How Auto-Tune DESTROYED Popular Music

There are a lot of ways how we could benefit from AI. Robbing ourselves of the joy of making music, art or poetry isn't one of them. Yet, we still do it. Humanity in a nutshell.

"Are you concerned about the increase in artificial intelligence?"
"No, but I'm concerned about the decrease in real intelligence."

Hey Rick, I'm a high school band director. I talk to my kids all the time about "beautiful mistakes." Mistakes are what make every performance unique and special. Why do gigging musician not get bored playing the same music time and time again? It's never the same....ever. The general listener may want to hear "radio cuts," but live tracks are where it's at. Long Live Mistakes!

This is the reason why I love to listen to the old Santana records even with this small slips in timing or pitch. I don' want to miss any of them and I love the feeling that is inside!

AI will just takeover the ''elevator music'' industry. TV Shows, adverts, copyright free music (imagine how many options future Clip-Sharers will have to choose from, we won't have to put up with 10,000 Clip-Sharers using the same 5 songs.) It will never truly take over the pop industry, bands, or Music scores for Movie films because 1) they are way too personalised and nuanced, and specifically directed by multiple minds competing for creative input 2) the originality of the artist IS what makes it special.
You're absolutely correct that people can't tell artificial from authentic, but what does it matter? They *will* research it and find out eventually, especially as it becomes common place. Take the Saw theme, or Requiem for a Dream, for example -- literally everyone who saw those movies googled the artist because the music left an impression. How would you feel to find out it was artificial? For me, it would definitely take something away from the piece of art as a whole. I wouldn't look at it in the same way anymore. It'd be something -- less. TV adverts, on the other hand? I probably wouldn't google it to begin with, but if I did find out it was artificial, I'd say, ''yeah, totally understandable use of the budget.'' The advert would still stand on merit, unlike projects that are specifically judged on their musicality.

A lot of my friends who are in their early 20's have started listening to stuff from the 70's because it sounds "better" to them than the new stuff, so there's hope yet.

9:00. "People are sick of me harping on it." I'll never get sick of you harping on it, Rick. If you DON'T keep harping on it, who will? THANK YOU for making your voice heard with this channel.

This is why Live music must never die. Support your local bands!! The human element. A great example is Mayer.. I don't feel he has ever captured how good he is live on an album yet and thats such a shame.

I can feel the sadness and dispair in you and I totally agree with your appraisal of the way things are going. I cannot Imagine listening to an AI generated track which could move me to tears with emotion like some of my favourite vinyl songs. If that happened we will surely have lost our souls.

I'm a professional mixing and mastering engineer so a lot of these topics involve my everyday life and income. I for one NEVER do time correction. I will do pitch correction, you have to, but I don't ever make them sound robotic. I have had a few clients complain but for the most part, people don't want to sound like that. I think it's just something major labels think people want to hear! My experience with indie artists over the last 5 years says differently. When you reach the level of being signed, you don't get a say in how your music sounds anymore. Hell, the artist doesn't even approve the final mix or master! It's sad really.

Here's an even scarier thought... right now, auto-tune indeed feels robotic, but AI is advancing in such a way that I think auto-tune will start to feel more and more natural, to the point it may even introduce fake flaws and minute pitch imperfections to better emulate a more acoustic and analog sound. So then even if the trends start moving back to less digital sounding music, AI will have that covered as well. "Elvis Lives" might start to get a whole new meaning.

You're so right about this! But there is another aspect: people today are getting used to hearing 'perfect' music. Pitch perfect vocals, perfect drums, perfect everything. So when REAL people try to make REAL unedited music, it's just not good enough anymore. If any of the Beatles' songs came out today, people would freak out about all the tempo variation in Ringo's drum tracks, all the tiny vocal imperfections. Because today people expect an unrealistic perfection, and THAT opens the door for the AI taking over.

This is exactly what the music industry wants, no risk & complete control!

I'm still singing without Auto Tune, but I'm not selling records and don't care. Music has always been about communicating from your soul. If a computer (which is soulless) is making it, the fundamental mechanism for FEELING something from music has been removed. I'll take that feeling over the money any day. That's why some of us are still starving musicians, and will always be, I guess. :) But at least we still have our soul.

