August 8, 2023 • 34 mins
It's the 50th anniversary of hip hop, and that’s a great opportunity for Bridget to dig into one of her favorite subjects to nerd out about: trends in audio. In this episode, she breaks down the history of auto-tune. Today it’s incredibly common, but when musicians first started using it there was a huge backlash. Prominent musicians said it was ruining music, and Time Magazine put it on their list of “50 Worst Inventions.” Yet artists like T-Pain and Cher used it to create new sounds that listeners loved, and today it is widely accepted as a valuable tool for legitimate artists to use for making music. The disruptive history of auto-tune, originally derided as a toy before innovators embraced it to create something new, offers lessons for how we should understand AI in 2023.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
There Are No Girls on the Internet, as a production
of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridge Todd and this
is There Are No Girls on the Internet. It is
the fiftieth anniversary of hip hop, and that is a
great opportunity to dig into one of my favorite subjects
to nerd out about, which is audio and kind of
(00:26):
trends and audio how we respond to those trends and what.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
It says about us as the culture.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
The history of auto tune is a fascinating one and
I think it really explains why I'm so hung up
on audio trends as like a nerdy little side interest.
So when I say auto tune, Mike, what comes to
mind for you? Is there any one person that comes
to mind when you think about auto tune? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (00:48):
I mean, I'm no auto tune expert, but I think
Tea Pain really is the artist who took it and
ran with it and made it like his thing.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Yes, great answer.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
I recently watched the t Pain NPR Tiny Death Concert,
which is like a masterpiece. People should definitely watch it.
But it kind of made me happy to see Tea
Pain kind of coming full circle and kind of getting
the flowers that he so richly deserves for being an
innovator when it comes to autotune, and the history of
(01:22):
how autotune went from this like kind of niche thing
to being everywhere, to being hated to now being like commonplace,
I think is such an interesting one. And the reason
that I want to tell this story now, in addition
to being the fiftieth anniversary of hip hop, is that
I think the conversation that we're having around technology and
how it intersects with art and creativity really mirrors the
(01:45):
conversation that we had around autotune. I'm specifically thinking here
about conversations around AI. You know, how will AI shape
things like hip hop is a question that we are
seeing artists grapple with in real time, And I think
that's kind of because hip hop has always had this
particular unique relationship to technology. It's always been this medium
grounded in technology, and so historically rappers and hip hop
(02:09):
artists can't really shy away from embracing technology. Hip hop
has always been about innovation and trying new things and
using technology to create something totally new. So I really
feel that if anybody can use new technology like AI
to do something that does not feel like exploitation or
derivative or lazy. It is hip hop artists because the
(02:32):
creativity and innovation of traditionally marginalized voices is that powerful.
So here's a little bit of a rundown of how
hip hop artists are grappling with that question around technology
and AI and how it will impact hip hop today.
Rapper Lupe Fiasco just announced a partnership with Google for
a program called text Fx, which he says is meant
to help artists during the songwriting process through the use
(02:54):
of generating alternative meanings, spellings, and phrases to words initially
chosen by the human song writer. It kind of sounds
like an AI powered rhyming dictionary for rappers, and Lupey
really says that this partnership was really grounded in the
relationship that rap has always has his technology, saying rap
is born out of technology. Rap wouldn't exist if not
(03:14):
for technological advancements. It kind of sounds like this tool
is not meant to replace rappers or songwriters, but rather
be a supplement to a human songwriter. Lupey explained, it
does require you to do the work. It's not doing
the work for you. It's just providing you with different
opportunities and workflow for being efficient and offloading certain things
so that your mind can focus on other things. And
(03:37):
then you have producers like Timbaland, who is exploring with
making songs using AI generated versions of rappers who have
died so that those more established rappers can be on
tracks with up and coming artists. Obviously, this kind of
thing has gotten a lot of negative attention as being
disrespectful or just plain creepy, but Timberland told Forbes that
(03:57):
he feels the industry and consumers need to see a
more serious, well intentioned, and transparent effort to integrate AI
technology into hip hop, saying, I don't want to be
afraid of what's going on. I want to be the
guy that figures out a solution. But on the other hand,
you have rappers like ice Cube, who said that AI
will make artists lazier and less creative and threaten to
sue any platform or person who promotes an artificial intelligence
(04:21):
generated version of his voice or likeness. And then there's
Little Wayne, who I think had the best response to
the rise of AI and hip hop.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Which is basically bring it on, lol.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Wayne said, I'm like is this AI thing going to
be amazing too, because I am naturally organically amazing. I
am one of a kind, So actually I would love
to see that thing try to duplicate this motherfucker. I
think the variety of responses to AI and hip hop
that we're seeing now really mirrors the conversation that artists
we're having back in the two thousands about the use
(04:53):
of auto tune and music. Will it make musicians lazy,
less creative? Will it displace authentic vocalists? We're basically seeing
artists have that very same conversation they were having about
auto tune in the two thousands now with AI and
the story of autotune is one where I think something
that was once perceived as being a gimmick at best
or at worst, a way to manipulate human artistry in
(05:16):
a way that kind of creates this vibe that like, oh,
like humans are expected to sound like perfect machines. I
think that was like a big concern that folks were
grappling with around autotune. There was this big concern that
autotune was going to de incentivize artists kind of needing
to be good or needing to work on their craft.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Or perfect their.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Craft because you could just hit a button on a computer.
But today, nobody thinks of autotune as just a gimmick.
Nobody thinks of auto tune as something that, you know,
de incentivizes artists to be creative or perfect their craft.
It's just something that is totally commonplace in audio today.
It's used in all kinds of interesting and creative ways
because in the end, creative artists were able to make
(05:58):
something cool and innovative to create a cultural shift. And
so I think that story as we talk about things
like the intersection of music and AI, that story seems
even more relevant right now. So let's talk about how
autotune came to be. Autotune was originally developed by doctor
Andy Hildebrand, a research engineer, and weirdly enough, he was
(06:19):
not working in the music industry when he came up
with the idea for autotune. He was working in the
gas industry. He worked for Exxon and created a complex
set of algorithms to interpret sonar generated data to locate
oil deposits deep underground. But he was also a musician,
a flute player, and he always wanted to find a
way to be more involved in the audio space. Him
creating autotune was kind of a fluke. A wife of
(06:42):
his colleague was joking about how bad her singing voice is,
and she was like, Oh, if only there was a
technology I could sing into that would help me sing
in tune. And I guess this idea really stayed with
him and he got to thinking could the tool that.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
He used in the oil industry also help correct pitch? Answer?
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Yes, So it might be wondering why is this such
a big deal. Well, before autotune, there were ways to
correct pitch, but it was so time consuming that it
was generally not considered to be worth it. Meanwhile, autotune
was incredibly good, easy and fast to correct pitch, so
it was a total game changer. This is something that
kind of comes up in podcasting a lot too. You know,
(07:22):
when you're podcasting, the best take is generally your most
natural take, and so when you say something and it
just sounds so right, but maybe you caw or stumble
or you know, trip over your words a little bit,
if you redo it, it's never going to sound as good.
