The use of digital pitch correction software on vocal recordings

Well back in the the mid to late 60’s in an interview someone asked Jim Morrison (it was caught on video) where do you see you Rock Music going, he said in the future I see one person in the studio just pressing a button with machines all around him playing the music. He also said Who ever controls the Media controls the mind. Boy did he nail it.

"thereby negating the human expression and negating the validity of the pretense."

And all the people who love the recordings are...wrong?

Quite the burden of proof you've set for yourself. Abandon ship.

@hilde45 
The “pretense” is that the vocal recording was a human expression.

If the vocal recording was “airbrushed” by software before it hit the listener’s ears, the thing that ultimately hit the listener’s ears (vocal recording) was not the totality of the human expression that occurred when the vocalist moved air with sound waves via their singing.  

This is the meaning of the words you’ve scrutinized.

The adjudication of ”right” or “wrong” is not applicable to matters of subjectivity, but my opinion, as stated above, remains.

All the people who love this music will say that there is both human expression and that it's valid enough. So, nothing has been negated for them. Only for you.

Thinking about your phrase "totality of the human expression," we would have to say that the initial vocalization was processed by a microphone, cord, mixer, digital tools, and more. So, it's already been diminished in "validity," to use your term. The fact that there is now pitch correction on top of those other adjustments seems to negate the "validity" for you, but this standard is idiosyncratic and, one has to imagine, quite arbitrary, especially to all the people who love the music and find expression in it.

@hilde45 

I think we should be clear about language.

The validity of a person’s feelings is unassailable. Feelings just…are. 

The validity to this hypothetical statement, “this is me singing musical tones (‘notes,’ i.e. Gb, F, C#, etc.)” is indeed negated if that person’s record (or live performance as the case may be) is not that.  
Using the airbrush analogy again, that face and/or body seen in the photo does not look like that.  
The photographer/magazine editor etc. chose to essentially say to their consumers/viewers/readers, “here is what (so-and-so) looks like” when…that is simply not what that person looks like. 

Again, a person’s feelings regarding a vocal, with-or-without the use of digital pitch correction software, is unassailable.  
They may find it unpleasant, wonderful, or they may not really care either way. 

I’ll now describe two different things:
“Signal processing for the purpose of recording the human voice singing a melody,” and,
“actual human-sourced tone ‘correction’ via digital software at the recording stage while processing the signal for the purpose of recording the ‘human’ voice singing a melody.”

Two different things.

Of course “listening to a person singing in your living room sans microphone” and “listening to a vocal recording,” or even “listening to live vocals at a show” are not the same things.  
However there is also a clear difference between these two things:
- vocal—> mic—> signal—> mix—> master—> listen,
and,
- vocal—> mic—> signal—> application of pitch correction software to the human-produced tones themselves—> master—> listen

Outside of the intentional use of such software for dramatic alteration to the vocal (Cher’s ‘Believe’ in ‘98 & seemingly some 85% of hip-hop records the last 15-odd years), digital pitch “correction” software is not an effect like reverb, delay, etc.  

Yes, some effects added to the vocal may have an effect on pitch, but the effects are so noticeable (as intended) that it is still a different thing from a person saying, “listen to my singing on this record” and then presenting a sort of underhanded misrepresentation of their actual expression of tones (musical notes) themselves.