There's been a lot of talk about my country losing it's soul because we finally managed to off one of the most dangerous mass murderers of the last few decades, who was still involved in plotting to kill thousands more.
I was raised to believe than any man's death diminishes my own life and that it's wrong to celebrate it, but although that's what I still believe in general, it never occurred to me to think those people famously pictured in Times Square on VJ day, were doing anything immoral or that they should instead have been in morning for the enemy dead. They were celebrating the end of the killing of millions. They were celebrating life and survival, which are as close to victory as we mortals can get.
In the celebration of the Passover, Jews customarily withhold a drop of wine in remembrance of the Egyptian soldiers said to have died in pursuit of the fleeing slaves. It's a nice gesture I've always thought well of, but although I consider the deed done by the US Navy to be a solemn one; one that shouldn't include parading impaled skulls or photos of the dead in some barbaric way, I'm glad they did it at long last. Think of what might have been and what might not have been had it been done 10 years ago instead of waging war.
I have to wonder what the world would have been like if someone had managed to invade Germany's sovereignty and Adolph Hitler's personal liberty by assassinating him in his living room in 1936. Can we really call the men who plotted to kill him morally bankrupt or brave heroes? No, I think this would be a better world if we hadn't had to do it the hard way, if you'll forgive one of the largest understatements ever made. I could think of other horrors involving the death of tens of millions and the suffering of hundreds of billions that could have been averted by such actions.
Of course, you can see that I'm not a moral absolutist who sees morality as a set of fixed rules not subject to interpretation or to extenuating exceptions, nor do I see the law as something that should stand in the way of justice or even do I believe in a mercy to one whose life has been a celebration of mercilessness to thousands of innocents. I saw no moral dilemma involved in the choice to hunt down the people who murdered innocent athletes in Munich and I see none whatever in the killing of Osama bin Laden. I find the torture of suspects far more repugnant, yet not quite so much as sawing Daniel Pearl's head off -- or most importantly the acts of terrorism bin Laden arranged. Can we even talk of such people being owed any respect or consideration or mercy much less bemoan of how wicked we are by exterminating them on or off the battlefield?
I certainly see less national soul loss than we incurred in the bombing of Iraq, the destruction of tens of thousands of lives and the exile of millions just to kill one dictator - the loss of civilian life in the bombing of Dresden or Hanoi or Tokyo, to name a few.
No, I'm sorry. Respect for human life is not diminished and in a way is affirmed by violating the 'sovereignty' of Pakistan and the sanctity of Osama's bedroom and standing on principle against it requires a kind of selective set of values that mystify me. I cannot morn the murderer in the same way or to the same degree as the murdered and if I have a soul that mourns or rejoices, I have it because of the timely deaths of all the evil men who would have killed me with a smile had they prospered. And think too of the souls that would have been lost to this man had he lived. Let's rejoice for their sake.
Friday, May 6, 2011
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Come to New Mexico, Eric Bolling
So, the "special" students at Fox Business think torture is funny? Monica Crowley and Eric Bolling seem to think that it's just fine.
So here's a challenge for you, Bolling. Come on down to Albuquerque. You'll sign a release, and I'll waterboard you. And before I'm done, you will admit that you like to be ass-raped by Palestinians wearing tutus. On camera.
I guarantee it, you unamerican goat-fucker.
If you're a puss, I'll even have a doctor from the ER standing by. Come on down, son; I'll show you a real good time.
In fact, there are a lot of people out there claiming that torturing prisoners is just fine: hell, we got bin Laden because of our "enhanced interrogation techniques"! All of these people have suspiciously tiny penises (except for Ann Coulter - that reamed-out drag queen is hung like a horse).
Let's be clear here. It didn't happen. Over at Firedoglake, blogger emptywheel lays out the timeline. And the Rude Pundit (who, in the same post, explains other reasons it didn't happen that way) puts it best.