And so one of the reasons why this technology is
(07:43):
such a game changer is that it allows you to
keep that natural first best take, but just polish the
parts that don't work. As you describe to NPR, the
singer's first take is often their best. It's full of
vitality and emotion. After their take, the producer will announce great,
but the second phrase was pitchy, so let's do it again. Well,
now the singer's worried about pitch and has to focus
(08:05):
on intonation, and the vitality and emotion are gone from
their performance. What auto tune lets the producer do is
fix the first take, which makes a lot of sense.
In nineteen ninety six, he implemented the algorithm on a
custom Macintosh computer and presented the results at the National
Association of Music Merchants, a trade show for audio professionals,
where it was instantly a massive hit. I can understand why, because, yeah,
(08:30):
the frustration of having to completely redo a take because
you're not able to just go in and perfect it
is very frustrating. So I can understand why. When this
was released people were like, oh my god, a huge
game changer. So autotune becomes a thing, but at this
point it's kind of treated like a trade secret. Engineers
were using autotune to discreetly correct pitch without really advertising
(08:52):
it until someone sweeps in in nineteen ninety eight with
shimmer and bangles and hellowing long black hair.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Can you guess who I am talking about? It's sure,
it's fair.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
So Cher's Belief in nineteen ninety eight was the song
of the late nineties, right. Not only was it a
musical departure for Share as an artist, but it's a
song about transformations. So she as a as an artist
is going through a transformation in her career, but also
singing about the importance of transformation. And I think it's
(09:32):
I think it's an arguable that Believe is SHARE's most
important song. I think it would be really easy for
an artist like Share to kind of become a nostalgia
act from her Sunday and Share days of the seventies,
but she didn't. She kept evolving and kept innovating. At
the Grammys that year, the song was nominated for Record
of the Year and Best Dance Record, winning the latter,
(09:53):
and it was a huge commercial hit too. Believe is
one of the best selling singles in music history. And
this is actually something.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
That is like pretty hard to do.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
The music scene of the late nineties was really fragmented,
but Believe broke through as this global smash. It's also
just really endured culturally, Like there's a Sex in the
City episode where Charlotte thinks her boyfriend might secretly be gay,
and one of the pieces of evidence is that he
puts on shares Believe when they're like in the kitchen,
And so I think it's important to really highlight what
(10:25):
a big deal this song is. Like if you've ever
been on a dance floor and heard Believe, come on,
it is like an emotionally resonant experience to be dancing
to Believe on a dance floor, Like the song just
does something to you when you hear it. And I
also think it's interesting in that it's a song about
someone who has been dumped, but that act of being
(10:48):
dumped is like a badge of honor. It is like that,
like usually in a love song, the person who has
been dumped is like sad or you know, grieving a
lost relationship, grieving that they weren't enough for this person.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Who dumped them.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
But in Belief, she is like righteous. She is not
saying like I am sad, I'll get over this. She
is saying I will transform. This moment is going to
be a moment of transformation for me. And it's just
one of those things like the line.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Do you believe in life after love?
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Like it just it's one of those lines that I
can't believe is not an established phrase or idiom because
it just hits so perfectly. So in the song Believe,
autotune was used to create unnaturally rapid corrections and shares vocals.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
They basically removed.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
That natural slide between pitches and singing, in effect creating
that kind of robotic voice that you hear in the
song Believes. Producer Mark Taylor originally did not want to
tell people that he had used auto tune to get
that sound. No, not because auto tune had a negative
connotation yet, but because he wanted to protect the method
as a trade secret.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
So the team initially came up with a whole.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Cover story that if they were asked, they were going
to say that they got that robotic vocal effect by
using a vocoder pedal a vocoder. If you don't know
what that is, it's similar to auto tune with different Apparently,
Cher's label wanted her to remove the autotune effect, and
she flat out refused. They even started calling autotune the
share effect. So while all of this is going down
(12:21):
in nineteen ninety nine, Tea Pain is just starting his
musical career. So when t Pain was three, he got
interested in music because a family friend, jazz singer and
producer Ben Tankard, allowed him to spend time quote twisting
knobs at his recording studio. At age ten, t Payin
turned his entire bedroom into a little music studio with
(12:43):
a beat machine and a keyboard and everything. T Pain
actually got his start as a rapper, but after being discovered,
he decided that he wanted to sing instead of rap.
It's the early two thousands and T Pain they've been
looking for a way to make his voice stand out.
He hears the Dark Child remix of the nineteen ninety
nine song if You Had My Love by Jennifer Lopez, which,
by the way, I love that song, which uses a
(13:04):
little bit of auto tune. He's also really inspired by
the R and B graats like Teddy Riley, who used
things like talk boxes and vocoders, which are kind of
similar to autotune but a little bit different. T Pain
records his debut album, Rappa Turnt singer in two thousand
and six and it gets to thirty three on the
Billboard two hundred and a certified gold. He releases his
(13:24):
second album, Epiphany, which is kind of like T Pain's
magnum opis.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
It's his thriller.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
It's like the album that you think of when you
think of T Pain. The album includes the song buy
You a Drank, which is probably.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
His biggest hit.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
The song peaked at number one on the US Billboard
Hot one hundred, making it his highest charting single as
a lead artist. So something to know about this is
that when that album first came out, it wasn't like
people were criticizing T Pain as like a gimmicky artist.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
The reviews were admittedly mixed, but people.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Were talking about him as a serious artist to watch,
not like some kind of a joke one trip pony.
So something that you really need to know about Tea
Pain is that he legitimately saw autotune as his thing right.
He did not see auto tune as popping on to
a trend or a gimmick or a joke, because it
was his way of exploring his own voice as a singer.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
But everybody sees how successful.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Tea Pain is at doing auto tune and they all
start jumping on the bandwagon. Snoop Dogg does it in
two thousand and seven on his song Sensual Seduction. Loll
Wayne does it in two thousand and eight with his
song Lollipop. Kanye West releases the album Ato Eights and
Heartbreak in two thousand and eight, a project that t
Pain actually worked on. What's interesting about that is that
I've heard te Pain talk about Ato Eights and Heartbreak.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Even though he was I think a consultant on the album.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
I think he felt some type of way about how
that album was received.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
He talks about how.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
He didn't feel like Kanye West did auto tune correctly
on that album. It sounds like Tea Pain thought that
the critical praise that Atoweights and Heartbreak got should have
gone to him as a pioneer of the technology. What's
interesting about this is that people associated Tea Pain specifically
with autotune and a kind of cheapening of the music
industry in general. But he was legitimately trying to use
(15:13):
this technology to create something unique as an artist, just
like Share was. He said in an interview, like It's
not like I was telling other artists to do this.
I was the one doing it. Other people started doing it.
I didn't tell them to do that. It's not my
fault that this became a trend. In a really good
long read about auto tune and pitchfork that will link
to in the show notes, they talk about how this
kind of put tea Pain in this like very weird position.
(15:36):
He was at once a pioneer of this technology but
also a critic of the way that other people were
using it. The piece points out that he claimed that
he spent two years researching auto tune and thinking about it,
including meeting with doctor Hildebrand, before attempting to use it.
