The OTHER pandemic: Autotune (Another installment in the "OK Boomer" Series!)

YES! JUST THE SORT of up-to-the-minute news and commentary you've come to expect from Live Active Culture!

But first, lest you think this is is the first time I have impotently waved my fist and cursed the sonic plague of Autotune (or, generically, digital pitch correction) here, I'll have you know I wrote this back in 08.

Now.  Here's what I was thinking about the now-unavoidable vocal effect back in late 1999 or early 2000. 

 I jotted it down while I was working as an intern at the Chicago Reader, intending to email it to music editor Peter Margasak. I'm not sure whether it was a tip for him, or a pitch to write the article myself. Anyway, I forgot to actually send it. I probably should reread my journals more often.

Margasak – Maybe do something on the use of AutoTune, which seems rampant now. It was obvious, and intentionally so, on Cher’s “Do You Believe” but less subtle on J-Lo’s “Waiting For Tonight” – I was left wondering what was that metallic, too-crisp sheen on her voice. The Nashville folks producing artists like Faith Hill seem to have gone nuts with it. I wondered how Mary J. Blige got those nearly instantaneous synthesizer-like pitch changes, without a trace of a slur between notes. Metallica seems to have used it too. Why do singers no longer wish to sing? We’re not listening to human beings any more: we’re listening to computers.

This is especially jarring when paired with a video, such as Metallica's, where they simulate a live show. 

My intended note to Margasak continued:

They can rationalize this by saying most pop singers today already use a boatload of digital processing – what’s one more effect when singers’ voices are already buried under synthetic room reverbs, slapback echos and choruses (which in themselves already help to hide some pitch inconsistencies)?...

Well, as a singer myself, I also have a problem with the gratuitous, excessive use of other effects -- especially to mask lack of skill or beef up an otherwise unremarkable voice. 

Still, Autotune is on a different level. More than any other popular effect, it inserts an eerie un-humanness. 

Unlike the spatial effects, such as reverbs and echoes (which aim to change the sound and character of the "room" around the singer), and to a greater extent than previous pitch effects such as choruses and harmonizers, Autotune alters the very  character of the voice. It's not just an echo or a little extra gloss -- it changes the very timbre and tone. That's in addition to its flattening of the natural pitch variations that make us sound real.

Even with all those fake environments -– even if the singer had to do 20 takes to get it right --  at least we knew that when we listened to a record, the notes were real: we still had one thing that we knew the singer was actually doing. Now, we don't even have that to hang onto. 

Also, consider another huge difference between today's digital solution to vocal mistakes (Autotune) and yesterday's analog solution (doing it over until it was right). One of those solutions is also known as practice -- it actually makes you a better singer. The other doesn't. 

 

WHAT REMINDED ME to finally post this entry I wrote 2, 3 or 4 years ago, about a note I jotted over 20 years ago? 

This video posted today by Rick Beato. Watch it. Beato is a prophet to today's lost musical generation. 

 

I love black people

UNLIKE MANY WHITE folks,  who practically break out the beachwear as soon as the temperature climbs above 40, black folks in the hood will wear winter coats until 65 and wool stocking caps when it's 70. One of the kids asking to pump my gas for cash  was in one and I saw a young mama holding her baby, also fitted with a knit cap. Why?? I mean, I realize we're from subsaharan Africa and all, but still. It's just a bit extreme. At least the white vagrant I saw earlier had a reason to wear his fur flap hat -- he has nowhere else to keep it. 

By the way, when I asked the two boys, who looked about 8 and 10, why they were there and where their mama was, I learned their mama's in Mississippi and they stay in Chicago with their sister.

Bill Cosby: America's dad, or serial rapist?

THIS IS REALLY F'D UP.

 

I consider myself extremely well informed, yet my first time hearing about this -- at least to my recollection -- was last night.

I'll also put this down as yet another lamestream media failure. You know everything about what Kim Kardashian's butt did yesterday, but you know nothing about this.

