I am a person who listens to new music.  At all ages, at all stages in my life, I have made a point of exploring current music, new releases, the latest things.  I try not to  discriminate by genre or popularity level when exploring new music because, hey, you never know.  Every couple of weeks I bring up Spotify (and before that, Rhapsody) and I hit play on all the new releases, seeking treasure.  I will give most songs anywhere from 20-60 seconds to provoke a positive or negative response before moving on, the ones I don’t mind get listened to all the way through, the ones I really like get added to my Library.

I have discovered that I like some Taylor Swift, and some Lorde.  I have discovered that I like TuNeYaRdS and Yaeji.  I have discovered Young Fathers and M. I. A. and Thao Nguyen and the Get Down Stay Down and plenty of other artists over the years listening like this.  Trying to keep an open mind, attempting to browse without pre-judgment.  If I hadn’t done this I probably would never have heard Baby Metal, and that would have been a tragedy.

I have other venues for exploring new sounds.  Magazine articles, websites, a couple great podcasts, but those all have an editorial filter and I usually just prefer to let music tell me if I like it or not.  Put it into my ears, that’s all I ask.

Unfortunately, particularly over the last 10 years, this process has become increasingly less profitable, and it’s not because I’ve fossilized or started making a fetish of “the good old days”, no, the fundamental reason it has become harder and harder is the rise of auto-tune on EVERYTHING.

Here’s an analogy.  Let’s say you like ketchup.  Ketchup is good.  I like ketchup on french fries like any normal guy.  Ketchup is harmless enough.  You can even use it as the primary ingredient in a homemade barbecue sauce.  Yum.  But now let’s say that you go to a restaurant where ketchup is already smothered on every single food item.  It is mixed into the coffee and iced tea.  It is on your shrimp, your salad, your steak, your carrots, your olives, your coleslaw, in your clam chowder, on your pizza, on your buffalo wings, drenching your pita, on your burrito, your sushi, your waffles.  The plates are sticky with it, the table tops slathered in it, the floor slick with it, just gallons of ketchup everywhere.  The booths are covered in it.  The walls and floors and ceiling are red.  There is a ketchup fountain.  The windows drip with ketchup.  As you take your seat in your booth and feel ketchup soaking into your underwear, how do you feel about ketchup at that point?  Will you ever be able to eat ketchup again or will the onslaught of ketchup put you off of it for life?

This, dear reader, is autotune.  This is what it does to the menu of modern music.  It takes every song from every artist in every genre on every subject and slathers them all in ketchup.  Whatever other flavors they may contain, there’s the fucking ketchup.  Rocky road ice cream?  Ketchup on top.  Strawberry crepes?  Don’t forget the ketchup.  Apple pie?  Ketchup please.  And don’t forget to put some ketchup on the side.

Now, I just read a long and impassioned defense of the artistic merits of auto-tune the other day (https://pitchfork.com/features/article/how-auto-tune-revolutionized-the-sound-of-popular-music/) and I believe the author made many good points that could theoretically be defensible if it weren’t literally fucking everywhere.  If it were occasionally used in moderation, it wouldn’t be the ketchup buffet.  It’s just an effect, among many effects.  I don’t personally worry about auto-tune as some sort of purity test, some sort of “kids these days can’t sing” bullshit.  Come on, recording studios have ALWAYS been about using the technology of the day to create artificial performances that are “better than life”.  Trust me.  Even Elvis had slap-back reverb.  No, it’s not a philosophical thing or some sort of elitist judgment that people who use auto-tune aren’t “real artists”.  These are people with feelings making music.  I respect that.  I want to like it.  I want to support it.  I even defend their right to like ketchup.  They are exploiting a technology to create a sound that expresses what they want to express, I respect that.  The only problem is that I, personally, hate the sound of it and I can always hear it when it’s present, and it’s ALWAYS PRESENT NOW.  When it’s been used sparingly (i.e. – to evoke the dehumanized voice of a robot or something) for the purpose of some sort of abstract sci-fi thing for a track or two (I’m looking at you Radiohead) it feels appropriate, so, it doesn’t bother me.  I love electronic shit.  It’s just the modern vocoder, and O Superman wouldn’t be the same without the robot voice.  But I try to listen to the new releases and it’s literally on Every.  Single.  Song.  In.  Every.  Genre. and it makes them all sound like SHIT.

It’s a ketchup buffet. 

I can’t fucking stand it.  Any song, in any genre, can be ruined by this ridiculous, shitty, absurd, stupid fucking effect no matter how talented the artist.  An otherwise good beat, good melody, interesting set of lyrics, moving production, interesting song structure, moving chord progressions, can be present and sitting there, shining in the sun, making you feel something, and then it’s just demolished by the presence of this horrific sounding effect.  I don’t care if somebody can sing or not.  I don’t care if they are in tune.  I just want to hear real music by real people, but AT has become the defining sound of our era, and I have TRIED to learn to tolerate it, but it just sounds so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so BAD.  It has ruined over a decade worth of music and it just keeps happening.  It’s on every goddamn song and I just can’t listen to the effect for more than about 20 seconds without getting angry and so vast swathes of music are off limits to me and as a music lover it’s really really disappointing.  I can think of no other musical fad(?) or direction in all of musical history that has been this fingernails on chalkboard irritating.  I don’t love all music ever made, but I can listen to jazz, classical, rock, hip hop, rap, R&B, world music, reggae, spoken word, experimental, ambient, heavy metal, electronica, country, blues, you name it, and find artists I love, songs I love, sounds I love.  But not with AT vocals.  AT vocals just ruin 99% of anything they touch.  I’m sure I am missing out on music that I would otherwise consider to be brilliant.  I am sure there are many artists I would really have loved and admired if they had worked in the pre-autotune era but I can’t make it through a single track, let alone a record.  I can’t hear the “genius” because I can’t get past the gallons of ketchup drowning every syllable of every word.

I have no power to influence the tastes of the general populace who seem to have decided this sounds good.  People like mullets, Red Bull, Donald Trump, and plenty of other tacky, gross, weird, and unpalatable things, but if you can suggest some modern music that isn’t infected with this godawful corruption, I would be open to the pointers.  Any genre, any flavor, as long as it’s not smothered in ketchup.