So when Tea Pain as compared to other artists who
were jumping on the auto tune trend, he actually feels
offended by this. He says, a lot of math went
(15:58):
into that shit. It would take us a billion fucking
minutes to explain to regular motherfuckers. But I really studied
that shit. I know why it catches certain notes and
why it doesn't catch other notes.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
So t Pain really saw.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Himself as like someone who was learning about a craft
to explore his own artistry, and when other people saw
this as a bandwagon to jump on.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
He became the punching bag for it.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
People associating te Pain negatively with autotune was something that he.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Really struggled with.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
He's talked about this in interviews that there was this
moment where he meets Usher, the singer Usher, and that
Usher is the singer that he really respects, and Usher
essentially personally blames him for a negative shift in the
music industry. He says that Usher told him that he
messed up music for real singers, and that Usher as
(16:46):
this great vocalist who te Pain really respected. In an interview,
he said, that is the very moment, and I don't
even think I realized this for a long time, but
that very moment started a four year depression for me.
And just fyi, Usher famously used auto tune in his
song oh My God. So it definitely is a thing
where artists who vocally criticized autotune even before it was
(17:10):
so commonplace, also use autotune.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Let's take a quick break at our back.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
So I knew that auto tune was like notoriously controversial
in the music industry when I was first doing the
research for this episode, I thought, oh, people just find
it a little bit lazy, or a little bit gimmicky,
or they just have a negative perception of it. What
I did not realize is how much of an organized
negative publicity campaign surrounded autotune in the two thousands. At
(17:51):
the Grammys in two thousand and nine, the band Deathcab
for Quti showed up wearing blue ribbons on their lapels
to protest the use of autotune in the muse industry.
This sounds kind of funny, but it was very serious.
There's an MTV dot com article about it titled Deathcab
for Cutie raise Awareness about autotune abuse. Enough is Enough?
And in the article, Ben Gibberd, the lead of Death
(18:13):
Caab for Cuti, says, we're here to raise awareness about
auto tune abuse. I think it's over the last ten
years we've seen good musicians being affected by this new
found digital manipulation of the human voice, and we feel
enough is enough. Let's raise awareness, let's stop this, let's
bring back the blue note, and let's really try to
get music back to its roots of having actual people
who sound like actual human beings. I read a quote
(18:36):
from the singer Nico Case, who I know you've really like,
Nicoka's right.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
That's true, I do, and I to my knowledge, I've
never heard her use AutoTunes. So I'm a little concerned
where you're going with this.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Well, Nicokease does not use autotune, and in two thousand
and six she told Pitchfork quote, I'm not a perfect
note hitter either, but I'm not going to cover it
up with auto tune. Everybody uses it too, I want.
I asked the studio guy in Toronto how many people
don't use autotune and he said, you and Nellie Fortado
are the only two people who've never used it in here.
Even though I'm not into Nelly Fortato, it kind of
(19:10):
made me respect her. It's cool that she has some integrity.
And so I think what we really are seeing here
is like auto tune being connected to like a lack
of integrity or a lack of authenticity. This was the
two thousands at a time where I think that there
was a real binary between quote, real musicians, real artists
(19:32):
and like pop poppy, bubblegummy kind of like gimmicks. And
so I think part of the backlash was about this
was a response to people being like, oh, now, these
new fake musicians they're not real musicians. They're using auto tune.
They're fakers. Real music is like real music people using
(19:52):
their real voice. And I can understand that sentiment, but honestly,
there's nothing natural about the human singing voice.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Like your voice is a tool, it's an instrument.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
And so this idea that any manipulation of that means
that you're like not a real artist, I find sort
of interesting.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
Yeah, that adjective reel comes up on the show a lot, right,
just to separate us from them pretty often kind of
makes you wonder, wh who's the us and who's the
them in that scenario.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
So in two thousand and nine, the same year that
Death Cab for Cut shows up wearing those blue lapel
pens to protest autotune, Jay Z released the lead single
of his album, The Blueprint three Da Death of auto Tune,
and he said that he thought that autotune was like
an overused gimmick. In that song, he calls tea pain
out by name. Also, in twenty ten, Time magazine includes
(20:47):
autotune in their list of the fifty worst inventions. On
the same list with Agent Orange and subprime mortgages.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
Not agent Orange, that pretty harsh.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
I feel like Agent Orange has been responsible for more
harm in the world than AUDI.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
Yeah, like it literally killed a lot of people horrifically
and caused a lot of cancer. I mean, I don't
think AutoTunes killed anybody time.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
So just like in conversations that we're having around AI
and whether or not images that have been manipulated using
AI should be labeled, which, by the way, we think
they should. There was even a call to have it
be labeled whatever a live performance used auto tune. Singer
songwriter David Mendel started the live means Live campaign and
he wanted there to be a logo that said live
means live to let the audience know that when that
(21:44):
person is performing, no auto tune is being used, no
backing track is being used. It is one hundred percent live.
And I think that goes back to what we were
just talking about. Like in the two thousands, there was this,
I would argue, false dichotomy between author identic musicians and
inauthentic musicians. You know, you had a lot of rappers
(22:04):
calling other rappers quote ringtone rappers, which was like a
negative term for a rapper that was like too poppy,
too bubblegum, just trying to get money as opposed to
like real rappers who are.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Doing something else entirely.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
You have a lot of artists being called out for
using you know, backup vocals tracks and they're in their
live performances. In twenty thirteen, Beyonce famously was lip syncing
to a vocal track when she performed at Obama's inauguration,
and then she had to do a press conference where
she belts out the national anthem a cappella and is
like any questions, just to prove that she actually can
(22:44):
do it. Which, by the way, I've often found conversations
around you know, having a backtrack going for a live
performance like that inauguration. I was at that inauguration and
it was a very cold day. The weather does stuff
to your voice, Like I don't know. I feel like
if you're performing an outdoor important inauguration, there's no shame
(23:06):
in using a backtrack for a big moment like an
inauguration to just need to sound perfect, and if you
use a backtrack to accomplish that, I don't.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
Think it's the end of the world.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
Like I think it's sometimes the accusations are a little much,
and I do think that some of this climate around
inauthentic and authentic musicians does to me to seem like
a way to criticize black musicians and poppy women musicians.
Like you can't help but see people who see themselves
(23:34):
as like real authentic rockers calling out people who use
auto tune. And it's curious to me who got caught
up in the auto tune criticism, because like in radioheads
two thousand and one album Amnisiak, they use auto tune.
Tom Yorke described the use of auto tune on that
album as quote, auto tune desperately tries to search for
(23:57):
the music in your speech and produces noeset random.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
If you've assigned it a key, you've got music right.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
And so nobody was calling out when all this auto
tune criticism was happening. Nobody was calling out Radiohead for
using it. It was interesting to me who got called
out publicly and who didn't. In that really good pitchwork
piece I mentioned, they put it this way. Much of
this anti autotune sentiment presented the idea that the technology
is a dehumanizing deception foisted upon the public. Attempting to
(24:26):
deflect this angle of attack, Hildbrand once offered up an
analogy with a generally accepted form of everyday artifice, asking
my wife wears makeup, does that make her evil? Perhaps
because of Shar's involvement in Autotune's debut on the world
pop stage, critics have often connected pitch correction and cosmetic surgery,
comparing the effects to botox, face peels, college and injections
(24:48):
and the rest in the video for believe Share actually
looks how auto Tune sounds. The combination of three levels
of enhancement, surgery, makeup, and that old trick of bright
lights that flatten the skin surface into a blank dazzle
means that her face and her voice seemed to be
made out of the same immaterial substance. If the believed
promo was produced today, a fourth level of falsification would
(25:10):
be routinely applied digital post production procedures like motion retouching
or colorizing that operate at the levels of pixels rather
than poores, fundamentally altering the integrity of the image. The
taste for these effects and the revulsion against them are
part of the same syndrome, reflecting a deeply conflicted confusion
in our desires. Simultaneously craving the real and the true,
(25:33):
while continuing to be seduced by digital's perfection and the
facility and flexibility of use that it offers. That's why
young hipsters buy overpriced vinyl for the aura of authenticity
and analog warmth, but in practice use the download codes
to listen to the music on an everyday level. So
I definitely agree with that take, and I think that
our response to autotune and the rise of auto tune
(25:55):
culturally does say something about us that we want it
both ways.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
We want the slickness.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Of something that is clearly digitized, while also being able
to call it out for being inauthentic or being repulsed
by it.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
It's like this real duality of life.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
We want this, we create this, we have been trained
as audiences to like this and respond to this, but
also we find that very dynamic to be repulsive. But
here's my thing, because Sharon T Pain or innovators, today,
autotune is so commonplace that I would be willing to
bet that most people don't even know that they're hearing
songs that have been pitch corrected by autotune when they
(26:34):
hear it. It is commonplace across all genres of music.
