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Jul 21, 2019 When you look at all the examples dating back to the very beginning of the music industry, and the now ubiquitous use of Auto-tune, Melodyne and other pitch correction technology it’s hard not think that Rob Pilatus and Fab Morvan were dealt with a little harshly. There’s even a part of me that thinks Milli Vanilli should get their Grammy back. Auto-Tune — one of modern history’s most reviled inventions — was an act of mathematical genius. The pitch correction software, which automatically calibrates out-of-tune singing to perfection, has been used on nearly every chart-topping album for the past 20 years. NO WORST Music List can be complete without Milli Vanilli! Who should we blame it on.the media? Well, with Milli Vanilli getting a Grammy and later having it taken away in 1990 because they didn't sing one note.this would tarnish music for the 90's until Nirvana. This article is about mimed singing performance. For other uses, see Lip sync (disambiguation). A voice actor (by the microphone) records a.
- Milli Vanilli No Different From Auto Tune Music Today Online
- Milli Vanilli No Different From Auto Tune Music Today Youtube
- Milli Vanilli No Different From Auto Tune Music Today Show
- Milli Vanilli No Different From Auto Tune Music Today Youtube
Auto-Tune — one of modern history’s most reviled inventions — was an act of mathematical genius.
The pitch correction software, which automatically calibrates out-of-tune singing to perfection, has been used on nearly every chart-topping album for the past 20 years. Along the way, it has been pilloried as the poster child of modern music’s mechanization. When Time Magazine declared it “one of the 50 worst inventions of the 20th century”, few came to its defense.
But often lost in this narrative is the story of the invention itself, and the soft-spoken savant who pioneered it. For inventor Andy Hildebrand, Auto-Tune was an incredibly complex product — the result of years of rigorous study, statistical computation, and the creation of algorithms previously deemed to be impossible.
Hildebrand’s invention has taken him on a crazy journey: He’s given up a lucrative career in oil. He’s changed the economics of the recording industry. He’s been sued by hip-hop artist T-Pain. And in the course of it all, he’s raised pertinent questions about what constitutes “real” music.
The Oil Engineer
Andy Hildebrand was, in his own words, “not a normal kid.”
A self-proclaimed bookworm, he was constantly derailed by life’s grand mysteries, and had trouble sitting still for prolonged periods of time. School was never an interest: when teachers grew weary of slapping him on the wrist with a ruler, they’d stick him in the back of the class, where he wouldn’t bother anybody. “That way,” he says, “I could just stare out of the window.”
After failing the first grade, Hilbrebrand’s academic performance slowly began to improve. Toward the end of grade school, the young delinquent started pulling C’s; in junior high, he made his first B; as a high school senior, he was scraping together occasional A’s. Driven by a newfound passion for science, Hildebrand “decided to start working [his] ass off” -- an endeavor that culminated with an electrical engineering PhD from the University of Illinois in 1976.
In the course of his graduate studies, Hildebrand excelled in his applications of linear estimation theory and signal processing. Upon graduating, he was plucked up by oil conglomerate Exxon, and tasked with using seismic data to pinpoint drill locations. He clarifies what this entailed:
“I was working in an area of geophysics where you emit sounds on the surface of the Earth (or in the ocean), listen to reverberations that come up, and, from that information, try to figure out what the shape of the subsurface is. It’s kind of like listening to a lightning bolt and trying to figure out what the shape of the clouds are. It’s a complex problem.”
Three years into Hildebrand’s work, Exxon ran into a major dilemma: the company was nearing the end of its seven-year construction timeline on an Alaskan pipeline; if they failed to get oil into the line in time, they’d lose their half-billion dollar tax write-off. Hildebrand was enlisted to fix the holdup — faulty seismic monitoring instrumentation — a task that required “a lot of high-end mathematics.” He succeeded.
“I realized that if I could save Exxon $500 million,” he recalls, “I could probably do something for myself and do pretty well.”
A subsurface map of one geologic strata, color coded by elevation, created on the Landmark Graphics workstation (the white lines represent oil fields); courtesy of Andy Hildebrand
So, in 1979, Hildebrand left Exxon, secured financing from a few prominent venture capitalists (DLJ Financial; Sevin Rosen), and, with a small team of partners, founded Landmark Graphics.
At the time, the geophysical industry had limited data to work off of. The techniques engineers used to map the Earth’s subsurface resulted in two-dimensional maps that typically provided only one seismic line. With Hildebrand as its CTO, Landmark pioneered a workstation — an integrated software/hardware system — that could process and interpret thousands of lines of data, and create 3D seismic maps.
