I'm a musician. I'm a singer. I'm a songwriter AND I'm in the business. I was thinking the other day about how humorous it was that we're so caught up in the dichotomy of one side of the spectrum saying, "I can't stand when people use autotune," and the other saying, "I just want to dance." Autotune REALLY came into the mainstream when hip-hop and R&B artists began to use it as an instrument. This instrumentation pushed it into the mainstream and then bled into the pop and country side of things. Now I'm not sitting here trying to delve into the history of autotune and how it developed and which people are using it for what and when. I just know that it's being overused in order to put pretty faces behind a muted microphone for sold out shows. I can't tell you the number of friends that have gone to shows and said, "Man, the singing was terrible." And it's not because the bands are touring four nights out of the week. It's because their tracks are auto-tuned on the album, forcing them to not have to hone or practice their craft and when this music is translated live it's the result of either live autotune, a fancy karaoke, or just crappy singing.
I have been working with some people in the music industry I feel merit respect but even they are tired of the autotuning. I've heard many stories from different engineers and producers that state their high-paying clients will sing a line (terribly I might add) and then just ask the engineer, "Can't you just change that during the mixing process?" The engineers and producers actually get excited to be able to work with someone who can sing. Are you serious? Is this what this industry has come to? Then there's the concept of creating music inside the box. This term means that all of the music is engineered on a computer, no mixing board. I was recently part of a seminar for my latest album and one of the students asked the professional engineer if he ever worked inside the box. He replied that was specifically for lower budgeted clients, I understand. Well here's the split. Engineers who work hard on their craft get the best sound when sliding faders or turning dials on a physical mixing board. Not only that, but computers are still limited technologically to what a quality board can do with a quality engineer. I'm sorry, I'm digressing. This isn't the point of this entry.
Here's what I want to say. The ONLY reason the industry is getting away with being able to cookie-cutter a pretty face with "popular" music is because popular music has become silent throughout the past 15 years. It's become an onslaught of digital white-out and constant correction. Guess who controls this mess. Guess. It's the fan! It's the person buying the music. Grohl stepped out on a limb for many of us with that quick 20 seconds and I can tell you, I haven't stopped standing or clapping since I heard it.
