Anybody wanna guess what tomorrow’s lecture will be on in my Music and Ethics class?
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My favorite quote of the day comes from Ray Lott, head of Arista, when the Milli Vanilli scandal broke. “Embarrassing?” he said. “I don’t mean the end justifies the means. But we sold seven million albums.”
June 8:51 pm on 19 October 2008 Permalink
Is there really something called “screamo?” I thought that was just what I called the world I live in with my two small boys.
Sharolyn 8:07 am on 23 October 2008 Permalink
Me again. (Can’t… let… go…)
Since this is a MUSIC and ethics class, I guess I have a hard time with the first video being called MUSIC. It’s like soft core porn with some notes attached. Eye candy at the least. (And as a heterosexual chick, I’m kind of grossed out when she eats the pizza. Cory, can I borrow your brain scrubber?)
A photographer using a soft-focus lens is one thing, using photoshop to altar features is another. At some point people ceases to resemble themselves. The producer in the first clip could be guilty of FRAUD.
None of them are doing anything illegal, and I’m sure the male audience doesn’t mind the enhancements. I’m imagining June’s disappointment when a cheezy pop artist becomes successful while the deserving ones are unheard of, and that is how I feel about clip #1.
It’s not music, it’s just silliness.
michael lee 10:42 am on 23 October 2008 Permalink
What if we say … it’s music, but it’s music in the service of theater.
They are creating a character, one that has appeal to a certain audience, and the music functions in support of the character. In theater, the audience enters the environment with a willing suspension of their skepticism, for the purpose of heightening their enjoyment. When Michael Bay creates huge CGI robot explosions, I don’t accuse him of fraud because the robots and the fire aren’t real. I suspend my disbelief, so that I can enjoy the movie.
When an industry-created pop diva comes out on stage, perhaps there is the same kind of suspension of disbelief, and the tools used to create the character, the music, the experience are not tools of fraud, but tools of theater. I don’t expect the experience to be an authentic representation of the person’s musical ability, I expect it to be an emotionally satisfying 90-minute musical experience.
As long as both audience and artist share the same understanding of what’s being presented, is any deception, or fraud, happening?
Sharolyn 12:53 pm on 23 October 2008 Permalink
No. I agree with everything you just said. I just don’t like it when it is slutty girls. (laughing at myself)
undertoad 7:27 am on 24 October 2008 Permalink
As long as both audience and artist share the same understanding of what’s being presented?
It’s still fake, and I believe — I have to believe — that the audience is hungry for real, honest expression. It’s why they reach out to reality programming (which is also pretty fake). To standup comedy, which can’t be faked whatsoever (if it’s not funny, the audience cannot laugh, except in the case of Dane Cook).
I think of Steely Dan and how the ultra-perfected studio musicians contrast against Fagen’s very imprecise vocals. I bet Fagen would have autotuned if he had the opportunity. And if he did, how incredibly shitty Steely Dan would have been.
I’m so glad that you included the Billy Joel performance. As I sat and watched it, I realized he was being corrected and I could think of nothing else. I know that there is a special problem with singing in an outdoor arena, where you hear yourself echoed back a hundred times, but I expect this can be corrected for with in-ear monitoring.
michael lee 9:06 am on 24 October 2008 Permalink
Welcome to the roadhouse, UT.
Zack 9:46 am on 24 October 2008 Permalink
Chad: You said something that tweaks my musical sensibilities a wee bit: “Making a record is like making a movie. It’s not real. It’s not linear.”
Only if you make it that way. Only one man’s opinion here, but that’s a methodology not every recording artist has to embrace. “Real” and “Linear” are wonderful aspects of a record, if they’re embraced properly.
I like real. I like linear. Especially in the current, “Crank-The-F*cking-Compressor-To-Eleven” climate – I think real and linear are more important than ever.
And yes, I will produce the 3rd Dailies record for free.