Even though we associate it more heavily with hip hop,
it is in all different kinds of music, and autotune
is not only used for things like pitch correction or
making a singer sound better. Artists also use autotune in
all kinds of unique ways. One of my favorites is
the Kate Busch song A Deeper Understanding, which was originally
(26:56):
released back in nineteen ninety eight. Kate Bush has said
that the song is a critics seek about our relationship
with technology, saying this is about people, well, about the
modern situation where more and where people are having less
and less contact with human beings. We spend all day
with machines, all night with machines. You know, all day
you're on the phone, and all night you're watching the
telly press a button. And this happens, and this idea
(27:18):
of someone who spends all their time with the computer,
and like a lot of people, they spend an obsessive
amount of time with their computers. People really build up
heavy relationships with their computers. So the song initially had
this computer voice on the track. In the original version,
it's voiced by her son, but when she revisited that
song in twenty eleven. Pitchwork reports that she used auto
(27:38):
tune to make the serie like voice of the computer
sound like a guardian angel offering saragate solace and counterfeit company,
saying hello, I know that you're unhappy. I bring you
love and deeper understanding. So she used a heavily criticized
technology to critique our relationship with technology brilliant. So I
(28:00):
think there's always going to be artists who find a
way to use new technology in ways that are creative,
because that's what creative people.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Have always done.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
I saw this really interesting point in Traptal, a newsletter
that covers the business of hip hop by Dan Runzi.
So Dan points out that venture capitalist Chris Dixon has
this concept about disruptive technologies that disruptive technologies always start
out by looking like a toy. So when they come
out like the iPhone, I remember someone saying I don't
want to get an iPhone. It looks like a toy.
(28:30):
It looks like a phone that like a child would use.
And I think there's something to this idea that technologies
that are going to be disruptive and really take off
as the next big thing. They do often start out
by looking like toys, and so when something looks like
a toy, it can be dismissed while also being phased
in as something that's going to be disruptive. And so
(28:51):
I think that auto tune was dismissed as this gimmick, right,
this joke, and now it's everywhere, even though so many
people initially dismissed it.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
Yeah, that's a really interesting point, and it does really
connect to the analogy you were making to AI earlier.
Right when AI first became a big thing, we were
all using DALLI to create images that were like sort
of jokey, and it was like and like similar with
chat GPT, just asking it questions for novelty, for funzies,
(29:26):
and so it really does have this quality of feeling
a little bit like a toy. But I suppose, you know, quietly,
on laptops around the world, people are using it for
much more serious purposes.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
I really think the comparison between auto tune and AI
as technologies inso much that they will transform these creative industries.
And I think the reason why I connect those two
conversations in my head is because as we're having these
conversations about how AI is going to transform the creative
spaces hip hop, music, the arts, film, television. A lot
(30:04):
of those conversations have been really pessimistic, and I totally
get it right, Like the striking screenwriters and actors are
not wrong to be really concerned about the way that
AI will impact their industry. Those concerns are absolutely fair
and grounded. However, I think that there's always going to
(30:26):
be people who find ways to use technology to create
something better, and so I think that we're at this
pivotal point in the conversation around AI and how it's
going to shape those fields where the question is do
we want this technology to be used to exploit or
to innovate. I think the screenwriters are saying, let's see
(30:47):
how this technology can be used to innovate. If AI
is going to help me punch up a script, that's great,
the powers that be should not bake my exploitation into
that model. I think that that's where and so this
might surprise people, but I am kind of positive, kind
of cautiously hopeful about how we see this play out,
(31:08):
Because if there's anybody who can find a way to
innovate with new technologies, it's creatives, it's hip hop artists,
it's people like tea paid and people like share, it's innovators,
and so I really want those people to be the
ones who are leading the way in terms of how
these how new technologies do shape creative fields, Like that's
what I want to see. How can they be used
to innovate, not exploit. And it really comes down to
(31:31):
something that tech historian Claire Evan said in the very
first ever episode of their No Girls on the Internet.
Speaker 4 (31:41):
There have been many instances in the history of music
when a new technology has come along that extensibly is
there to displace the musician. For example, the drum machine
or the synthesizer. You know, these are tools that we're
designed to replace session musicians with an easier, cheaper version
kind of automation of their labor. In fact, even in
the eighties, like the Britishmusicians Union tried to ban synthesizers.
(32:02):
But what artists and musicians did was instead of allowing
those tools to replace them, they took control of them.
And you know, they took drum machines, and they took synthesizers,
and they invented Detroit Techno, and they invented new waves,
and they invented hip hop, and they invented you know,
electronic music as it exists today, and as many manifestations,
they kind of took the thing that was threatening them
(32:23):
with displacement and incorporated it into what they were doing
and made it essential to who they were and used
it to invent something new that they were integrally as
human beings involved with. And I think that that act
of kind of like I don't know, like like jumping
on the grenade or something, is like a really beautiful
thing that artists always do, willingly or unwillingly when they
(32:44):
are faced with new technology. And I think when new
technology comes along, you always have that choice. Are you
going to let it displace you or are you going
to let it intimidate you? Or are you going to
take it, you know, jump on it, find some new
use for it, and make it part of who you are,
and give it back to the world in a new form.
That is all that choice is always present, and I
think that's what I try to do in my work
(33:05):
across the board, and I think it's the only way
that we're going to kind of keep on top of
all of this technology. And I think it's also very human.
I think it's what people always do. We are always
trying to create systems of meaning and beauty out of
what is coming up ahead. And I think that will
(33:25):
never change.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Claire really put that so beautifully, and that is a
sentiment that is echoed by one of my favorite bands,
daff Punk, who used auto tune in their song one
More Time. They said a lot of people complain about
the musicians using auto tune. It reminds me of the
late seventies when musicians in France tried to ban the synthesizer.
What they didn't see was that you could use those
tools in a new way instead of just replacing the
(33:47):
instruments that came before.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
And so I think that's where we are right now.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
We are at the crossroads with so many technologies of
are we going to use this to innovate or are
we going to use this to exploit? And that is
the question that we are asking right now about new technologies,
and that is a question that innovators like Share and
Tea Pain answered with a resounding innovator. Got a story
(34:15):
about an interesting thing in tech, or just want to
say hi, You can reach us at Hello at tegody
dot com. You can also find transcripts for today's episode
at tenggody dot com. There Are No Girls on the
Internet was created by me Bridget Tod. It's a production
of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer.