No scenario exists here that would justify the calculated mistreatment of people who were mistaken for terrorists.Aside from being morally repugnant to everyone but the completely unsalvageable pervert and sociopath, torture doesn't work. The person being tortured will tell you whatever he thinks you want to hear, true or false, just to get it to stop. You don't get "actionable intelligence" from torture: you get whatever the person being tortured thinks you want to hear.
What exists is the pathetic willingness of so, so many in this nation to cast aside our morality and laws for the expedience (no matter how long it took) of vengeance. Frankly, if the only way to get to bin Laden was waterboarding, the Rude Pundit would have rather bin Laden had stayed free. Because the Rude Pundit is more goddamned patriotic than any of these fuckers who put their animal instincts over the truly ethical principles that are supposed to guide us.
And you know who would back him up? Benjamin Franklin, man. In a mucho-quoted sentence, Franklin said, "That it is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer, is a Maxim that has been long and generally approved; never, that I know of, controverted." Except, of course, the false patriots of the right.
John McCain broke under torture, and taped a confession calling himself an "air pirate" and "black criminal."
And in 1998, Qin Yanhong, a Chinese villager, confessed to the rape and murder of a woman he'd never met. Because he was tortured.
If you happen to be a Christian, remember that Christ was supposed to have been tortured before being crucified. How do you think He would feel about it? I mean, I thought all the fundamentalists watched Passion of the Christ because it brought them closer to Jesus. Not to masturbate.
Osama lives
By Capt. Fogg
I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night,
alive as you and me.
Says I "But Joe, you're ten years dead"
"I never died" said he,
"I never died" said he.
I've read that Mormonism is the fastest growing religion, but I doubt it. I think it's Denialism, at least in the USA; and yes, it's a religion. Like other religions, it offers peace and a feeling of importance, enlightenment, inclusion and a chance to be part of something bigger than oneself. You don't need to read any long and boring scriptures either and for ADD America, that's a major selling point. There aren't even a lot of commandments. "Whatever they say is a lie" covers most of it and almost anything can be denied: that the Apollo program ever landed anyone on the moon, that high bracket tax cuts boost the economy in a healthy way (or at all,) whether smallpox and Polio went away because of vaccines, and that oil reserves are finite -- and a long list of things.
It only takes a rare overthrow of scientific opinion or historical interpretation or the discovery of any actual conspiracy to cast a warm blanket of approval over all the tenets of Denialism. 30% of Republicans still believe the president, like John McCain, was born abroad. That's not going to change and any release of DNA tests or gory photos of bin Laden with the top left quadrant of his skull blown off and his homogenized brain oozing out isn't going to do more than put a bigger sneer on the face of Denialism.
Now I don't mean to say that all Republicans are Denialists or that all Denialists are Republicans by any means, but the biggest clamor for releasing the gruesome pictures and videos is from the right side of the aisle and from thence comes the argument that there's a huge worldwide "debate" about whether the bogey man is dead. Claiming that there is a "debate" that involves any participants outside the faith is, by its own right, is an act -- a typical act -- of Denialism. I'd be amazed to see evidence that any large part of humanity questions the demise of Osama as a fact but I'd be more amazed if the media doesn't continue to milk the manufactured controversy and politicians don't attempt to cash in on it.
To be sure, there were debates about whether Hitler was dead for many decades; whether Josef Mengele was dead or Martin Bormann. We had no pictures, no tissue samples and no credible witnesses, but although one of those men did indeed survive the war, the belief never really was about the evidence, but about sustaining the holy state of denial and the profitable state of fear. After all we still have substantial belief that Jesus didn't really die or the Hidden Imam or Elvis. The Princess Anastasia cult may still have some hangers on. Denial after all, is faith and to be human is to have faith and the maintenance of faith often forces a choice between pain and denial; forces us to create other forms of reality where our heroes and loved ones live -- and sometimes our bogeymen. The loss of bin Laden is, like the loss of the Soviet Union, a setback for fearmongers, after all. Profiteers who even now are assuring us that revenge will be swift.
But Osama bin Laden is dead and time will only confirm that Osama bin Laden is dead and as the President said, he's not coming back, ever. Which is another way of saying that like Elvis, Jesus, Satan and the Buddha, he's always going to be with us.