PS – What the hell happened to the “Covers” project, AKA, “An Excuse to Drink Expensive Scotch at Eldorado Studios”? I have a nearly-complete song list for that project, and the longer we wait, the more ridiculous the list becomes. (See: Ska-versions of Bob Seger tunes)
Stick 10:11 am on 24 October 2008 Permalink
I agree Zack, that not every record HAS to be made that way, but Chad’s certainly was. As were 99% of the records we hear. My whole thing is that by putting sound on a recording medium, you’ve changed the “real” performance. It already doesn’t sound like the original because every recording medium and playback system has inherent sound affecting shortcomings. By overdubbing a guitar, you’re way past “real”. By punching in a botched word in the vocal performance, now we must be in “fraud” territory?
(I know you’re not saying this… just going to the extreme to make my point.)
I’d be curious to understand what it looks like to make a “real” and “linear” record? What does that entail?
Zack 12:44 pm on 24 October 2008 Permalink
Stick, I thought I made that perfectly clear when I said Ska-versions of Bob Seger tunes.
:)
michael lee 2:57 pm on 24 October 2008 Permalink
that’s certainly how I read it …
michael lee 4:39 pm on 24 October 2008 Permalink
Stick, do you think there’s a significant ethical difference between what Milli Vanilli did (wholesale swapping out of one person’s performance for another), and the production of Charo’s “Guitar Passion” CD, where the engineers took both her playing and singing and cut them down to individual notes, pasting it back together across hundreds of takes to form one single coherent pass (won a Billboard award for production, BTW, in one of life’s great ironies).
In both cases, the person being presented as “The Artist” was absolutely incapable of delivering the musical performance being credited to them.
Stick 4:49 pm on 24 October 2008 Permalink
I think there’s a difference, but it’s pretty slim. At least the raw building blocks were performed by the “artist” in the case of Charo. To me the real artist in both cases is the producer.
And at the same time, there are very few “big” records you could say the artist was capable of delivering the musical performance being credited them. Very few use one single take all the way through without some punches or fixes (even if we’re not talking about tuning).
Where along the line of “real” to “completely not real” does the ethical red flag pop up?
michael lee 5:17 pm on 24 October 2008 Permalink
I think looking for a line is the wrong perspective. It seems more realistic to find extreme cases, where there is obvious fraud, and where there is obvious transparency and authenticity, and then ask, “What makes it so, and what relationship does the audience have to these experiences? Can we identify problematic features and trace them back to a fundamental principle?”
There are several contextual questions that I think modify that questions. Different genres have different expectations of musical execution. A classical recording with an operatic soprano, there would be a great deal of hue and cry from the listening public if they discovered that pitch correction was used on the vocal. American Idol, not so much.
There is also a different expectation between live and recording. Same technology, pitch correction, might be acceptable on a Billy Joel recording, but being found out using it live, people have a sense of betrayal. How many people watch that clip and thing, “I wonder if he was using pitch correction when I saw him?”
In all of these, the basis for deception vs. enhancement is the audience expectation. Which brings into the play the interesting idea of increasing sophistication among audience members. Arrrgh. I have to go. More later.
Zack 9:10 pm on 24 October 2008 Permalink
Seger Ska. Get over yourselves.
sharolyn 8:41 pm on 19 March 2009 Permalink
So, I was suspicious of hearing auto tune today (gee, I just love being paranoid of technology while having a musical experience). It was a male singing quite high. Some of the tones were straight, and some contained vibrato. Can auto tune do vibrato?
Stick 10:11 pm on 20 March 2009 Permalink
Yep. Even I, who completely lacks natural vibrato can sound all cool with the “spin” thanks to Auto-tune. Though, Auto-tune can also fix the pitch without destroying the singer’s vibrato too.
sharolyn 1:01 am on 21 March 2009 Permalink
Wow, thanks. I’ve wondered that for a long time.
So… someone remind me… why practice?
michael lee 12:41 pm on 21 March 2009 Permalink
So that you can look down on those who use technology with smug condescension.
sharolyn 1:45 pm on 21 March 2009 Permalink
Good point. One plan was to write some crappy music with crappy liner notes and then have Stick and Aly fix it all. But smug condescension is fun, too.