Yes, I agree with you... I was being facetious like I said. But I do think the tuner's not the same as the Autotuner is all. Nit-picky perhaps...
I don't live in Nashville any more, and I did live in NYC for quite some time before I ended up here on the west coast (Seattle). My rock-throwing comment was a joke about Nashville. (You'd be amazed at how many session guys are around, seriously. They are a totally different breed of musician who get paid to play whatever the hell you want and play it well. It's as baffling to me as it is impressive. And no, I'm not one of them. Nor do I think I could be one without an assload more training and practice.)
Autotune, when I notice it, just sounds weird to me -- it flattens the voice.
Well yeah, the problem is that the human voice isn't pitch perfect even when it's singing a single note... You don't notice the slight deviations that give the sound of a voice a distinct character, but you do notice when they are gone, and Autotune can and does get rid of a lot of them.
heck the recording process itself is "help".
Absolutely. And the use of tape instead of digital media does something to the sound at least as significant as Autotune. It's a totally different discussion (and no I'm not an analog snob or anything), but I think the current trends in the recording/mastering process are qualitatively less good than they have been in years past. Not because I think "the 70s sound" is better than "the 90s sound" or whatever, but because overcompression (among other things) has left us with music that actually causes listening fatigue even on equipment designed to minimize this effect. It's not a question of "Oh I think tape sounded better" or "The way they used to record [instrument] before the dawn of [newer technique] sounded much better." It's actually "I can't listen to this for more than an hour without getting a headache even though I actually like the song."
― martin m. (mushrush), Friday, 19 November 2004 00:18 (nineteen years ago) link
Martin, that last point about listening fatigue is intriguing. I've never heard of that before. Is there anything I can read about this?
― Hurting (Hurting), Friday, 19 November 2004 00:24 (nineteen years ago) link
It's not a marketing fabrication though... It actually does happen. Find a discussion forum about recording or engineering records and you'll see guys who spend hours recording and mixing bands talk about it and are concerned about it when purchasing monitors or headphones or whatever.
I would spend more time going into the details, but I'm headed out the door to an appointment...
― martin m. (mushrush), Friday, 19 November 2004 00:33 (nineteen years ago) link
― outspan, Friday, 19 November 2004 01:34 (nineteen years ago) link
Hurting, correct me if I'm wrong but it was you who brought up the ideology or worldview of Britney's songs as a valid basis upon which to dismiss them. Any ideological reading of a song is treating it as an object of critical enquiry. I brought up post-marxism and deconstruction because these areas of critical thought have greatly undermined the stability of the sort of surface level ideological reading you seemed to be attempting. My point being, if we are going to bring ideology into this, let's do so properly.
I'll state for the records that I don't need to draw on cultural studies in order to love a lot of Britney's music.
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Friday, 19 November 2004 01:43 (nineteen years ago) link
― Hurting (Hurting), Friday, 19 November 2004 03:17 (nineteen years ago) link
― Every country has their stupid (AaronHz), Friday, 19 November 2004 03:20 (nineteen years ago) link
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Friday, 19 November 2004 03:27 (nineteen years ago) link
― noodle vague (noodle vague), Friday, 19 November 2004 09:02 (nineteen years ago) link
And nobody knows what Britney sans Autotune sounds like.
Going by the live SNL 'I'm Not A (Real) Girl, Not Yet An Upgraded Sexbot' of 3 years ago, not too bad.
― B.A.R.M.S. (Barima), Friday, 19 November 2004 10:30 (nineteen years ago) link
What might be the broad outlines or the paragraph abstract for a "proper", non-surface ideological reading of Britney's songs?
― Jonathan Z. (Joanthan Z.), Friday, 19 November 2004 10:48 (nineteen years ago) link
― B.A.R.M.S. (Barima), Friday, 19 November 2004 10:55 (nineteen years ago) link
then they had a segment on black pop beauties (beyonce, ashanti and then i stopped watching to post that britney trivia fact above).
not relevant to current focus of thread i know
― lydia, Friday, 19 November 2004 10:59 (nineteen years ago) link
― B.A.R.M.S. (Barima), Friday, 19 November 2004 11:04 (nineteen years ago) link
― lydia, Friday, 19 November 2004 11:32 (nineteen years ago) link
― B.A.R.M.S. (Barima), Friday, 19 November 2004 11:46 (nineteen years ago) link
― The Lex (The Lex), Friday, 19 November 2004 12:04 (nineteen years ago) link
― ahmed shagalampost, Friday, 19 November 2004 20:09 (nineteen years ago) link
― britney, Saturday, 20 November 2004 07:53 (nineteen years ago) link
― the bellefox, Saturday, 26 November 2005 16:15 (eighteen years ago) link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RujDatFeb0&search=Sang%20Won%20Park
― Rockist_Scientist (RSLaRue), Monday, 24 April 2006 23:44 (eighteen years ago) link
― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Tuesday, 25 April 2006 02:26 (eighteen years ago) link
― billstevejim (billstevejim), Tuesday, 25 April 2006 12:41 (eighteen years ago) link
Jonathan if you're still interested in reading involved dissections of pop ideology I can point you to numerous tedious (my fault mostly) threads on dissensus.
