"...Horses Don't Cost Four Bucks A Gallon, Either...."

Anybody who knows me will tell you that I'm all about technology.
Though one traditional side effect of getting older is poo pooing "change" and lamenting the passage of the good old days, I've always been perfectly comfortable with the advances that time inevitably brings.
Put simply...I had no problem, for example, tossing my Walkman away in favor of an IPod.
And when IPod has had its day, I'll be good with whatever comes next.
That goes for TV, music, you name it.
Disclaimer firmly in place, let me offer that there's one tech advance I do not endorse or enjoy.
AutoTune.
For those who don't know, it's an electronic device that takes any recorded voice, no matter how off key, off pitch, warbly or wobbly it might be and makes it sound pitch perfect for recording purposes.
That's good news for "singers" who can't really sing.
Bad news for you because ultimately when you hear the "singer" "sing" live, you can't help but be disappointed, even a little cheated, that you spent big money to be in the audience to hear somebody wail away with a skill that your nine year old cousin could probably best.
Case in point:
Taylor Swift.
As proven with this "performance" late last year.



Okay, fair is fair.
She's cute.
She writes clever songs.
But, any reasonable person would have to concede that she can't really sing.
Thanks to AutoTune, though, what you hear on her CD's may be Taylor Swift's voice...but its certainly not her singing voice.

By way of illustrating the difference, here's a clip of a song done by the 60's group, The Byrds.
Recorded live in the studio in a time when there was no AutoTune.
There was, simply, the sound of beautiful singing voices in harmony.



The point of all this is not to get into one of those "in my day" things that used to annoy me when my father did it as much as it does you when your father does it.

There are lots of singers today who can knock it out of the park, live, every time.

Taylor Swift isn't one of them.

And the next time you put out a couple of hundred bucks to hear her "sing", and find yourself disappointed, even cheated, that she's not even close to what you expected, remember that she's not to blame.

That falls totally on the guy who invented AutoTune.