Tari Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Almado
is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Tod. If
(34:37):
you want to help us grow, rate and review us
on Apple Podcasts. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, check out
the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.
There Are No Girls on the Internet, as a production
of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridge Todd and this
is There Are No Girls on the Internet. It is
the fiftieth anniversary of hip hop, and that is a
great opportunity to dig into one of my favorite subjects
to nerd out about, which is audio and kind of
(00:26):
trends and audio how we respond to those trends and what.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
It says about us as the culture.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
The history of auto tune is a fascinating one and
I think it really explains why I'm so hung up
on audio trends as like a nerdy little side interest.
So when I say auto tune, Mike, what comes to
mind for you? Is there any one person that comes
to mind when you think about auto tune? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (00:48):
I mean, I'm no auto tune expert, but I think
Tea Pain really is the artist who took it and
ran with it and made it like his thing.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Yes, great answer.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
I recently watched the t Pain NPR Tiny Death Concert,
which is like a masterpiece. People should definitely watch it.
But it kind of made me happy to see Tea
Pain kind of coming full circle and kind of getting
the flowers that he so richly deserves for being an
innovator when it comes to autotune, and the history of
(01:22):
how autotune went from this like kind of niche thing
to being everywhere, to being hated to now being like commonplace,
I think is such an interesting one. And the reason
that I want to tell this story now, in addition
to being the fiftieth anniversary of hip hop, is that
I think the conversation that we're having around technology and
how it intersects with art and creativity really mirrors the
(01:45):
conversation that we had around autotune. I'm specifically thinking here
about conversations around AI. You know, how will AI shape
things like hip hop is a question that we are
seeing artists grapple with in real time, And I think
that's kind of because hip hop has always had this
particular unique relationship to technology. It's always been this medium
grounded in technology, and so historically rappers and hip hop
(02:09):
artists can't really shy away from embracing technology. Hip hop
has always been about innovation and trying new things and
using technology to create something totally new. So I really
feel that if anybody can use new technology like AI
to do something that does not feel like exploitation or
derivative or lazy. It is hip hop artists because the
(02:32):
creativity and innovation of traditionally marginalized voices is that powerful.
So here's a little bit of a rundown of how
hip hop artists are grappling with that question around technology
and AI and how it will impact hip hop today.
Rapper Lupe Fiasco just announced a partnership with Google for
a program called text Fx, which he says is meant
to help artists during the songwriting process through the use
(02:54):
of generating alternative meanings, spellings, and phrases to words initially
chosen by the human song writer. It kind of sounds
like an AI powered rhyming dictionary for rappers, and Lupey
really says that this partnership was really grounded in the
relationship that rap has always has his technology, saying rap
is born out of technology. Rap wouldn't exist if not
(03:14):
for technological advancements. It kind of sounds like this tool
is not meant to replace rappers or songwriters, but rather
be a supplement to a human songwriter. Lupey explained, it
does require you to do the work. It's not doing
the work for you. It's just providing you with different
opportunities and workflow for being efficient and offloading certain things
so that your mind can focus on other things. And
(03:37):
then you have producers like Timbaland, who is exploring with
making songs using AI generated versions of rappers who have
died so that those more established rappers can be on
tracks with up and coming artists. Obviously, this kind of
thing has gotten a lot of negative attention as being
disrespectful or just plain creepy, but Timberland told Forbes that
(03:57):
he feels the industry and consumers need to see a
more serious, well intentioned, and transparent effort to integrate AI
technology into hip hop, saying, I don't want to be
afraid of what's going on. I want to be the
guy that figures out a solution. But on the other hand,
you have rappers like ice Cube, who said that AI
will make artists lazier and less creative and threaten to
sue any platform or person who promotes an artificial intelligence
(04:21):
generated version of his voice or likeness. And then there's
Little Wayne, who I think had the best response to
the rise of AI and hip hop.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Which is basically bring it on, lol.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Wayne said, I'm like is this AI thing going to
be amazing too, because I am naturally organically amazing. I
am one of a kind, So actually I would love
to see that thing try to duplicate this motherfucker. I
think the variety of responses to AI and hip hop
that we're seeing now really mirrors the conversation that artists
we're having back in the two thousands about the use
(04:53):
of auto tune and music. Will it make musicians lazy,
less creative? Will it displace authentic vocalists? We're basically seeing
artists have that very same conversation they were having about
auto tune in the two thousands now with AI and
the story of autotune is one where I think something
that was once perceived as being a gimmick at best
or at worst, a way to manipulate human artistry in
(05:16):
a way that kind of creates this vibe that like, oh,
like humans are expected to sound like perfect machines. I
think that was like a big concern that folks were
grappling with around autotune. There was this big concern that
autotune was going to de incentivize artists kind of needing
to be good or needing to work on their craft.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Or perfect their.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Craft because you could just hit a button on a computer.
But today, nobody thinks of autotune as just a gimmick.
Nobody thinks of auto tune as something that, you know,
de incentivizes artists to be creative or perfect their craft.
It's just something that is totally commonplace in audio today.
It's used in all kinds of interesting and creative ways
because in the end, creative artists were able to make
(05:58):
something cool and innovative to create a cultural shift. And
so I think that story as we talk about things
like the intersection of music and AI, that story seems
even more relevant right now. So let's talk about how
autotune came to be. Autotune was originally developed by doctor
Andy Hildebrand, a research engineer, and weirdly enough, he was
(06:19):
not working in the music industry when he came up
with the idea for autotune. He was working in the
gas industry. He worked for Exxon and created a complex
set of algorithms to interpret sonar generated data to locate
oil deposits deep underground. But he was also a musician,
a flute player, and he always wanted to find a
way to be more involved in the audio space. Him
creating autotune was kind of a fluke. A wife of
(06:42):
his colleague was joking about how bad her singing voice is,
and she was like, Oh, if only there was a
technology I could sing into that would help me sing
in tune. And I guess this idea really stayed with
him and he got to thinking could the tool that.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
He used in the oil industry also help correct pitch? Answer?
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Yes, So it might be wondering why is this such
a big deal. Well, before autotune, there were ways to
correct pitch, but it was so time consuming that it
was generally not considered to be worth it. Meanwhile, autotune
was incredibly good, easy and fast to correct pitch, so
it was a total game changer. This is something that
kind of comes up in podcasting a lot too. You know,
(07:22):
when you're podcasting, the best take is generally your most
natural take, and so when you say something and it
just sounds so right, but maybe you caw or stumble
or you know, trip over your words a little bit,
if you redo it, it's never going to sound as good.
And so one of the reasons why this technology is
(07:43):
such a game changer is that it allows you to
keep that natural first best take, but just polish the
parts that don't work. As you describe to NPR, the
singer's first take is often their best. It's full of
vitality and emotion. After their take, the producer will announce great,
but the second phrase was pitchy, so let's do it again. Well,
now the singer's worried about pitch and has to focus
(08:05):
on intonation, and the vitality and emotion are gone from
their performance. What auto tune lets the producer do is
fix the first take, which makes a lot of sense.