I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night,
alive as you and me.
Says I "But Joe, you're ten years dead"
"I never died" said he,
"I never died" said he.
I've read that Mormonism is the fastest growing religion, but I doubt it. I think it's Denialism, at least in the USA; and yes, it's a religion. Like other religions, it offers peace and a feeling of importance, enlightenment, inclusion and a chance to be part of something bigger than oneself. You don't need to read any long and boring scriptures either and for ADD America, that's a major selling point. There aren't even a lot of commandments. "Whatever they say is a lie" covers most of it and almost anything can be denied: that the Apollo program ever landed anyone on the moon, that high bracket tax cuts boost the economy in a healthy way (or at all,) whether smallpox and Polio went away because of vaccines, and that oil reserves are finite -- and a long list of things.
It only takes a rare overthrow of scientific opinion or historical interpretation or the discovery of any actual conspiracy to cast a warm blanket of approval over all the tenets of Denialism. 30% of Republicans still believe the president, like John McCain, was born abroad. That's not going to change and any release of DNA tests or gory photos of bin Laden with the top left quadrant of his skull blown off and his homogenized brain oozing out isn't going to do more than put a bigger sneer on the face of Denialism.
Now I don't mean to say that all Republicans are Denialists or that all Denialists are Republicans by any means, but the biggest clamor for releasing the gruesome pictures and videos is from the right side of the aisle and from thence comes the argument that there's a huge worldwide "debate" about whether the bogey man is dead. Claiming that there is a "debate" that involves any participants outside the faith is, by its own right, is an act -- a typical act -- of Denialism. I'd be amazed to see evidence that any large part of humanity questions the demise of Osama as a fact but I'd be more amazed if the media doesn't continue to milk the manufactured controversy and politicians don't attempt to cash in on it.
To be sure, there were debates about whether Hitler was dead for many decades; whether Josef Mengele was dead or Martin Bormann. We had no pictures, no tissue samples and no credible witnesses, but although one of those men did indeed survive the war, the belief never really was about the evidence, but about sustaining the holy state of denial and the profitable state of fear. After all we still have substantial belief that Jesus didn't really die or the Hidden Imam or Elvis. The Princess Anastasia cult may still have some hangers on. Denial after all, is faith and to be human is to have faith and the maintenance of faith often forces a choice between pain and denial; forces us to create other forms of reality where our heroes and loved ones live -- and sometimes our bogeymen. The loss of bin Laden is, like the loss of the Soviet Union, a setback for fearmongers, after all. Profiteers who even now are assuring us that revenge will be swift.
But Osama bin Laden is dead and time will only confirm that Osama bin Laden is dead and as the President said, he's not coming back, ever. Which is another way of saying that like Elvis, Jesus, Satan and the Buddha, he's always going to be with us.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Uppity
By Capt. Fogg
I can't laugh, or smirk too hard since it's pretty easy to mix up the names Osama and Obama even for those who don't have old age as an excuse. But when Glenn Beck came up with “lets kill Obama” would not be “a tough call to make” the other day, it certainly had to raise an eyebrow even the eyebrow of one who long ago lost faith in Freud and his slips.
It's a different story though, when Beck had to temper his admission that some respect was due with the notation that the president seemed "a little arrogant." He didn't seem so to me even if I force myself not to remember his predecessors little end-zone dance on the flight deck where he had just pretended to land a fighter plane and with his parachute harness arranged to accentuate his manhood. I didn't notice any Foxers laughing that "mission accomplished" day -- quite the contrary, really.
Obama was a model of confident restraint as far as I'm concerned, but that's just what his paid detractors would prefer to call "uppity" if they hadn't been told not to. I mean, isn't the fellow who accomplishes what you've failed to do in ten years and without breaking a sweat or busting the budget going to feel a bit arrogant to you, even if he's a bit to classy do the victory dance and the high fives?