Funny thing about ChatGPT: I went to a special lecture on that this evening and the neuroscientist/philosopher of mind said that the technology behind ChatGPT is designed to predict the response, based on the database and the text you're giving. There was a pretty intense discussion around it, though eventually the two invited speakers were convinced that it's not creative nor original.
Naturally, I don't know the arguments, and you can argue that the word order matters, though (now that I remember) one thing that was pointed out, was the process of comprehension - because ChatGPT doesn't understand what it's saying.
So, building on the notion that comprehension is a process, you could argue that comprehension is almost always necessary for creativity - there can be creativity in not understanding, yet I don't think that's a very large part.
Besides, ChatGPT is a language model, which would be "weak AI" --> "strong AI" has been theorized have a consciousness.

I believe that for people who prefer over produced pop music, musicianship and performance is already of no use. Image is everything for them.
But, there will always be an audience somewhere that really wants to hear someone truly play, sing and really perform.

I stopped listening to new music years ago. There is enough great music from different genre's that I can throw on a favorite albulm or mix and not get tired of it.

You’re damn right! I’ve never get used to this kind of music, cold, no warmth, and too robotic and no human emotion in this stuff

My fear is that, it won't be long before AI and computer animation will be generating such realistic video, we won't be able to tell the difference between Rick Beato and Rick Roboto. Don't let them clone you, Rick.

I love hearing music that gives me a chill or puts a tear in my eye. (e.g., Doyle Bramhall II “Searching for Love” w/ Nora Jones. Real music)

I have long been opposed to pitch correction software, but as a wretched perfectionist I have always seemed to be able to justify the editing of my instrument tracks to a grid. Altering--if not wholly removing--the original expression that comes from an instrument that is literally composed of the human body has always felt like it's own level of...cheating? Sin? I've been thinking about this a lot recently. I listened to this old Cap'n Jazz song yesterday and had a sudden drive to return to my own viscerally expressive and emotional punk roots. I think it's appealing almost BECAUSE it can't be accurately mimicked by algorithms. Can I say the same about drum tracks on songs I've recorded? Something for myself to consider, indeed.

I think both you and Billy are bang on, as soon as he said that my heart sank. If it's coming from someone like him, it's most likely true with the insight and experience he has. Very depressing.
Music is becoming 100% disposable, or at least popular music.

You are right, Rick. The buying audience has long ago accepted people playing laptops on stage and mass produced pop music jammed to the hilt with autotuners, programming, editing etc....The music industry is getting greedier and greedier, first they removed the band and kept the singers ( usually provided by yet another tv show...) , then they got some slick producer in to copy and paste everything, use the same beats and progressions like everybody else..the next step is removing ..well,everybody and keep all the money in their pockets. The scary thing, as you pointed out, is that the audience wouldn't even notice.....mainstrean pop has never been more dreary and tasteless....

Rick, I LOVE your videos and channel and you have so very much to give to the music community. THIS particular video was depressing! The subject matter, the process, the technology, the whole shebang is just full of musical doomsday .... and the saddest part of all of this is that you are right on ALL OF IT!!! Sort of makes me glad that I have finally hung up the gloves and retired. Had I known what was around the corner with all of this, I would have studied to become a divorce lawyer or even better - a corporate lawyer! As ever, though, thank you for producing and making these videos available to us all; you are a superstar and a legend!!!

Also Rick, I've noticed that younger people prefer the auto tuned versions. They even think that older records have terrible vocals, probably because they are so used to hearing today's hyper tuned songs. Scary stuff. Great channel Rick.

At least in more recent pop there is a lot of stuff with "invisible" autotune where it's only used for pitch correction instead of a full digital warp. Hurray. But the effects of the loudness war are still much slower to retreat. Especially producers are so used to hyper compressed sounds they demand things that hurt sound engineers in their soul. Just had a talk recently, dude ended with "nowadays I just don't care anymore. I just put the compressor over everything and call it a day" Soulcrushing.

Old Man discovers electronic music, has meltdown.

I feel you! One of the earliest experiences for me was Black Eyed Peas who were so great before autotune and suddenly they became super generic with The E.N.D. album in 2009

Art, in my opinion, is the expression of feeling!!! no machine will make art!!!! From Brazil!

I was a teenager in the 90's, and it was a culture shock going into the 2000's, in the fact that music started sounding really fake. Subscribed!

Rick, let me tell you, this is something I find so hard to fight against whilst recording music.
The songs I write and the recordings I make sound genuine to me, but during the whole process, it just sounds so anti-radio that it's amusing. My vocals are completely untouched by pitch correction, and sometimes I just re-record it to get a better take, sometimes I like the human nature of how I messed it up.
Here's my point: If you want to make genuine music nowadays, you have to accept that it won't be commercially viable.
There are thousands of artists still writing and performing at a top shelf standard, none of whom are going to make it on to the radio, let alone make it a career. This is why some of the best modern music you can hear is down the open mic nights and at local shows.