In nineteen ninety six, he implemented the algorithm on a
custom Macintosh computer and presented the results at the National
Association of Music Merchants, a trade show for audio professionals,
where it was instantly a massive hit. I can understand why, because, yeah,
(08:30):
the frustration of having to completely redo a take because
you're not able to just go in and perfect it
is very frustrating. So I can understand why. When this
was released people were like, oh my god, a huge
game changer. So autotune becomes a thing, but at this
point it's kind of treated like a trade secret. Engineers
were using autotune to discreetly correct pitch without really advertising
(08:52):
it until someone sweeps in in nineteen ninety eight with
shimmer and bangles and hellowing long black hair.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Can you guess who I am talking about? It's sure,
it's fair.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
So Cher's Belief in nineteen ninety eight was the song
of the late nineties, right. Not only was it a
musical departure for Share as an artist, but it's a
song about transformations. So she as a as an artist
is going through a transformation in her career, but also
singing about the importance of transformation. And I think it's
(09:32):
I think it's an arguable that Believe is SHARE's most
important song. I think it would be really easy for
an artist like Share to kind of become a nostalgia
act from her Sunday and Share days of the seventies,
but she didn't. She kept evolving and kept innovating. At
the Grammys that year, the song was nominated for Record
of the Year and Best Dance Record, winning the latter,
(09:53):
and it was a huge commercial hit too. Believe is
one of the best selling singles in music history. And
this is actually something.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
That is like pretty hard to do.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
The music scene of the late nineties was really fragmented,
but Believe broke through as this global smash. It's also
just really endured culturally, Like there's a Sex in the
City episode where Charlotte thinks her boyfriend might secretly be gay,
and one of the pieces of evidence is that he
puts on shares Believe when they're like in the kitchen,
And so I think it's important to really highlight what
(10:25):
a big deal this song is. Like if you've ever
been on a dance floor and heard Believe, come on,
it is like an emotionally resonant experience to be dancing
to Believe on a dance floor, Like the song just
does something to you when you hear it. And I
also think it's interesting in that it's a song about
someone who has been dumped, but that act of being
(10:48):
dumped is like a badge of honor. It is like that,
like usually in a love song, the person who has
been dumped is like sad or you know, grieving a
lost relationship, grieving that they weren't enough for this person.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Who dumped them.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
But in Belief, she is like righteous. She is not
saying like I am sad, I'll get over this. She
is saying I will transform. This moment is going to
be a moment of transformation for me. And it's just
one of those things like the line.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Do you believe in life after love?
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Like it just it's one of those lines that I
can't believe is not an established phrase or idiom because
it just hits so perfectly. So in the song Believe,
autotune was used to create unnaturally rapid corrections and shares vocals.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
They basically removed.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
That natural slide between pitches and singing, in effect creating
that kind of robotic voice that you hear in the
song Believes. Producer Mark Taylor originally did not want to
tell people that he had used auto tune to get
that sound. No, not because auto tune had a negative
connotation yet, but because he wanted to protect the method
as a trade secret.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
So the team initially came up with a whole.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Cover story that if they were asked, they were going
to say that they got that robotic vocal effect by
using a vocoder pedal a vocoder. If you don't know
what that is, it's similar to auto tune with different Apparently,
Cher's label wanted her to remove the autotune effect, and
she flat out refused. They even started calling autotune the
share effect. So while all of this is going down
(12:21):
in nineteen ninety nine, Tea Pain is just starting his
musical career. So when t Pain was three, he got
interested in music because a family friend, jazz singer and
producer Ben Tankard, allowed him to spend time quote twisting
knobs at his recording studio. At age ten, t Payin
turned his entire bedroom into a little music studio with
(12:43):
a beat machine and a keyboard and everything. T Pain
actually got his start as a rapper, but after being discovered,
he decided that he wanted to sing instead of rap.
It's the early two thousands and T Pain they've been
looking for a way to make his voice stand out.
He hears the Dark Child remix of the nineteen ninety
nine song if You Had My Love by Jennifer Lopez, which,
by the way, I love that song, which uses a
(13:04):
little bit of auto tune. He's also really inspired by
the R and B graats like Teddy Riley, who used
things like talk boxes and vocoders, which are kind of
similar to autotune but a little bit different. T Pain
records his debut album, Rappa Turnt singer in two thousand
and six and it gets to thirty three on the
Billboard two hundred and a certified gold. He releases his
(13:24):
second album, Epiphany, which is kind of like T Pain's
magnum opis.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
It's his thriller.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
It's like the album that you think of when you
think of T Pain. The album includes the song buy
You a Drank, which is probably.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
His biggest hit.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
The song peaked at number one on the US Billboard
Hot one hundred, making it his highest charting single as
a lead artist. So something to know about this is
that when that album first came out, it wasn't like
people were criticizing T Pain as like a gimmicky artist.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
The reviews were admittedly mixed, but people.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Were talking about him as a serious artist to watch,
not like some kind of a joke one trip pony.
So something that you really need to know about Tea
Pain is that he legitimately saw autotune as his thing right.
He did not see auto tune as popping on to
a trend or a gimmick or a joke, because it
was his way of exploring his own voice as a singer.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
But everybody sees how successful.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Tea Pain is at doing auto tune and they all
start jumping on the bandwagon. Snoop Dogg does it in
two thousand and seven on his song Sensual Seduction. Loll
Wayne does it in two thousand and eight with his
song Lollipop. Kanye West releases the album Ato Eights and
Heartbreak in two thousand and eight, a project that t
Pain actually worked on. What's interesting about that is that
I've heard te Pain talk about Ato Eights and Heartbreak.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Even though he was I think a consultant on the album.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
I think he felt some type of way about how
that album was received.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
He talks about how.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
He didn't feel like Kanye West did auto tune correctly
on that album. It sounds like Tea Pain thought that
the critical praise that Atoweights and Heartbreak got should have
gone to him as a pioneer of the technology. What's
interesting about this is that people associated Tea Pain specifically
with autotune and a kind of cheapening of the music
industry in general. But he was legitimately trying to use
(15:13):
this technology to create something unique as an artist, just
like Share was. He said in an interview, like It's
not like I was telling other artists to do this.
I was the one doing it. Other people started doing it.
I didn't tell them to do that. It's not my
fault that this became a trend. In a really good
long read about auto tune and pitchfork that will link
to in the show notes, they talk about how this
kind of put tea Pain in this like very weird position.
(15:36):
He was at once a pioneer of this technology but
also a critic of the way that other people were
using it. The piece points out that he claimed that
he spent two years researching auto tune and thinking about it,
including meeting with doctor Hildebrand, before attempting to use it.
So when Tea Pain as compared to other artists who
were jumping on the auto tune trend, he actually feels
offended by this. He says, a lot of math went
(15:58):
into that shit. It would take us a billion fucking
minutes to explain to regular motherfuckers. But I really studied
that shit. I know why it catches certain notes and
why it doesn't catch other notes.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
So t Pain really saw.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Himself as like someone who was learning about a craft
to explore his own artistry, and when other people saw
this as a bandwagon to jump on.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
He became the punching bag for it.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
People associating te Pain negatively with autotune was something that he.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Really struggled with.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
He's talked about this in interviews that there was this
moment where he meets Usher, the singer Usher, and that
Usher is the singer that he really respects, and Usher
essentially personally blames him for a negative shift in the
music industry. He says that Usher told him that he
messed up music for real singers, and that Usher as
(16:46):
this great vocalist who te Pain really respected. In an interview,
he said, that is the very moment, and I don't
even think I realized this for a long time, but
that very moment started a four year depression for me.
