No Stairway to Heaven

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Published on Tuesday, 14 February 2012 14:05

Written by Dashalia Singaram

There was a time when music was art. Singers painted with their lyrics, guitarists filled the background with scenic melodies and breath-taking solos. Aretha Franklin’s voice alone could bring an audience to tears.

Now, the sound of Taylor Swift rapping the words “I knit sweaters yo!” not only brings tears to one’s eyes but makes your ears bleed a little too. 

And what do we hear between the bits where Taylor Swift goes gangster? T-Pain’s disembodied voice. Auto-Tune has taken the music world by force.

Last year alone, more than 90% of Top 40 songs contained traces of Auto-Tune. 

Is T-Pain to blame for this resurgence of Auto-Tuning in popular music? I say resurgence, because contrary to popular belief and T-Pain’s claims, he was not the first person to use Auto-Tuning to tweak his sound. 

It was, in fact Cher in her hit “Believe” from 1998, very many years before T-Pain was even heard of. And it was extremely cool. 

She sang and tweaked, playing with pitch rather artistically. Admittedly it did make her sound even more like a man than Justin Bieber, but, then again, who doesn’t? 

It was Cher at her peak, making history, doing things many people criticised but more people loved.

Auto-Tune is not just making music with machines. It can be a kind of art, maybe not quite Picasso but the musical equivalent of Photoshop. After all, some skill is required to tune the auto at the right moments, yes? 

Shouldn’t we then give credit where credit is due, because we would be lying if we said we didn’t lose our minds a little when “Low” started playing in a club, wishing for Apple Bottom jeans and suppressing the urge to give that big booty a slap. 

We’ve all danced and sung along to the huge hits. And that’s because they were good songs. Are they classics, though? Not really.

That’s where the bottom line lies. Yes, T-Pain has won two Grammy Awards, and we should thank him for being an awesome soundtrack to many a drunken evening, but him demanding credit from other artists who use Auto-Tune is slightly ridiculous. 

After all, Brian May doesn’t demand credit every time someone rocks out on a guitar.

The truth is, music is not what it used to be. And we can sit and complain, or we can roll with it. Rock ‘n roll, R&B and even pop music are no longer strict genres.

 Lil Wayne plays the electric guitar (well, he tries) and no one can even classify what kind of music Foster the People make, but we love it. 

Technology has given rise to dubstep and electro, so to condemn it would be cutting out much of the new and exciting music out there. 

Will it still be around in 50 years? I cannot say. But it’s here now. And in the words of truly great artists, maybe we should “Let it be”.