I can't laugh, or smirk too hard since it's pretty easy to mix up the names Osama and Obama even for those who don't have old age as an excuse. But when Glenn Beck came up with “lets kill Obama” would not be “a tough call to make” the other day, it certainly had to raise an eyebrow even the eyebrow of one who long ago lost faith in Freud and his slips.
It's a different story though, when Beck had to temper his admission that some respect was due with the notation that the president seemed "a little arrogant." He didn't seem so to me even if I force myself not to remember his predecessors little end-zone dance on the flight deck where he had just pretended to land a fighter plane and with his parachute harness arranged to accentuate his manhood. I didn't notice any Foxers laughing that "mission accomplished" day -- quite the contrary, really.
Obama was a model of confident restraint as far as I'm concerned, but that's just what his paid detractors would prefer to call "uppity" if they hadn't been told not to. I mean, isn't the fellow who accomplishes what you've failed to do in ten years and without breaking a sweat or busting the budget going to feel a bit arrogant to you, even if he's a bit to classy do the victory dance and the high fives?
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Swingin' round the circle
Long before we had Steven Colbert with his espousal of conservative views that reveal trenchantly cynical commentary beneath, we had Petroleum V. Nasby writing in the dialect of the South in praise of the "secessionists" and their northern friends the Copperheads. But it works both ways and the infamous Palm Beach man of the people, Rush Limbaugh is borrowing the technique to express his gratitude to God that we have a man in the White House like Barack Obama.
Such a character as Colbert uses takes strength and skill to maintain, but it's a strength that Rush either doesn't have or doesn't want to have. Like a dog who just can't sit still with the smell of bacon in the air, it didn't take long, yesterday night, for Limbaugh to crack under the strain of decency and honesty and reveal what hunger lies beneath.
No, Obama just couldn't be honest enough to admit that George W. Bush really was responsible for it. Couldn't resist telling us that it would have been better just to carpet bomb Abottabad and perhaps start another trillion dollar war against Andorra. He couldn't even be a man enough to admit being a Muslim and to stop fooling people with his birth certificate. But then what can we expect of a black man and a Democrat?
Such a character as Colbert uses takes strength and skill to maintain, but it's a strength that Rush either doesn't have or doesn't want to have. Like a dog who just can't sit still with the smell of bacon in the air, it didn't take long, yesterday night, for Limbaugh to crack under the strain of decency and honesty and reveal what hunger lies beneath.
"I, me, my, three of the most used words in President Obama's media appearance last night, not a single intelligence adviser, not a single national security adviser, military adviser, came up with the idea...not one of them... according to Obama, had the ability to understand the need to get DNA. This was Obama's message last night,"said Limbaugh. I suppose he simply didn't listen to the same speech I heard and perhaps he wrote the script before it even aired, but at any rate even the faux appearance of pleasure at our success in doing away with mass murderer Osama bin Laden was too much of a strain and the cynical, dishonest and slimy hate just had to come out.
No, Obama just couldn't be honest enough to admit that George W. Bush really was responsible for it. Couldn't resist telling us that it would have been better just to carpet bomb Abottabad and perhaps start another trillion dollar war against Andorra. He couldn't even be a man enough to admit being a Muslim and to stop fooling people with his birth certificate. But then what can we expect of a black man and a Democrat?
The eyes of Texas
By Capt. Fogg
It's no secret that Florida's economy is hurting more than that of many other states, but I'm sure it would be much worse if our sales tax cap on yachts costing more than a quarter million weren't in place. Of course mine didn't cost quite enough for me to benefit significantly, but it's gratifying that some of my friends saved enough to pay for a few thousand gallons of fuel. I'm sure it puts a smile on the faces of the many who have to choose between lunch money for the kids and driving to work. I'm sure that the several of my neighbors in foreclosure are altruistic enough to be glad those with that level of disposable income might use the savings on that Taiwan built vessel for an extra trip to the Abacos this summer.
Texas, which has a share of the yacht trade, is jealous, which is an extraordinary thing to say of our second biggest state with its continental sized self esteem. A Republican sponsored bill to cap the sales tax on yachts is now out of committee and will be considered by the Texas House along with deep cuts to education, nursing homes and other things that benefit only the surplus population.
