Originally Posted by Scribble R
If there's an artist who sings in spite of imperfect vocals, it's Shiina Ringo (and Ukigumo :p). So when she uses it, it's for effect. I do feel that some of you guys are too locked into the autotune is automatically bad mentality to actually see what it's doing here.
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Auto-tune is not *automatically* bad. But there are plenty of artists who use auto-tune to cover for their lack of singing ability, even in live performances. Ringo is not one of them, and I am convinced that the auto-tune on the new single is purely for artistic effect. But it's not an artistic choice that I can really agree with, except in the most exceptional of circumstances, and I don't think this song qualifies.
The problem is that auto-tune was *created* to fix crappy vocals, has dubious merit as an artistic choice, and has been grossly overused for both purposes. Prior to Cher's "Believe," it was just a dirty little music industry secret. Afterward, it was the new sound of pop music, and all those pop stars who had secretly been using it anyway because they couldn't sing suddenly got to turn it up to 11 and call it art. The only reason Cher had been using it to begin with was to *fix her voice*, after all.
So IMHO, if Ringo is going to use auto-tune as "art," the bar is set pretty darned high. Doing it just to sound "pop" is not sufficient justification. She has previously used auto-tune and other electronic effects artistically, and sparingly, with great results. But this, to me, falls short.