Precision tune auto care conyers ga inventory. Landmark was a huge success. Before retiring in 1989, Hildebrand took the company through an IPO and a listing on NASDAQ; six years later, it was bought out by Halliburton for a reported $525 million.
“I retired wealthy forever (not really, my ex-wife later took care of that),” jokes Hildebrand. “And I decided to get back into music.”
From Oil to Music Software
An engineer by trade, Hildebrand had always been a musician at heart.
As a child, he was something of a classical flute virtuoso and, by 16, he was a “card-carrying studio musician” who played professionally. His undergraduate engineering degree had been funded by music scholarships and teaching flute lessons. Naturally, after leaving Landmark and the oil industry, Hildebrand decided to return to school to study composition more intensively.
While pursuing his studies at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, Hildebrand began composing with sampling synthesizers (machines that allow a musician to record notes from an instrument, then make them into digital samples that could be transposed on a keyboard). But he encountered a problem: when he attempted to make his own flute samples, he found the quality of the sounds to be ugly and unnatural.
“The sampling synthesizers sounded like shit: if you sustained a note, it would just repeat forever,” he harps. “And the problem was that the machines didn’t hold much data.”
Hildebrand, who’d “retired” just a few months earlier, decided to take matters into his own hands. First, he created a processing algorithm that greatly condensed the audio data, allowing for a smoother, more natural-sounding sustain and timbre. Then, he packaged this algorithm into a piece of software (called Infinity), and handed it out to composers.
A glimpse at Infinity's interface from an old handbook; courtesy of Andy Hildebrand
Infinity improved digitized orchestral sounds so dramatically that it uprooted Hollywood’s music production landscape: using the software, lone composers were able to accurately recreate film scores, and directors no longer had a need to hire entire orchestras.
“I bankrupted the Los Angeles Philharmonic,” Hildebrand chuckles. “They were out of the [sample recording] business for eight years.” (We were unable to verify this, but The Los Angeles Times does cite that the Philharmonic entered a 'financially bleak' period in the early 1990s).
Unfortunately, Hildebrand’s software was inherently self-defeating: companies sprouted up that processed sounds through Infinity, then sold them as pre-packaged soundbanks. “I sold 5 more copies, and that was it,” he says. “The market totally collapsed.”
But the inventor’s bug had taken hold of Hildebrand once more. In 1990, he formed his final company, Antares Audio Technology, with the goal of innovating the music industry’s next big piece of software. And that’s exactly what happened.
The Birth of Auto-Tune
A rendering of the Auto-Tune interface; via WikiHow
At a National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) conference in 1995, Hildebrand sat down for lunch with a few friends and their wives. Randomly, he posed a rhetorical question — “What needs to be invented?” — and one of the women half-jokingly offered a response:
“Why don’t you make a box that will let me sing in tune?”
“I looked around the table and everyone was just kind of looking down at their lunch plates,” recalls Hildebrand, “so I thought, ‘Geez, that must be a lousy idea’, and we changed the topic.”
Hildebrand completely forgot he’d even had this conversation, and for the next six months, he worked on various other projects, none of which really took off. Then, one day, while mulling over ideas, the woman’s suggestion came back to him. “It just kind of clicked in my head,” he says, “and I realized her idea might not be too bad.”
What “clicked” for Hildebrand was that he could utilize some of the very same processing methods he’d used in the oil industry to build a pitch correction tool. Years later, he’d attempt to explain this on PBS’s NOVA network:
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'Seismic data processing involves the manipulation of acoustic data in relation to a linear time varying, unknown system (the Earth model) for the purpose of determining and clarifying the influences involved to enhance geologic interpretation. Coincident (similar) technologies include correlation (statics determination), linear predictive coding (deconvolution), synthesis (forward modeling), formant analysis (spectral enhancement), and processing integrity to minimize artifacts. All of these technologies are shared amongst music and geophysical applications.'
At the time, no other pitch correction software existed. To inventors, it was a considered the “holy grail”: many had tried, and none had succeeded.
The major roadblock was that analyzing and correcting pitch in real-time required processing a very large amount of sound wave data. Others who’d made an attempt at creating software had used a technique called feature extraction, where they’d identify a few key “variables” in the sound waves, then correlate them with the pitch. But this method was overly-simplistic, and didn’t consider the finer minutia of the human voice. For instance, it didn’t recognize dipthongs (when the human voice transitions from one vowel to another in a continuous glide), and, as a result, created false artifacts in the sound.
