the love of wilde writes:
The Globe and Mail cites Moz as a shining example of all that is right with pop singers in an otherwise grossly overproduced/auto-tuned culture... I'm sure this article would solicit a knowing smile and nod from the great man himself
link:
Ruled by Frankenmusic - globeandmail.com
Excerpt:
I was listening to Morrissey sing Dear God, Please Help Me, on his recent album
Ringleader of the Tormentors, when I had one of those moments of revelation that sometimes happen in pop music. As that light, vulnerable tenor floated above the song's gliding beat, I realized that I was hearing something that has been banished from whole sectors of the recording industry: a man singing out of tune.
He's not far off the pitch, most of the time, though enough to notice if you have an ear for that sort of thing. One descending line sags a little each time he sings it, especially at the words "track me down," when he slides a full tone flat at the trailing end of the phrase. He goes sharp, too, pushing a bit too high each time he reaches the last and highest-pitched words of the final refrain, "but the heart feels free." At this point in the music, Ennio Morricone's orchestral arrangement has reached its full magnificence, all the tension Morrissey sang about in the opening lines has dissipated, and you're left with the very tactile symbolism of a voice straining upwards as the heart feels its freedom.
Dear God, Please Help Me is one of the most beautiful songs of the year (also one of the most mischievous, since it portrays a sexual tryst as an encounter with divine mercy), and its flaws are part of its beauty. It might not have turned out nearly as well if Moz were up to date, and used Auto-Tune like everybody else.
Auto-Tune, in case you haven't heard, is a top-selling software program that corrects pitch for musicians who can't always do it themselves. It became headline news three years ago, when country singer Allison Moorer attached stickers on her album Miss Fortune that read: "Absolutely no vocal tuning or pitch-correction [technology] was used in the making of this record."