Remember the late 60s/early 70s? Anybody who could hold on to an instrument made singles. So many one hit wonders who weren’t proficient, but they sure were creative and inspired. A brave new world indeed.
This age is the exact opposite. If AI took over, I wouldn’t notice. Real life people haven’t done any better than what AI can do for a long time. Turns out, those pre boomers, who always complained about anything new being a downgrade, they were right all along. I’ll be listening to Sibelius’ violin concerto in Dminor tonight

I am 60 and love to play guitar since I was 11. I learned hundrets of songs, play for kids every day, wrote songs for them and write tunes for myself. All the knowlege of theory and practice have grown over the years and may be it is posdible to put all this into a machine. But spirit, creativity, emotion, personality, joy, soul, the beauty of the very second, the joy of playing, listening yourself and others and singing together, all this and so much more can not be made by machines. Even tuning my guitar with the tuning-fork instead of the tuning device is joy. When I start to tune my guitar, I have to listen and so I start to play. There is no playing without listening.
I'm glad to be able to experience this, to share it and to give it to young kids.

With a vibrating string or vocal chords the overtones are amplitude modulated by the fundamental. If you shift the frequency of the fundamental and overtones the original modulation of overtones remains on the initial frequency. This gives the synthesized effect.

Rick really tells it like it is. We are removing the soul from music

I always like the reaction videos from the young crowd when they hear the artists I grew up with (I'm GenX). They are always blown away and the comments are always "that was back when artists had to have talent."

I'm a drummer, for years I've been seeing the narrative of music being hijacked by gearheads, technicians and acrobats.
At first i put up a fight, but as i see every aspect of modern life being hijacked by anxiety fueled bozos, i decided to just ride it out.
It's beyond music, the world isn't right.
Edit:
Adding to the list "business people".
Also, important for me to clarify that for me the strength in my art and craft as a percussionist is in the vibe within reality, so my function as a human conveying the art of rhythm doesn't necessarily have to do with that model of structured songs.

Symphony Orchestras don't use autotune (how could they). That's why they sound so great.

I agree with you. Even though I use a drumcomputer and tons of effects on my music. The instrument I play (guitar) has to be real. I sometimes even let mistakes come in the endresult just that something isn't perfect doesn't make it always worse.

You and Billy are fully on point. Pop music will be AI generated.

More than 25 years ago Peter Bastian wrote a computer program that composed and played jazz piano solos far better than any human player that I've ever heard. That was not AI but a program based on musical knowledge. Incorporating that kind of knowledge in programs would certainly benefit the quality of contemporary pop music and film music. No humans needed. The current state of autotune is terrible. I completely agree with you. It destroys pop songs. Fortunately we can still go to the opera.

For me, someone who has composed and put many hours into my own songs, I enjoy listening to compositions by genuine musicians who I can look up to and seek inspiration from. I love those people out there who really keep music as its original foundation: an art form. I just can’t be inspired by Artificial intelligence.

I remember Taylor Hawkins in a BBC interview talking about how he thinks there will be a garage revival someday in the future, of people making music without relying on technology to fix everything. This type of conversation makes me hope he's right and makes me more appreciative of the bands and artists still doing it organically. Imperfection in music is what makes it human.
I just started playing in a band for the first time at 32 years old, and I'm glad I'm surrounded by other musicians who appreciate and want to keep alive the era of real, organic music.

You´ll probably find easy and instantly rejection to the message on this video. But here´s also definitely described a resistence call to the real musicians, and real songs. I intent to record some live w/out edition music soon. All the efforts to preproduction! Letsgo

All that's needed , is TALENT ! If you got it , you've got it . Don't Sell Out or Sell Yourself Short !

Respect, Rick. Respect. I work in the Software industry and computers can do some amazing things. But certain ones should be left untouched.
I can't sing, I can't play an instrument, but I enjoy really honest music. I turn 60 this year, and I still watch old live performances by bands from the 70's and 80's. I grew up watching "The Midnight Special" and seeing bands play live (as much as possible). They had to have talented musicians and singers, otherwise the audience would probably walk out on them. There is nothing like listening to Paul Rodgers sing "Alright Now" or Ann Wilson belt out "Barracuda" live.
It is funny though that now some of the newer generations are listing to vinyl albums (I just bought my daughter a record player and gave her some of my old albums, including The Beatles Abby Road (original Apple record pressing) which I got from my older brother on my 18th birthday from his collection).
Again, thank your for your insights and honesty regarding music. Always enjoy your videos.