However, I've seen this same sort of expose done on even to men I personally looked up to -- including highly respected "men of God." So while I am dismayed and disappointed by the case against Cosby, I'm not in total denial as a great many people seem to be.

I'd like to believe this is some kind of dastardly conspiracy to bring down a black brotha with a lot of money. But if it were, why wouldn't he fight it? Why would he seemingly encourage it by settling with an accuser? 

Oh no, but Cosby is a cultural icon!   

 

That's the problem. My religion doesn't allow idols or icons. This is a great illustration why.

 

When you worship persons, justice is subverted. When any one is allowed to even think he can buy immunity from crimes, justice cannot be done. And that's bullshit.
 

Every one is the same. If these women are telling the truth -- which must be determined in a court of applicable law, criminal or civil -- then even Cosby must go down. We will all be better off​ once we get the fact that no one is above scrutiny.

And your actions will ALWAYS tell on you sooner or later.

But I'd hate for an entertainer to be the only one to have to face the music. There are allegations of many prominent persons, much wealthier and/or much more powerful than Cosby (if not as well known and beloved) committing similar and worse crimes. The hallowed halls of power could use a thorough fumigation.

We're in the midst of finding out that most of what we believed was a lie and most of our memories and impressions of the beloved entity we know as "America" are staged productions, as artificial in some ways as Cliff Huxtable's TV living room and the lovable scripted characters that populated his world.

What about '80s pop culture and political themes wasn't fake? The CIA under the "Just Say No" president (Bush) and vice president (Reagan) was the biggest drug dealer in the world. And if thirteen women are telling the truth, it seems America's Dad may have actually been one of America's biggest predators.

And it's not as if mass-scale deception by the powers that (seem to) be has ended. On the contrary, they've cranked the deception machine up to 11.

The antidote is to put in your conceptual earplugs. 

America needs to wake up. Hey, how about this: instead of having a make-believe TV dad -- or a politician dad figure in the White House -- how about actual dads being dads?

And then, how about pulling down the "idols" and "icons" off their artificial pedestals?

Fame doesn't equate to righteousness. Millions of dollars and influence don't equate to virtue. Being a prominent (and often, correct) public moralist does not make one moral. Being a great dad on TV is 't the same as being a great dad in real life. And the "American Way" may not have nearly as much to do with truth or justice as we were led to believe. 

The solution to the illegal immigration crisis

JUST LAY DOWN, oh, maybe a few billion cubic tons of this stuff from Tijuana to the Gulf of Mexico.

No mas inmigrantes ilegales .... garantizado!

That Nik Wallenda sure is a crazy bastard

BUT IT'S GOOD we didn't have to see him go plummeting 1,500 feet into the Grand Canyon.

 People who do incredibly stupid and dangerous things like walking across canyons on tightropes with no safety devices, always have to rationalize what they do. There is obviously no rational reason for doing such things. I do think, though, that some of the observers do have a point when they say that watching crazy bastards like Nik Wallenda do incredibly stupid and dangerous things, is, in a way, inspiring. "If a guy can do something that incredibly stupid and dangerous, then what's stopping me from going and asking my boss for the promotion/asking that hot chick out/moving forward to start my business/etc.?" In that case, nature strikes a balance between thinning out the herd and helping to toughen it up.

Speaking of Wallendas, I have kind of a weird wacky Wallenda-related personal story of my own. Read about "Enigmarie."

A greener Chicago would be a safer Chicago

THE CHICAGO READER'S Steve Bogira blogs:

Greening a city can lower its crime rate, research increasingly suggests, and can make poor, segregated areas not only safer but generally more livable.

Here's the rest of his piece .

And my thoughts:

Well-maintained greenscapes do send a social message (which sociologists, naturally, would focus on), but there are other subtle effects of plants that you could call psychological, even spiritual. Plants, and trees in particular, have overall positive and calming effects.