The eyes of Texas are on taxes and the rest of us are watching.
It's no secret that Florida's economy is hurting more than that of many other states, but I'm sure it would be much worse if our sales tax cap on yachts costing more than a quarter million weren't in place. Of course mine didn't cost quite enough for me to benefit significantly, but it's gratifying that some of my friends saved enough to pay for a few thousand gallons of fuel. I'm sure it puts a smile on the faces of the many who have to choose between lunch money for the kids and driving to work. I'm sure that the several of my neighbors in foreclosure are altruistic enough to be glad those with that level of disposable income might use the savings on that Taiwan built vessel for an extra trip to the Abacos this summer.
Texas, which has a share of the yacht trade, is jealous, which is an extraordinary thing to say of our second biggest state with its continental sized self esteem. A Republican sponsored bill to cap the sales tax on yachts is now out of committee and will be considered by the Texas House along with deep cuts to education, nursing homes and other things that benefit only the surplus population.
The eyes of Texas are on taxes and the rest of us are watching.
America - Fuck Yeah!
You know, there are people out there who don't understand what it means to be an American!
I mean, you know what we learned today? That secret prisons where people got waterboarded led us to Osama!!!
Yeah! Waterboarding worked! How about that, libs? We got actionable intelligence by torturing somebody! Awesome, right?
I mean, yeah, there's this guy, Mohammed Basardah. He talked. He spilled all kinds of names and locations and everything else. They couldn't shut him up, he talked so much. They rounded up all kinds of people based on what he said. He gave them so much intel, they let him go out of gratitude for the help.
But, I mean, that's where it gets funny, right? Because Basrdah turns out to be just a small-time pot dealer in Mecca. He made up all this stuff, and threw in some names of people he didn't like, or that he'd heard of, or just fake names. So we round up all these people, and they have no idea what's going on, right? But we have "actionable intelligence" saying that they DO know, right?
So, they act like they don't know anything, and do we have a choice? Hell, no! We have to waterboard them to get the truth out! I mean, yeah, they don't know what the "truth" is, because it's just stuff Basardah made up, right?
But that's what's so funny!
Same thing with these people that the Pakistani tribes sold to us - they were just passing through, but we were offering thousands of dollars in bounties! What could the tribesmen do? How could they resist that kind of money? So they sold us tourists - can you blame them?
Now, we have these people in custody, and they claim they're innocent, right? As if! So we have to waterboard them, or chain them up, or do the sleep deprivation thing, until they answer us, right? I mean, do we have a choice?
You know, looking back, maybe there are some hippies who'll try to claim that when we torture innocent people, we might be making another generation of people who will stop at nothing to kill us. But what do they know, right?
Because we're Americans, motherfucker! We do what's right! Even if it seems like it's wrong! I mean, this is what we have got to do, right?
Right?
...right?
I mean, you know what we learned today? That secret prisons where people got waterboarded led us to Osama!!!
Yeah! Waterboarding worked! How about that, libs? We got actionable intelligence by torturing somebody! Awesome, right?
I mean, yeah, there's this guy, Mohammed Basardah. He talked. He spilled all kinds of names and locations and everything else. They couldn't shut him up, he talked so much. They rounded up all kinds of people based on what he said. He gave them so much intel, they let him go out of gratitude for the help.
But, I mean, that's where it gets funny, right? Because Basrdah turns out to be just a small-time pot dealer in Mecca. He made up all this stuff, and threw in some names of people he didn't like, or that he'd heard of, or just fake names. So we round up all these people, and they have no idea what's going on, right? But we have "actionable intelligence" saying that they DO know, right?
So, they act like they don't know anything, and do we have a choice? Hell, no! We have to waterboard them to get the truth out! I mean, yeah, they don't know what the "truth" is, because it's just stuff Basardah made up, right?
But that's what's so funny!
Same thing with these people that the Pakistani tribes sold to us - they were just passing through, but we were offering thousands of dollars in bounties! What could the tribesmen do? How could they resist that kind of money? So they sold us tourists - can you blame them?