I've been an electronic musician since 1983. Synths, then drum machines, onto hardware Midi Sequencing, and then software sequencing... Samplers found their way into my rigs from 1986. I also play bass, a little guitar and even some accordion. As i got more tired of working with others, digital capabilities took their place. I never used any autotune, nor AI composition tools. One thing I always kept a sharp ear for was " does this sound too mechanical?" and so I would shift things in time to 'humanize' a feel into the strict, rigid digital timing. I've spent a lot of time trying to make cold stuff warmer, rigid stuff looser, and I've written all of it like that... Those small variations, from bar to bar even, are KEY to electronic music sounding human.
Now, human music all sounds so electronic, so rigid and constrained... Bleagh!

With how dumbed down radio and mainstream Spotify music is, yes, of course an AI can generate THAT.
This is why my whole life I've been listening to soundtrack, Broadway and video game background music.

As a high school music teacher, it's getting harder and harder to impart the joy of organically creating music to my students. Pre-fab loops, AI drummers, auto-tune, etc. all make up for a lack of formal musical education and result in a flood of mediocrity. Most listeners don't care.

When you said, "lacking humanity", I said "There you go!" That's exactly what's been removed from music. They're even doing it to older songs that were recorded before pitch and time correction tools were available. I can hear it the instant I listen to a song. We need to start a movement to bring the humanness back into music. 🙃

The more people interact with these base level public AI chat, image, and music generators, the better they will get at producing facsimiles of human generated content. We are past the singularity at this point. People are in no way ready for what is coming. All the artists, craftsmen, and builders need to hold out as long as possible to help spread analog wisdom and rebuild after the dust settles. There is still hope!

I think the most fascinating aspect is that people thought AI would take the artists last, but the artists are relatively early on the chopping block.

My SO and I were talking about this the other night. There is such a night and day difference in artists from today versus my parents generation. They talk about going to Aerosmith and Billy Joel concerts and how the "good bands" sounded a lot like their records and the bad ones just sounded bad "live". The artists prior to 1990 had to know how to sing because there was only so much you could do (short of doing a Milli Vanilli) to make someone sound good. But now as long as you have a smoking hot bod and can dance well, the industry can turn you into a pop star because it doesn't matter what you sound like, auto-tune can fix it. So sad...

That is why I always judge the singer by their live performance. And most of the western singers have a huge problem with singing live if they are not supported by auto-tune, which can now correct the voce on the go. Will stay with my Japanese bands ^^

This is one reason why I go to “open mics”… to hear real musicians play guitars and sing… not always great music, but it is MUSIC!

if we talk specifically about rhythm, I think the problem it's not in the drum machines, the problem when producers quantize beats to death and they sound like a computer with no human feel at all... an example that comes to mind is the song "when doves cry" from Prince, that drum machine used in that song has a very organic and human feel to it, so when people listen to that, they enjoy the song the same way as every song with a human drummer playing it.

You are absolutely right with people don‘t care and the synthetic voice of AT really will help AI to create really soon a mass of music (which will sound just good enough). It will be a journey and we will be on this ride. AI will and is already part of most every day uses and will get better by the minute. At the moment you can have AU based VST-plugins for creation, „enhancing“ and mastering and it already sounds not worse than a lot of human made music parts.

A lot of people are now taking up folk music just a guitar and vocals. At one time Tamala Motown sounded like it was all done on a computer. To days music is very formulaic and deserves to be done by AI.

I like hearing human voices in songs. Call me crazy. When I was growing up people actually sang... besides Cher. And songs had complexity and creativity.

When I heard T pain sing I genuinely can't believe he would rather have the auto tune version of his songs than his natural voice. It's crazy to me... he is a great singer.

My job in manufacturing (since retired) had me going from line to line, machine to machine checking product as part of Q.A. Co-workers had radios, loud ones. Something I noticed over time was that even when a radio was not quite on the station, or if a speaker was blown guys would still listen to it. Drove me nuts. Then one day, I went to a work station where a guy had his radio just on static, white noise. It dawned on me that some people weren't listening to music to listen to music, they were just afraid to be alone with their brain, or something. Much of pop music strikes me as designed for that. It's not really for listening to. AI will fit right in there and take over. Gerry's "Human Music" from "Rick and Morty."