And just fyi, Usher famously used auto tune in his
song oh My God. So it definitely is a thing
where artists who vocally criticized autotune even before it was
(17:10):
so commonplace, also use autotune.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Let's take a quick break at our back.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
So I knew that auto tune was like notoriously controversial
in the music industry when I was first doing the
research for this episode, I thought, oh, people just find
it a little bit lazy, or a little bit gimmicky,
or they just have a negative perception of it. What
I did not realize is how much of an organized
negative publicity campaign surrounded autotune in the two thousands. At
(17:51):
the Grammys in two thousand and nine, the band Deathcab
for Quti showed up wearing blue ribbons on their lapels
to protest the use of autotune in the muse industry.
This sounds kind of funny, but it was very serious.
There's an MTV dot com article about it titled Deathcab
for Cutie raise Awareness about autotune abuse. Enough is Enough?
And in the article, Ben Gibberd, the lead of Death
(18:13):
Caab for Cuti, says, we're here to raise awareness about
auto tune abuse. I think it's over the last ten
years we've seen good musicians being affected by this new
found digital manipulation of the human voice, and we feel
enough is enough. Let's raise awareness, let's stop this, let's
bring back the blue note, and let's really try to
get music back to its roots of having actual people
who sound like actual human beings. I read a quote
(18:36):
from the singer Nico Case, who I know you've really like,
Nicoka's right.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
That's true, I do, and I to my knowledge, I've
never heard her use AutoTunes. So I'm a little concerned
where you're going with this.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Well, Nicokease does not use autotune, and in two thousand
and six she told Pitchfork quote, I'm not a perfect
note hitter either, but I'm not going to cover it
up with auto tune. Everybody uses it too, I want.
I asked the studio guy in Toronto how many people
don't use autotune and he said, you and Nellie Fortado
are the only two people who've never used it in here.
Even though I'm not into Nelly Fortato, it kind of
(19:10):
made me respect her. It's cool that she has some integrity.
And so I think what we really are seeing here
is like auto tune being connected to like a lack
of integrity or a lack of authenticity. This was the
two thousands at a time where I think that there
was a real binary between quote, real musicians, real artists
(19:32):
and like pop poppy, bubblegummy kind of like gimmicks. And
so I think part of the backlash was about this
was a response to people being like, oh, now, these
new fake musicians they're not real musicians. They're using auto tune.
They're fakers. Real music is like real music people using
(19:52):
their real voice. And I can understand that sentiment, but honestly,
there's nothing natural about the human singing voice.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Like your voice is a tool, it's an instrument.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
And so this idea that any manipulation of that means
that you're like not a real artist, I find sort
of interesting.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
Yeah, that adjective reel comes up on the show a lot, right,
just to separate us from them pretty often kind of
makes you wonder, wh who's the us and who's the
them in that scenario.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
So in two thousand and nine, the same year that
Death Cab for Cut shows up wearing those blue lapel
pens to protest autotune, Jay Z released the lead single
of his album, The Blueprint three Da Death of auto Tune,
and he said that he thought that autotune was like
an overused gimmick. In that song, he calls tea pain
out by name. Also, in twenty ten, Time magazine includes
(20:47):
autotune in their list of the fifty worst inventions. On
the same list with Agent Orange and subprime mortgages.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
Not agent Orange, that pretty harsh.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
I feel like Agent Orange has been responsible for more
harm in the world than AUDI.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
Yeah, like it literally killed a lot of people horrifically
and caused a lot of cancer. I mean, I don't
think AutoTunes killed anybody time.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
So just like in conversations that we're having around AI
and whether or not images that have been manipulated using
AI should be labeled, which, by the way, we think
they should. There was even a call to have it
be labeled whatever a live performance used auto tune. Singer
songwriter David Mendel started the live means Live campaign and
he wanted there to be a logo that said live
means live to let the audience know that when that
(21:44):
person is performing, no auto tune is being used, no
backing track is being used. It is one hundred percent live.
And I think that goes back to what we were
just talking about. Like in the two thousands, there was this,
I would argue, false dichotomy between author identic musicians and
inauthentic musicians. You know, you had a lot of rappers
(22:04):
calling other rappers quote ringtone rappers, which was like a
negative term for a rapper that was like too poppy,
too bubblegum, just trying to get money as opposed to
like real rappers who are.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Doing something else entirely.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
You have a lot of artists being called out for
using you know, backup vocals tracks and they're in their
live performances. In twenty thirteen, Beyonce famously was lip syncing
to a vocal track when she performed at Obama's inauguration,
and then she had to do a press conference where
she belts out the national anthem a cappella and is
like any questions, just to prove that she actually can
(22:44):
do it. Which, by the way, I've often found conversations
around you know, having a backtrack going for a live
performance like that inauguration. I was at that inauguration and
it was a very cold day. The weather does stuff
to your voice, Like I don't know. I feel like
if you're performing an outdoor important inauguration, there's no shame
(23:06):
in using a backtrack for a big moment like an
inauguration to just need to sound perfect, and if you
use a backtrack to accomplish that, I don't.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
Think it's the end of the world.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
Like I think it's sometimes the accusations are a little much,
and I do think that some of this climate around
inauthentic and authentic musicians does to me to seem like
a way to criticize black musicians and poppy women musicians.
Like you can't help but see people who see themselves
(23:34):
as like real authentic rockers calling out people who use
auto tune. And it's curious to me who got caught
up in the auto tune criticism, because like in radioheads
two thousand and one album Amnisiak, they use auto tune.
Tom Yorke described the use of auto tune on that
album as quote, auto tune desperately tries to search for
(23:57):
the music in your speech and produces noeset random.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
If you've assigned it a key, you've got music right.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
And so nobody was calling out when all this auto
tune criticism was happening. Nobody was calling out Radiohead for
using it. It was interesting to me who got called
out publicly and who didn't. In that really good pitchwork
piece I mentioned, they put it this way. Much of
this anti autotune sentiment presented the idea that the technology
is a dehumanizing deception foisted upon the public. Attempting to
(24:26):
deflect this angle of attack, Hildbrand once offered up an
analogy with a generally accepted form of everyday artifice, asking
my wife wears makeup, does that make her evil? Perhaps
because of Shar's involvement in Autotune's debut on the world
pop stage, critics have often connected pitch correction and cosmetic surgery,
comparing the effects to botox, face peels, college and injections
(24:48):
and the rest in the video for believe Share actually
looks how auto Tune sounds. The combination of three levels
of enhancement, surgery, makeup, and that old trick of bright
lights that flatten the skin surface into a blank dazzle
means that her face and her voice seemed to be
made out of the same immaterial substance. If the believed
promo was produced today, a fourth level of falsification would
(25:10):
be routinely applied digital post production procedures like motion retouching
or colorizing that operate at the levels of pixels rather
than poores, fundamentally altering the integrity of the image. The
taste for these effects and the revulsion against them are
part of the same syndrome, reflecting a deeply conflicted confusion
in our desires. Simultaneously craving the real and the true,
(25:33):
while continuing to be seduced by digital's perfection and the
facility and flexibility of use that it offers. That's why
young hipsters buy overpriced vinyl for the aura of authenticity
and analog warmth, but in practice use the download codes
to listen to the music on an everyday level. So
I definitely agree with that take, and I think that
our response to autotune and the rise of auto tune
(25:55):
culturally does say something about us that we want it
both ways.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
We want the slickness.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Of something that is clearly digitized, while also being able
to call it out for being inauthentic or being repulsed
by it.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
It's like this real duality of life.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
We want this, we create this, we have been trained
as audiences to like this and respond to this, but
also we find that very dynamic to be repulsive. But
here's my thing, because Sharon T Pain or innovators, today,
autotune is so commonplace that I would be willing to
bet that most people don't even know that they're hearing
songs that have been pitch corrected by autotune when they
(26:34):
hear it. It is commonplace across all genres of music.
