Everybody has their own style of music and every year there is new musical talent testing the limits of those styles. But there are others that are taking it in the wrong direction. These are the artists that rely on Auto-Tune and other high-tech advancements to make themselves sound better than they really are. They do not have enough natural talent so they must rely on technology while recording to enhance their abilities into something they could never naturally do. Almost every artist uses some kind of program to enhance a few things on their albums while they are recording to give it the perfect sound. This is perfectly fine, but when artists fully rely on technology to change a song from being really bad into a radio hit, it’s something hard to respect.
The majority of the time you see this in a lot of rap and pop music. There are plenty of artists in those genres that work really hard at their music and put their lives into it, while the others sing into a microphone where their voice comes out different at the other end. They say a couple of words continuously and make a hit, or sing songs they had no hand in writing. The fact that these types of artists are the ones getting the radio hits while the other unknowns struggle to land a gig, seems unfair.
Although during this year’s Grammys, many of the winners proved that there is plenty of raw talent who do not cheat fame and become winners. A prime example of this would be the band Foo Fighters who took home five Grammys for their latest album “Wasting Light.” The Foo Fighters have been together for 17 years, but what makes “Wasting Light” unique amongst their other six albums is that it was recorded in lead singer Dave Grohl’s garage. Along with that, they did not use any advanced digital equipment to record the album. They went old school and only used analog equipment.
“Wasting Light” is easily Foo Fighter’s greatest album and their sound is so perfect that unless someone told you that it was recorded in just a regular garage with analog equipment, you would never believe it. It is hard to deny that fact when they won best rock performance and best rock song for their single “Walk,” best hard rock performance for their single “White Limo,” best rock album for “Wasting Light” and the best long-form music video. Even though a music video does not have much to do with the talent of the band, they did stick with the theme of being able to keep this simple and still produce something great by recording their whole music video for their single “Rope” with VHS tapes.
Even if you take all of that away the best part about the band is that what you hear on the album is what you are going to hear live in concert. It is all the natural sound of their instruments and voices. This should really set the bar for artists, that if they can create great music without the digital enhancements, not only will their music succeed, but they will gain the respect of their fans and other musicians.
The fake artist will always be around due to the fact that there are fans that like that kind of music. If more people start to support the artists that take a similar approach as the Foo Fighters and try to create good music through their natural voices and instruments alone, then over time we can have more artists who can stand at a regular microphone and sing their heart out. The Oswego State Indie Series is a perfect example of talented musicians that have no fancy technology to support them and still create better music than a lot of things played on the radio. There is a difference between great musicians and great performers; great musicians earn their right to be on the radio and make it to the Grammys, while the great performers belong on “Glee.”