Recently, I started to love my mistakes when I record a drum part or keys and stopped aligning the parts perfectly. It seems to me that when everyone gets bored with ai music, people will look for humanity, that is, mistakes that are not characteristic of ai. And I doubt that ai will be able to pick up words so subtly as a person does

generating art and music is like baby steps for AI

When I made my dumb little record my producer comped vocal takes. I would get 3 opportunities to sing each part. We listened back and chose the vocal comp. Then and only then would it be tuned if I couldn’t nail it. Some “bad” stuff was left in because the producer was like “delivery and energy good, it’s rock”

As a parent in a musical family who trains a 12 y/o boy to play, create real music and respect art, this is so sad for his future!

A small addition: a whole generation of singers has grown up hearing and emulating autotune, for better or for worse, and it affects how they hear, their pitch, their performances. I’ve met several ultra talented young singers that SOUND autotuned live. Their runs are incredible. 🤷‍♂️ its a thing!

Rick, you've re-confirmed my sense that my taste in good music has repeatedly brought me back to the 70s and some of the 80's. The sound of clear vocals and actual instruments being played cannot be replaced in my music appreciation.

every time i watch Rick's Videos, i'm thinking he is like the "Anthony Bourdain" of the music industry... and i mean that as BIG compliment!! Keep'em coming Rick

This is exactly the reason I continue to listen to, and download 60's and 70's and 80's music,.... because I have an appreciation for it.

Nothing beats an acoustic to prove you can really play 😎🤟

Rick, you made a point when you demo’d the AI song writing piece. You are spot on about the quality of the lyrics…sterile, cheesy, uninspired…on and on. Good music not only has variation of sounds, it also has emotion. If AI becomes the preferred pipeline for music creation, does live music die too? I’m nearly your age, and my kids are enamored with live music, just like us when we were kids. It’s that mystique that gives me hope that musicians that can play instruments have a place forever. Can you imagine AI creating anything like a Derek Trucks jam?

There will always be a segment that doesn't care where the music comes from. However, live music either small concerts, outdoor venues, house concerts..etc...will continue and maybe live concerts will push the needle back to a time like the 70s where artist can showcase there original music with all its flaws to an appreciative audience.

I recorded a vocal a while back of a teenage girl. As I was listening to it there was a moment when her vocal sounded like it snapped from one note to the next as it does when autotune is over exaggerated. It took me a moment to realise that there was no autotune, it was just the way she was singing, I guess she's heard so many tracks with it on that she was just mimicking this as a vocal technique!

Honestly, the fact that it's so popular indicates revealed preference by the listening public. It may be just what a lot of people want to hear. But, individual tastes will always remain, which likely means that there will always be an audience for music that eschews some or all of these technologies.

The only redeeming thing I see is the young music Clip-Share reactors being able to see live performances from back in the day before auto tune. Particularly the ones in smaller venues. Many of them are aware of and mention the fact there's no auto tune. Is it gonna change anything. Nope. It's just sad that they will never get to see these kinds of performances as I did. They've missed something, .... and a few of them seem to know it.

You know where there is no auto tune-- a regular live performance
I hope..

The question of who gets writer credits for AI generated songs is critical. Additionally, ChatGPT and other AI systems will impact the academic world more than people realize. Ever watch the movie Idiocracy? The world is on its way.

I thinknyou are so right on this. Simple fact is people dont care where music comes from. I had fun other day reading comments on FB about Rihanna getting cought lip syncing and noone cared at all...as a matter of fact they even went after ppl who said anything negative about it

As I've been saying for years, "Perfection is the death of music".
It's not the perfections that make a song great, it's the imperfections.

As a professional software developer dabbling in computer-generated music as a hobby (mainly tracking samples), AI is definitely something that concerns me. However, all my tracks are instrumental because I'm no singer and I don't play instruments (yet). "Who gets paid for it?" is a pertinent question for me, too. If I write an AI that's better at writing (and debugging) code than I am, do I still get paid for the code it produces? If yes, then I am going to learn how to do that with as much as I can bring to bear. The thing is that I don't know for certainty that the answer is "yes". I also don't know that I'm not going to unleash Frankenstein's monster ala Faceborg and Scroogle.

Guessing one of your other viewers already mentioned "Fragements of Life" by Roy Vedes in 1998. First I heard the effect, but to me it was an effect obviously meant to be an effect processor like a Vocoder. I caught it on cassette from the Rock Over London show, listened to it a ton. Then a year or 2 later heard the Cher song and thought crazy, went from 2 indie guys making an odd song to the mainstream. Then yeah in the next 5 years so many just using it for standard lazy vocal takes. But, even some of my old time favorites like The Church have used it sparingly for effect, like their 2003 song "Reversal".

