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