Word: soundness
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...just me, or does this sound like an R. Kelly song? A 24-year-old Brooklyn musician named Michael Gregory has combined a number of evening news broadcast clips and turned them into a vaguely acceptable faux R&B series called Auto-Tune the News. The first video featured Newt Gingrich, the NCAA Championships and Joe Biden. But this one? This one has a gorilla...
...those unaware, Auto-Tune is a software program that alters singers' voices to achieve perfect pitch. Used too much - or when they're not actually singing because, y'know, they're on the news - it makes people sound electronic. Cher was the first to use Auto-Tune in her 1998 hit "Believe," and since then everyone from Kanye West to Faith Hill has gotten by with a little technical assistance. (Auto-Tune isn't always a way to cheat; Daft Punk turned it into another instrument when they wanted to go all futuristic/animated in their video, "One More Time...
...addition to making fun of nightly news coverage, Gregory has also shown us how ridiculously easy it is to make someone sound like a C-rated pop star (this also explains the musical "careers" of Brooke Hogan and Heidi Montag). And although there are only two videos so far in Gregory's series, we hope there will be many more (AutoTune the News #3 feat. T-Pain? Maybe...
...indestructible, but logic has never had much to do with love or the record business. This year in particular, the industry is banking on the absence of logic. Scan a list of 2009's major releases and you'll discover almost as many reissues - repackaged classics with improved sound or added tracks - as originals. You may not be tempted by Lenny Kravitz's Let Love Rule 20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition or Average White Band's re-pressed Cut the Cake - generally you have to want something once before wanting it twice. But in May, Universal will begin reissuing the Rolling...
Boomers are fish in a barrel for improved nostalgia, but Gen X isn't far behind. In early April, Sony reissued four physical editions of Pearl Jam's 1992 album Ten at four price points. Each offered improved sound, a separate remix album, a DVD and thoughtful, creative packaging born of collaboration with the band. (A digital version without the extras is also available.) More important, Block's team reached out to Pearl Jam's fans and asked specific questions about what they wanted. In their first week of release, the various Tens combined to sell 55,000 copies - including...