Now, we have these people in custody, and they claim they're innocent, right? As if! So we have to waterboard them, or chain them up, or do the sleep deprivation thing, until they answer us, right? I mean, do we have a choice?
You know, looking back, maybe there are some hippies who'll try to claim that when we torture innocent people, we might be making another generation of people who will stop at nothing to kill us. But what do they know, right?
Because we're Americans, motherfucker! We do what's right! Even if it seems like it's wrong! I mean, this is what we have got to do, right?
Right?
...right?
Monday, May 2, 2011
Finally!
So, ten years and several billion dollars later, we finally took the fucker down?
Let me just point out that in the coming week, right-wing pundits will try to claim that Obama should not receive any credit for this. Of course, in the meantime, all the evidence shows that Bush had the chance to get him and let him go. (After all, the unkillable boogeyman is a better way to get unlimited funds than a guy you pick up in the first few months of a manhunt.)
_________
Update: from Pam at Pam's House Blend:
Let me just point out that in the coming week, right-wing pundits will try to claim that Obama should not receive any credit for this. Of course, in the meantime, all the evidence shows that Bush had the chance to get him and let him go. (After all, the unkillable boogeyman is a better way to get unlimited funds than a guy you pick up in the first few months of a manhunt.)
_________
Update: from Pam at Pam's House Blend:
Welcome to Abbottabad
Local forecast - partly cloudy, high 32°C, low 14° C … less one infamous tourist (terrorist).
The etymology of the name is a compound of two words, Abbott and Abad. Abbott refers to General Sir James Abbott, a British army officer after whom the city and the district are named. Abad means a place of living in Urdu. Note: Abad is also the old English spelling of the modern word Abode. Oh, yes. Before I forget:
Monday morning update: This article by Juan Cole, Obama and the End of Al Qaeda offers a worthwhile retrospective.
The etymology of the name is a compound of two words, Abbott and Abad. Abbott refers to General Sir James Abbott, a British army officer after whom the city and the district are named. Abad means a place of living in Urdu. Note: Abad is also the old English spelling of the modern word Abode. Oh, yes. Before I forget:
Obama got Osama!
Monday morning update: This article by Juan Cole, Obama and the End of Al Qaeda offers a worthwhile retrospective.
Saturday, April 30, 2011
How Rebecca Black and Glee Are Destroying the World
Pitch adjustment has probably been around as long as there's been recorded music. George Martin is famously credited with getting two different takes of the same song, originally played at slightly different tempos, and splicing them together using a Vari-control pitch shifter to match them together (this is most obvious in the slight distortion in John's voice during the line "Let me take you down, 'cause I'm going to...").
But then, in 1997, Dr Harold "Andy" Hildebrand, a former geophysicist studying seismic activity, developed and patented a process called Auto-Tune™. And in doing that, he may have destroyed the concept of music entirely.
Auto-Tune™ is phase vocorder, an audio processor which can be used both live and in recorded tracks, which adjusts the voice to the nearest true semitone and correct the pitch to match whatever scale is specified.
It can also be used to distort a voice - most famously, Cher's warble in 1998's Believe.
Auto-Tune™ is still considered the industry standard. In 2009, a 24-year-old Brooklyn musician named Michael Gregory started a viral series of videos making extensive use of the technology.
Although the success of Autotune The News led to the first release of original music by the Gregory Brothers, the strategy backfired to a certain extent:
If you watch Glee, a TV show ostensibly about singers, you won't hear a single note that hasn't been chopped up, glued back together, polished and shined until it's practically unrecognizable.
It's not just the lifeless characters, bad acting, unoriginal scripts and robotic music that can make Glee painful to watch, it's the unreality of the way music is portrayed. Characters burst into "song" without ever practicing a note. This leads to unreal expectations among young singers, that they don't need to rehearse (the Trophy Wife teaches voice, and runs into this problem on a daily basis) - they expect to just open their mouths and watch liquid gold flow out.
