And we strive for..... what ?

I acknowledge your points. But for me, what we are doing is both a "hobby" and a "passion". This two gives me hope to strive for the better. Provides me a means of outlet during rough days. Provides me joy and pride for my accomplishments and the accumulation of knowledge learned from others.

...those things are good enough for me.....I for one cannot forsee when I will stop striving for the better....it is not in my blood.....

...thanks for the reminders though....

This comes as no surprise, unfortunately. I do take exception to the statement made:

"The driving force behind this trend has been the fans themselves, who now have a more educated ear and can tell if something is off-key, industry experts said."

This is laughable.

Charlie

Thanx for the link - I have to admit that my preferred state of ignorance concerning the current 'music scene' had included the existence of these specific devices, though I always knew there was a lot of electronic manipulation going on, 'cause you can hear it. As for the 'live' performances of someone like a Britney (who can't sing to save her life), I just assumed they were getting a lot of help from taped 'backing' tracks, in addition to digital 'enhancements' like harmonizers and harmonic overtone generators.

As to the appropriateness of their usage, when music is mostly synthetic and/or sampled anyway, and songwriting means so little compared to video-worthiness, media hype, and concerts that take Vegas as their model, well, why not?

BTW, I got a kick out of the article quoting Brendan McGuire and crediting him as producing several LP's by the Canadian pop-rock band Sloan (he said he disfavors the use of autotuners). Sloan are one of the most talented bands around, with all four members contributing both lead and backing vocals, songwriting, and they even swap instruments around in concert. But despite their welcome penchant for harmonized backing vocals shared by few bands of their generation, none of them actually has what you'd describe as a great lead singing voice, and listening to any of their records, which can be fairly polished yet engagingly off-the-cuff at the same time, it's easy to believe McGuire's claim - ragged, but usually right.

Disc:

Interesting info on Zappa and the original "Syn".

It was the most interesting musical toy that I have experienced (the operator needed to be an artist/musician to pull it off).

Well, I wasn't aware that these devices even existed. I see it as cheating - in the rank of 'performance enhancers - doping' in sports.

I'm not sure what my musical tastes have to do with it, but, here it is : heavily classical and jazz, some ethnic - no, no rap and very little pop.