AutoTune in Time

I was looking through some of the back issues of Time, and I found this really great article from February 5, 2009 that talks about the emergence of AutoTune into the music market. It talks about the history of the technology way better than I ever could, and it's very readable, so if you are even slightly interested in the subject, or if you have a couple minutes to spare, pop over to the website and read the article.

I've taken out a couple of my favorite quotes for you all, just to get a good flavor for the piece:

"It's like Photoshop for the human voice. Auto-Tune doesn't make it possible for just anyone to sing like a pro, but used as its creator intended, it can transform a wavering performance into something technically flawless."

"Of the half a dozen engineers and producers interviewed for this story, none could remember a pop recording session in the past few years when Auto-Tune didn't make a cameo--and none could think of a singer who would want that fact known. "There's no shame in fixing a note or two," says Jim Anderson, professor of the Clive Davis department of recorded music at New York University and president of the Audio Engineering Society. "But we've gone far beyond that.""

"It usually ends up just like plastic surgery," says a Grammy-winning recording engineer. "You haul out Auto-Tune to make one thing better, but then it's very hard to resist the temptation to spruce up the whole vocal, give everything a little nip-tuck."

Very interesting. It's like the hidden secret of the music industry - everyone's using it, but no one wants to own up to it.

Anyway, here is a list of About.com's top 10 best songs made with AutoTune, including "Believe" by Cher in 1998, which started the entire phenomenon.