Which leads us to Rebecca Black. A 13-year-old girl from Orange County, her mother paid $2000 to the Ark Music Factory (the musical version of a vanity press) who gave her a choice of two songs; and after a 12-hour video shoot and a digital bludgeoning of the vocal track, she became an international sensation with an artificial song sung by a robotic voice with only a passing resemblance to her own.
Friday has been called "the worst pop song of all time," and that's a fair assessment. It's also symbolic of the place music has ended up: lifeless, heartless, pre-processed blandness; uninteresting gruel served to children who don't know any better than to call it "music."
But then, in 1997, Dr Harold "Andy" Hildebrand, a former geophysicist studying seismic activity, developed and patented a process called Auto-Tune™. And in doing that, he may have destroyed the concept of music entirely.
Auto-Tune™ is phase vocorder, an audio processor which can be used both live and in recorded tracks, which adjusts the voice to the nearest true semitone and correct the pitch to match whatever scale is specified.
It can also be used to distort a voice - most famously, Cher's warble in 1998's Believe.
Auto-Tune™ is still considered the industry standard. In 2009, a 24-year-old Brooklyn musician named Michael Gregory started a viral series of videos making extensive use of the technology.
Although the success of Autotune The News led to the first release of original music by the Gregory Brothers, the strategy backfired to a certain extent:
Andrew (Gregory, the guitarist in the group) also makes folk music, but, unfortunately, many of the Brothers' new fans have no patience for anything that's not "Auto-Tune the News."But those are effects. The more insidious use of autotuning is its prevalence in the music industry. It's almost impossible to find a CD where a singer doesn't tweak, warp, or totally alter their voice.
"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." Like plastic surgery, he adds, more people have had it than you think. "Let's just say I've had Auto-Tune save vocals on everything from Britney Spears to Bollywood cast albums. And every singer now presumes that you'll just run their voice through the box."All of this leads to lazy singers, unwilling to practice; lazy musicians, happy to take someone else's work, loop it, and claim that the result is an "original" composition; and lazy performers who go on tour to lip-synch to their own music.
Sir Elton John's live reputation is second to none. Even when he's not actually performing.And in many cases, performers can't deliver a "perfectly honed, exquisitely phrased vocal" in the first place.
His off-the-cuff remarks at the Q magazine awards ceremony last week, when he reacted with undisguised horror to the very notion of Madonna being nominated for best live act, surely represented the great singer-songwriter at his extemporaneous best. "Madonna, best f---ing live act? F--- off! Since when has lip-synching been live?"
At many of today's big live music events, the only thing that can really qualify as live is the dancing. I once saw Madonna drop her microphone without it affecting her vocal performance one whit.
...
It doesn't matter whether you have the pyrotechnic vocal skills of Michael Jackson or the somewhat more limited range of Kylie Minogue, you cannot throw yourself about like an aerobics instructor on fast-forward while delivering a perfectly honed, exquisitely phrased vocal.
If you watch Glee, a TV show ostensibly about singers, you won't hear a single note that hasn't been chopped up, glued back together, polished and shined until it's practically unrecognizable.
It's not just the lifeless characters, bad acting, unoriginal scripts and robotic music that can make Glee painful to watch, it's the unreality of the way music is portrayed. Characters burst into "song" without ever practicing a note. This leads to unreal expectations among young singers, that they don't need to rehearse (the Trophy Wife teaches voice, and runs into this problem on a daily basis) - they expect to just open their mouths and watch liquid gold flow out.
Which leads us to Rebecca Black. A 13-year-old girl from Orange County, her mother paid $2000 to the Ark Music Factory (the musical version of a vanity press) who gave her a choice of two songs; and after a 12-hour video shoot and a digital bludgeoning of the vocal track, she became an international sensation with an artificial song sung by a robotic voice with only a passing resemblance to her own.
Friday has been called "the worst pop song of all time," and that's a fair assessment. It's also symbolic of the place music has ended up: lifeless, heartless, pre-processed blandness; uninteresting gruel served to children who don't know any better than to call it "music."
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