually.’

Stating that all pitch correction isn’t Autotune doesn’t really do anything. It’s not the sick burn that certain people think it is. Autotune has become an eponymous term - which is a very, very common phenomenon in which a certain brand or trademark becomes so popular that people begin to use that one brand name to refer to everything else that does (more or less) the same thing. If someone says they hate the sound of Autotune, they’re still going to hate it after being told what they’re hearing is - in fact - Melodyne. When people say they hate Autotune, I think they’re mostly describing an aversion to a processed sound. And they absolutely have a right to feel that way. I don’t have a problem with a preference like that. However, I superly, DUPERLY have a problem with the vitriol and weirdo superiority complex that has, oftentimes, presented itself alongside this particular preference. 

In an attempt to understand people’s attitudes towards Autotune/pitch correction (from this moment on, I’ll be using ‘autotune’ as a collective term for all pitch correction), I had a look on Youtube to see what was out there. Annoyingly so, the most viewed videos related to autotune were mainly comparisons of famous singers with and without it. There seems to be a huge interest in ‘pulling back the curtain’ and revealing what these singers really sound like. I did stumble across a few interesting things, though.

Firstly, this het-up man.

A few quotes that stood out to me:

• "technology has taken the place of talent” 

• “musicians, engineers and producers have all become fucking lazy – it's all too easy to ‘fix’ a mediocre performance” 

• “how the fuck is this music?” 

This reaction feels personal. I’m concerned about what this man thinks autotune did to him. In the video, he spends a bit of time picking on Britney Spears, as well as pointing out a few of the metal bands he thinks are great (i.e. don’t use autotune), and a few of the metal bands he does not think are great (i.e. do use autotune). Just an observation … the bands he claims don’t use autotune (the great ones) all look like him.

It’s just a thing I noticed. All the artists who use autotune and are therefore “mediocre” seem to be younger than him, or are gender-presenting in a way he is not, or have a different fashion style to him. The ones he says are more talented seem to be more aligned with how he identifies himself. Maybe that means something? Maybe it doesn’t. I’m inclined to think he’s using autotune as a scapegoat, or as justification for simply not liking something.

A few days after watching this video, I listened to the Disco Demolition Night episode of the most-wonderful-everyone-please-listen-to-it podcast, You’re Wrong About. The conclusions they reached articulated how I felt about this video so well.

• “it does feel like there is this ... revolution in music that it becomes about the audience rather than about the performer” 

• “we don’t choose the aesthetic preferences that we have, but we do choose the way that we talk about them” 

• “It’s this idea that everybody wants to believe that their own aesthetic preferences are somehow like, objectively pure”
  
  

I’m not a fan of the concept of ‘objectivity’ at all. We’re all influenced by our experiences and environment and there’ll always be a story behind why a person is or isn’t drawn to something in particular - it’s never because it’s simply good or bad. A lot of people attribute autotune to not sounding ‘human’ and that’s why they don’t like it. They assume there’s no emotional thread running through it.  

One of my favourite songs of all time is Digital Love by Daft Punk. There’s something about it that feels so emotional to me. And I don’t know why. I just love it and, despite it all sounding processed to the nines, listening to it makes my heart soar. 

I get this same feeling when I listen to any of Pogo’s remixes. They might not be for everyone, but hearing these sounds get pulled apart, switched up and stitched back together in an entirely new way is so exciting to me and I love how it sounds. It still sounds emotional to me, despite it being a very obvious product of computers and technology. No way am I saying my point of view is the correct one, but I’d like to offer it up as an alternative perspective. This piece of music was made by one person with a computer, tampering with sounds until they’re barely recognisable, but I don’t think that makes it any less human. There’s still someone behind the computer and, if you think about the amount of people involved with the creation of all the original sounds, that’s far more human involvement than on any of Metallica’s albums. 

Just because there’s a computer doesn’t mean someone’s being lazy. I’d like to see angry metal-man create something as intricate as this:

Whilst we’re chatting about being lazy - I’d like to bring something up to anybody who has such intense hatred towards anyone who might use autotune. Don’t you know that singers don’t. ever. want. to be singing off-pitch? It’s just not something that any vocalist is ever ok about. And don’t you know that there are hundreds of reasons why someone might not be singing every note as precisely as they would want to be? You can’t just tighten the voice string!! People say pop stars are lazy for using autotune, I think Morrissey is lazy to drone on and not make his voice more to my personal taste**. And what? 

