Friday, July 1, 2011

Grind My Gears 23

I used to listen to the radio a lot when I was a kid. My trusty radio was a constant companion. Whether I was listening to the call of the Boston Red Sox game or jamming to the oldies (which were actually "newies" back then), if I was in my room, my radio was on. One of my "go to" programs that I rarely missed, was Casem "Shaggy" Kasem's popular song countdown, AT40 (keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars).

Now it could be that my memory is faulty due to the pounds of lead-based paint that I ate and the constant usage of asbestos-laden toys that I owned, but I remember listening to real music. Real songs sung by real people into a real microphone. Straight from their mouths to some sort of recording media and then sent out over the airwaves. Now, if you tune into your local station, all you hear are robots. It seems that every "artist" (insert sneering chuckles here) relies on computer/microprocessor assistance to give them at least a passable singing voice. This is all thanks to technology called "autotune". To anyone who has ever used this accursed technology, thought about using it, or even uttered the word "autotune", I say, you really grind my gears.