I couldn't believe that Billy Eilish interview - and how they were talking about it with such natural expectation. Like, "Yeah. Of course. See, we build a song out of the best _individual syllables_ from hundreds of takes. Cool, right?...."

I am sad b/c Alice n chains and nirvanas unplugged albums seem to be a dying art….however, I am overjoyed that I was able to hear, experience, and live through true artistry! I have taught my 8 and 9 year old girls how to play a vinyl record….gives me hope every time we listen to artist! You rock RB

I have deep concerns about all this. AI will keep getting better and you will be hard pressed to do better. The very nature of how it works is that it KEEPS LEARNING and will get better and better. This is exciting but terrifying at the same time. Like Neural Link. It means no matter how talented you are or how much you practice, it will be harder to make a living doing art without compromising.

Oh the joy of walking into a small venue, hearing a local band playing their hearts out, buying the band a drink and enjoying the live show will never go out of style....never!

People ask me why I don't like certain songs and I usually say it's overproduced. They ask what I mean..I say it's to perfect. Nothing to give the song character.

Writing songs, poems or whatever has to do with arts is something that belongs to emotions. AI can learn techniques, can even bring together human experiences and deliver an artifact that could almost reach technical perfection. What AI cannot do is put emotions in its productions. Emotions are the essential part of human being. Nobody will never see a computer teardrop or a smile.

I grew up with songs which had minor auto tune and tbh now I can't even hear the autotuning of the maroon 5, despacito samples u played.
when ppl grow up with the autotune they don't recognise autotune that's why the youngsters love modern rap and pop music I believe the scientific term is called as learned associations where the brain associates patterns of music with emotions which determines the likeness of the music and develops the taste of music

In response to your comments on ChatGPT. I read that this program recently passed the bar exam in one of the US states. That doesn’t surprise me. As far as composing music, I think there is a long way to go. Remember, AI uses algorithms which in the simplest form are just like recipes. It needs quality ingredients to make good music. It cannot replicates these ingredients by itself. No worries, Rick, your job is safe.

What struck me when I tried auto-tune for the first time, was that it's almost scarily easy to use. When I was working on my first release a few months ago, I was debating whether or not I should apply some slight pitch correction here and there. But I simply could not bring myself to do it - it felt like such a personal "defeat". Now, I guess the smart move would be to indeed use auto-tune, seeing as the listeners are used to hearing 100% pitch perfect vocals by now. I ended up not touching a note. Because I'm not perfect.

I followed your channel for years but never commented. This went beyond how auto-tune is destroying music. It's about how we're losing what makes us human, whether it be music, driving, writing...whatever. We can't lose one of the most human forms of expression. Whoever reads this, don't let music lose its feeling.

There will be coexistence between both worlds. To what extent, I cannot foresee.
Ultimately, people who can sing, play an instrument, have knowledge of music theory, production, sound engineering, etc., shall always mark differences with those with no musical knowledge, specially on a live setting and with certain types of music where actual playing is a non negotiable must.
As always, Rick Beato keeps releasing AAA grade content. Thank you very much indeed.

Good live singing will always be valued by people who want you to sing for them unplugged. Thus, you need to train anyway to impress real people

Bring back the 70's and 80's when you had to be a musician and actually had to play the music.

The first time a mike or an amp was used it altered natural sound. It's the evolution of electronic music to what it is today. You can't stop it. I use to make background singers and lead vocalists do take after take because of pitch until they had polyps for god sake. No more. I absolutely love Cubase's "Vari-audio" and swear by it. No more punching in one little flat note in the middle of a superb vocal and spoiling the singer's energy. There's a lot to love about the latest technology when recording these days. AI will never replace live music BTW.

Wow, I didn't even think Maroon 5's song was auto-tuned. It sounds quite natural.

Rick - please keep harping on about whatever you feel the need to harp on about. Always educating, interesting, and passionate. Keep playing and talking to us - love you.

you can't stop what's coming. and there will always be live performances. even if it's only in the shower

I got ChatGPT to write some lyrics based on The Weakerthans (absolute master of lyrics writing if anyone is curious). They were never mainstream so I was surprised when it did a really good job of writing lyrics in the same style, using many of the same references.

It's here!! you won't be able to stop it. Just like Napster killed record stores. This just might kill all royalty and writing credibility. Live concerts and live musicians is the way to go now.