U of I researchers found that children with ADHD “experienced a significant reduction in symptoms after they participated in activities in green settings. ...” For the full import of that finding, you must consider the high correlation between “ADHD,” substance abuse, and criminal involvement.

Also:

researchers found that inner-city girls who had green views from their windows at home possessed a greater degree of self-discipline than girls who did not. On average, according to the study, the greener a girl’s view from home the better she concentrates, the less she acts impulsively and the longer she can delay gratification. These capacities equip girls to behave in ways that foster success both in school and later life.

When girls have more self-control, guess what -- boys gotta have self- control too.

They also found “a greater sense of community, a reduced risk of street crime, lower levels of violence and aggression between domestic partners, and a better capacity to cope with life’s demands, especially the stresses of living in poverty.”

Perhaps to eons-old human instinct, trees and other vegetation mean shelter, fuel, and food, thus comforting the primitive part of our brain; conversely, their absence means famine and hardship. Trees also shelter birds, insect and animal life whose presence and sounds most people find comforting.

The U of I blog concludes, “trees and greenspace are not luxuries, but necessary components of healthy human habitat.” Humans are made to live in nature. Without it, we are in a way, less human.

Other benefits of green life: Plants provide oxygen, which we need for normal functioning and clear thinking, and shade in summer, which provides comfort.

Subtle plant aromas, especially from flowers, may also have beneficial effects.

Not to get too mystical, but the ancients believed in plant “spirits.” Humans and plants can become attached. When I was younger and I came home one day to find my parents had had an old tree in the front yard cut down – one that had been there my entire life -- I felt angry and depressed for days. It was like they'd killed a friend.

The behavioral impact of eating more fresh produce or clean chicken, raised free-range, should not be underestimated.

Productive work supplies a sense of purpose that humans absolutely need. Almost every one wants to work, and farming is one of the oldest occupations. Doing it in community fashion actually reaches past America's tradition of widely separated large farms (due to large land grants and continual consolidation), back to more of a village configuration more familiar in the Old World. It allows one to cooperate and meet your community -- or to form one.

Farming is not usually thought of as an efficient use for urban land, but it's clearly much better than no use at all -- and in the bigger picture, could be a better use of space than a superstore selling thousands of goods from socially irresponsible corporations, if all the negative externalities of said goods were considered. While not a panacea (nothing is) it could be an important step in restoring crucial social capital.

Plagiarism or homage?

COMPARE THE CHORUSES. In the first song, you'll hear it at :30 and in the second, at 1:20. Besides a half-step difference in pitch and different bass lines under them, the vocal parts are nearly identical.




The first, from '82, is  written by Joey Gallo and Kevin Spencer, produced by Leon Sylvers III, and sung by the sweet-voiced Carrie Lucas. Sylvers additionally wrote and produced hits for the Whispers, Shalamar, Lakeside, and Midnight Starr, all labelmates at Solar Records (which was co-founded by Don Cornelius of Soul Train fame).

 The second song, from '89, is credited to Gene Griffin and performed by Today. Production was by Griffin's protege, a then up-and-coming Harlem music wunderkind named Teddy Riley.

It should be noted that, aside from the chorus melody/harmony, the songs are different, right down to instrumentation and recording technique. "Show Me" is classic early '80s dance funk: smart but simple drum pattern, everything perfectly in the pocket, and the kind of bass line that makes you miss bass lines; the band is the same crack studio team that was behind the Whispers.  

"Girl" features the patented synthesized, layered, drum-machined, stuttering-digital-sample- studded, driving and infectious sound that Riley invented and dubbed "New Jack Swing" -- the music I was doin' the "Running Man" to back in high school.
The two songs differ lyrically too. Whereas Griffin/Riley/Today are all about layin' down the mack and romancing their target, the original song is all about pre-AIDS-era frankness: don't bullshit me about romance when all we really want is to get down.