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Tuesday, 25 April 2006 14:59 (eighteen years ago) link
her face
― Surmounter, Friday, 13 March 2009 01:53 (fifteen years ago) link
i recently heard "toxic" for the first time in years and holy jesus has it got to be one of the best pop songs of the decade, if not ever.
― samosa gibreel, Friday, 13 March 2009 03:30 (fifteen years ago) link
True.
And Blackout is outrageously good.
― Popture, Friday, 13 March 2009 07:50 (fifteen years ago) link
We know!
― Plaxico (I know, right?), Friday, 13 March 2009 10:55 (fifteen years ago) link
I really really like "blackout" but couldn't give a shit about the latest album.
― AleXTC, Friday, 13 March 2009 11:02 (fifteen years ago) link
^^
― Plaxico (I know, right?), Friday, 13 March 2009 14:52 (fifteen years ago) link
you're missing out on some killer songs. it definitely has a few that aren't good. blackout didn't have that problem. but still, missing out.
― Surmounter, Friday, 13 March 2009 15:58 (fifteen years ago) link
http://i36.tinypic.com/r0o3ef.jpg
― James Mitchell, Sunday, 27 September 2009 10:23 (fourteen years ago) link
I won't hold it against her!
― recriminations from the nitpicking woke (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 6 June 2019 01:57 (five years ago) link
Lies. (Maybe not.)
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 6 June 2019 01:58 (five years ago) link
Her US chart history really is odd, I would have thought "I'm a Slave 4 U" and "Piece of Me" were top tens also
― Josefa, Thursday, 6 June 2019 02:12 (five years ago) link
I love “Til the World Ends”
― Theodor Adorno, perhaps the greatest philosopher alive today (morrisp), Thursday, 6 June 2019 02:22 (five years ago) link
listening to it now
― recriminations from the nitpicking woke (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 6 June 2019 02:34 (five years ago) link
what about "3"?
― monotony, Thursday, 6 June 2019 06:45 (five years ago) link
Huh I thought “Slave 4 U” was a top 10 hit in the US. In Europe and LatinAmerica it definitely was. Was the video too much or got censored for American audiences?
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Thursday, 6 June 2019 07:44 (five years ago) link
the "i'm a slave 4 u" video was really big on mtv. it was radio that didn't play it much compared to a lot of her other songs.
― dyl, Friday, 7 June 2019 01:37 (five years ago) link
What is this #freebritney shyt?
Seems like fans reading too much into things?
― Lady Antibody (Neanderthal), Tuesday, 21 July 2020 17:35 (four years ago) link
Does the new song ("Swimming in the Stars") slap? I'm trying to decide.
I briefly got very excited in the final thirty seconds when it threatened to go drum & bass, but turns out it's the cruellest mirage ever.
― Tim F, Thursday, 3 December 2020 00:21 (three years ago) link
beat the press by the butthole surfers sums up her material!
― xzanfar, Thursday, 3 December 2020 00:27 (three years ago) link
she's no William Orbit, that's for true
― Lover of Nixon (or LON for short) (Neanderthal), Thursday, 3 December 2020 00:29 (three years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Is0hVNZJTOU beat the press by the butthole surfers sums up her material!
― xzanfar, Thursday, 3 December 2020 00:33 (three years ago) link
https://i.ibb.co/BzHvRkp/mashup-video-of-a-baby-goat-that.jpg
― Lover of Nixon (or LON for short) (Neanderthal), Thursday, 3 December 2020 00:37 (three years ago) link
So this NYT documentary on Hulu is something. The Y2K era paparazzi scene was even more vile than I remember.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXG28S8cAJU
― Darin, Tuesday, 9 February 2021 18:05 (three years ago) link
I just discovered her Instagram (via an article around the doc and "Free Britney" phenomenon) -- it's a trip.
― babe for the weekend (morrisp), Tuesday, 9 February 2021 18:11 (three years ago) link
What is this #freebritney shyt?Seems like fans reading too much into things?
― ten man poland chasing this means hamsik feasts (breastcrawl), Sunday, 27 June 2021 08:09 (three years ago) link
free britney
fuck everyone else in this story
― Left, Sunday, 27 June 2021 09:13 (three years ago) link