This makes me so mad. 

As soon as a famous singer sings anything out-of-key, people act as if they’re the shittiest shit that’s ever been shit. Such glee in the youtube comments at someone’s slight mistake. What, exactly, do certain audiences want or expect out of singers? Ask most people, they’re not saying Whitney or Celine’s their favourite because they’re just so on-pitch all of the time (and if they do, they’re being weird and saying it to make a weird point!). That’s so sad if singing is only about getting the notes right and does such a disservice to all the vocalists with incredible emotional articulation, stage presence, agility, tone etc which, to be honest, is what most people are actually paying attention to - unless they’re on some bizarre campaign to catch someone out. There are two singers I know personally who’s pitching is so on-point that they genuinely sound like they have autotune on them at all times - but that’s never anyone’s go-to compliment for either of them because their voices are so much richer than that. They’re good singers when the sing on-pitch and they are still good singers if they hit a few bum notes every so often (which, for my self-esteem, I really would prefer if they did!). 

People speak as if autotune is a tool to create perfect vocalists. It’s just not. By that logic, all the members of the public showing up on Autotune The News would be on their post-lockdown tours right now! THEY’RE JUST NOT. This exact point is demonstrated beautifully in this random Cincinnati news segment.

This whole video is stupid and highlights that people have put so much effort into ragging on autotune without actually thinking about it. How can you imply that most pop stars need autotune to sound good, then bring up a clip of Christina Aguilera singing off-pitch and say that she’s great because … she’s not using autotune. What is going on?

Ultimately, they reach the conclusion that autotune “cannot completely repair voices”. 

Which is true.

And we all agree that the news anchor’s performance, even with autotune, is not wonderful.

That’s fine.

Just stop taking the piss out of Britney Spears! Don’t say the news anchor does not sound like a world-famous pop star after just saying that she sounds as good as the world’s BIGGEST pop star. 

 
I hate this so much. And I’m sorry, but I’ve tricked you. I’ve acted as if this blog post is a calm, measured look into people’s varying opinions on autotune. It’s not. This is a rant. This is bonus therapy for me because I’m so sick and boooorrrreeeddddd of seeing and hearing comments about how singers use autotune or need autotune and that’s why they’re bad. As Finneas says, most people don’t even know when it’s there. If you ask people for examples of autotune, you’re given T-Pain, Kanye West, or even my personal bugbear, Emma Watson as Belle in the live-action Beauty and the Beast.

 NONE OF THOSE PEOPLE ARE VOCATIONAL SINGERS. THAT’S NOT WHAT THEY DO. 

 Or they bring up Cher. But that’s not even what people are complaining about when they complain about autotune. They’re complaining about singers using autotune and not being competent enough to go without. Or praising other singers for not using autotune when, really, there’s no way for them to know that. Simply put, I think some people just want to be mean to singers to make themselves feel better.

 
It reminds me of what’s going on in my brain when I’m watching Love Island on an insecure day and trying to convince myself that all the really fit women on it aren’t ‘technically attractive’. Who am I trying to kid? And if I genuinely don’t think they look good, nobody cares. And if I want to come up with a justifiable reason to explain why I don’t think they look good, nobody cares about that either. It’s all fine.

People in the comments of this video go wild for how good Ariana sounds and how live it is. Look at the production quality - I would bet a good couple of pounds that there are parts of this performance that aren’t completely live. It would have been done that way to save time and money and to make it the best it can be. There are very practical reasons to use autotune or any other editing tool. But that’s fine. It’s all fine. It’s a great video! I’m so bored now. Stop bitching about autotune. Ugh.  

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*(apparently, he also made an extra comment about T-Pain fucking up music ‘for real singers’ which is just like, fuck’s SAKE, USHER!!!)

**as a rule, I don’t like to publicly shit on vocalists - there’s something out there for everyone and just because I don’t like something doesn’t mean it’s not valuable. But that’s my point!!! Just because you think someone’s being lazy doesn’t mean they are. Their efforts are just focused elsewhere, or the thing you perceive to be ‘laziness’ might just be the thing that means so much to someone else.