Can you notice the digital artifacts that pull his voice to pitch, especially when he does short vocal runs?
The pop chart-toppers all sound perfect – almost too perfect. Innovations like Autotune, Melodyne and other post-production techniques in the studio have gotten so advanced that our ears have become accustomed to hearing perfection. Recordings that are not perfect, such as live cuts, folk music, classical music, and older hits from the 1970s or earlier, now sound vastly different and unpolished. For example, see if you can notice the slight rhythmic and tonal fluctuations that make this song a classic: All Along the Watchtower. Today, commercial recordings are also incredibly compressed (enhanced so that the sonic field is reduced to a specific range of frequencies). This makes the tracks louder, but finer sounds and finesse are lost in the process. I have noticed that current tracks in 2019 have been using more blatant autotune. Its use has shifted from a state of being either a deliberate effect or a tool that is not supposed to be noticed to an ambiguous blend of the two. For example, listen to Sam Smith's How Do You Sleep. Can you notice the digital artifacts that pull his voice to pitch, especially when he does short vocal runs?