Even though we associate it more heavily with hip hop,
it is in all different kinds of music, and autotune
is not only used for things like pitch correction or
making a singer sound better. Artists also use autotune in
all kinds of unique ways. One of my favorites is
the Kate Busch song A Deeper Understanding, which was originally
(26:56):
released back in nineteen ninety eight. Kate Bush has said
that the song is a critics seek about our relationship
with technology, saying this is about people, well, about the
modern situation where more and where people are having less
and less contact with human beings. We spend all day
with machines, all night with machines. You know, all day
you're on the phone, and all night you're watching the
telly press a button. And this happens, and this idea
(27:18):
of someone who spends all their time with the computer,
and like a lot of people, they spend an obsessive
amount of time with their computers. People really build up
heavy relationships with their computers. So the song initially had
this computer voice on the track. In the original version,
it's voiced by her son, but when she revisited that
song in twenty eleven. Pitchwork reports that she used auto
(27:38):
tune to make the serie like voice of the computer
sound like a guardian angel offering saragate solace and counterfeit company,
saying hello, I know that you're unhappy. I bring you
love and deeper understanding. So she used a heavily criticized
technology to critique our relationship with technology brilliant. So I
(28:00):
think there's always going to be artists who find a
way to use new technology in ways that are creative,
because that's what creative people.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Have always done.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
I saw this really interesting point in Traptal, a newsletter
that covers the business of hip hop by Dan Runzi.
So Dan points out that venture capitalist Chris Dixon has
this concept about disruptive technologies that disruptive technologies always start
out by looking like a toy. So when they come
out like the iPhone, I remember someone saying I don't
want to get an iPhone. It looks like a toy.
(28:30):
It looks like a phone that like a child would use.
And I think there's something to this idea that technologies
that are going to be disruptive and really take off
as the next big thing. They do often start out
by looking like toys, and so when something looks like
a toy, it can be dismissed while also being phased
in as something that's going to be disruptive. And so
(28:51):
I think that auto tune was dismissed as this gimmick, right,
this joke, and now it's everywhere, even though so many
people initially dismissed it.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
Yeah, that's a really interesting point, and it does really
connect to the analogy you were making to AI earlier.
Right when AI first became a big thing, we were
all using DALLI to create images that were like sort
of jokey, and it was like and like similar with
chat GPT, just asking it questions for novelty, for funzies,
(29:26):
and so it really does have this quality of feeling
a little bit like a toy. But I suppose, you know, quietly,
on laptops around the world, people are using it for
much more serious purposes.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
I really think the comparison between auto tune and AI
as technologies inso much that they will transform these creative industries.
And I think the reason why I connect those two
conversations in my head is because as we're having these
conversations about how AI is going to transform the creative
spaces hip hop, music, the arts, film, television. A lot
(30:04):
of those conversations have been really pessimistic, and I totally
get it right, Like the striking screenwriters and actors are
not wrong to be really concerned about the way that
AI will impact their industry. Those concerns are absolutely fair
and grounded. However, I think that there's always going to
(30:26):
be people who find ways to use technology to create
something better, and so I think that we're at this
pivotal point in the conversation around AI and how it's
going to shape those fields where the question is do
we want this technology to be used to exploit or
to innovate. I think the screenwriters are saying, let's see
(30:47):
how this technology can be used to innovate. If AI
is going to help me punch up a script, that's great,
the powers that be should not bake my exploitation into
that model. I think that that's where and so this
might surprise people, but I am kind of positive, kind
of cautiously hopeful about how we see this play out,
(31:08):
Because if there's anybody who can find a way to
innovate with new technologies, it's creatives, it's hip hop artists,
it's people like tea paid and people like share, it's innovators,
and so I really want those people to be the
ones who are leading the way in terms of how
these how new technologies do shape creative fields, Like that's
what I want to see. How can they be used
to innovate, not exploit. And it really comes down to
(31:31):
something that tech historian Claire Evan said in the very
first ever episode of their No Girls on the Internet.
Speaker 4 (31:41):
There have been many instances in the history of music
when a new technology has come along that extensibly is
there to displace the musician. For example, the drum machine
or the synthesizer. You know, these are tools that we're
designed to replace session musicians with an easier, cheaper version
kind of automation of their labor. In fact, even in
the eighties, like the Britishmusicians Union tried to ban synthesizers.
(32:02):
But what artists and musicians did was instead of allowing
those tools to replace them, they took control of them.
And you know, they took drum machines, and they took synthesizers,
and they invented Detroit Techno, and they invented new waves,
and they invented hip hop, and they invented you know,
electronic music as it exists today, and as many manifestations,
they kind of took the thing that was threatening them
(32:23):
with displacement and incorporated it into what they were doing
and made it essential to who they were and used
it to invent something new that they were integrally as
human beings involved with. And I think that that act
of kind of like I don't know, like like jumping
on the grenade or something, is like a really beautiful
thing that artists always do, willingly or unwillingly when they
(32:44):
are faced with new technology. And I think when new
technology comes along, you always have that choice. Are you
going to let it displace you or are you going
to let it intimidate you? Or are you going to
take it, you know, jump on it, find some new
use for it, and make it part of who you are,
and give it back to the world in a new form.
That is all that choice is always present, and I
think that's what I try to do in my work
(33:05):
across the board, and I think it's the only way
that we're going to kind of keep on top of
all of this technology. And I think it's also very human.
I think it's what people always do. We are always
trying to create systems of meaning and beauty out of
what is coming up ahead. And I think that will
(33:25):
never change.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Claire really put that so beautifully, and that is a
sentiment that is echoed by one of my favorite bands,
daff Punk, who used auto tune in their song one
More Time. They said a lot of people complain about
the musicians using auto tune. It reminds me of the
late seventies when musicians in France tried to ban the synthesizer.
What they didn't see was that you could use those
tools in a new way instead of just replacing the
(33:47):
instruments that came before.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
And so I think that's where we are right now.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
We are at the crossroads with so many technologies of
are we going to use this to innovate or are
we going to use this to exploit? And that is
the question that we are asking right now about new technologies,
and that is a question that innovators like Share and
Tea Pain answered with a resounding innovator. Got a story
(34:15):
about an interesting thing in tech, or just want to
say hi, You can reach us at Hello at tegody
dot com. You can also find transcripts for today's episode
at tenggody dot com. There Are No Girls on the
Internet was created by me Bridget Tod. It's a production
of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer.
Tari Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Almado
is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Tod. If
(34:37):
you want to help us grow, rate and review us
on Apple Podcasts. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, check out
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