Hildebrand had a different idea.
As an oil engineer, when dealing with massive datasets, he’d employed autocorrelation (an attribute of signal processing) to examine not just key variables, but all of the data, to get much more reliable estimates. He realized that it could also be applied to music:
“When you’re processing pitch, you add wave cycles to go sharp, and subtract them when you go flat. With autocorrelation, you have a clearly identifiable event that tells you what the period of repetition for repeated peak values is. It’s never fooled by the changing waveform. It’s very elegant.”
While elegant, Hildebrand’s solution required an incredibly complex, almost savant application of signal processing and statistics. When we asked him to provide a simple explanation of what happens, computationally, when a voice signal enters his software, he opened his desk and pulled out thick stacks of folders, each stuffed with hundreds of pages of mathematical equations.
“In my mind it’s not very complex,” he says, sheepishly, “but I haven’t yet found anyone I can explain it to who understands it. I usually just say, ‘It’s magic.’”
The equations that do autocorrelation are computationally exhaustive: for every one point of autocorrelation (each line on the chart above, right), it might’ve been necessary for Hildebrand to do something like 500 summations of multiply-adds. Previously, other engineers in the music industry had thought it was impossible to use this method for pitch correction: “You needed as many points in autocorrelation as the range in pitch you were processing,” one early-1990s programmer told us. “If you wanted to go from a low E (70 hertz) all the way up to a soprano’s high C (1,000 hertz), you would’ve needed a supercomputer to do that.”
A supercomputer, or, as it turns out, Andy Hildebrand’s math skills.
Hildebrand realized he was limited by the technology, and instead of giving up, he found a way to work within it using math. “I realized that most of the arithmetic was redundant, and could be simplified,” he says. “My simplification changed a million multiply adds into just four. It was a trick — a mathematical trick.”
With that, Auto-Tune was born.
Auto-Tune’s Underground Beginnings
Hildebrand built the Auto-Tune program over the course of a few months in early 1996, on a specially-equipped Macintosh computer. He took the software to the National Association of Music Merchants conference, the same place where his friend’s wife had suggested the idea a year earlier. This time, it was received a bit differently.
“People were literally grabbing it out of my hands,” recalls Hildebrand. “It was instantly a massive hit.”
At the time, recording pitch-perfect vocal tracks was incredibly time-consuming for both music producers and artists. The standard practice was to do dozens, if not hundreds, of takes in a studio, then spend a few days splicing together the best bits from each take to a create a uniformly in-tune track. When Auto-Tune was released, says Hildebrand, the product practically sold itself.
With the help of a small sales team, Hildebrand sold Auto-Tune (which also came in hardware form, as a rack effect) to every major studio in Los Angeles. The studios that adopted Auto-Tune thrived: they were able to get work done more quickly (doing just one vocal take, through the program, as opposed to dozens) — and as a result, took in more clients and lowered costs. Soon, studios had to integrate Auto-Tune just to compete and survive.
Images from Auto-Tune's patent
Once again, Hildebrand dethroned the traditional industry.
“One of my producer friends had been paid $60,000 to manually pitch-correct Cher’s songs,” he says. “He took her vocals, one phrase at a time, transferred them onto a synth as samples, then played it back to get her pitch right. I put him out of business overnight.”
For the first three years of its existence, Auto-Tune remained an “underground secret” of the recording industry. It was used subtly and unobtrusively to correct notes that were just slightly off-key, and producers were wary to reveal its use to the public. Hildebrand explains why:
“Studios weren’t going out and advertising, ‘Hey we got Auto-Tune!’ Back then, the public was weary of the idea of ‘fake’ or ‘affected’ music. They were critical of artists like Milli Vanilli [a pop group whose 1990 Grammy Award was rescinded after it was found out they’d lip-synced over someone else’s songs]. What they don’t understand is that the method used before — doing hundreds of takes and splicing them together — was its own form of artificial pitch correction.”
This secrecy, however, was short-lived: Auto-Tune was about to have its coming out party.
The “Coming Out” of Auto-Tune
When Cher’s “Believe” hit shelves on October 22, 1998, music changed forever.
The album’s titular track -- a pulsating, Euro-disco ballad with a soaring chorus -- featured a curiously roboticized vocal line, where it seemed as if Cher’s voice were shifting pitch instantaneously. Critics and listeners weren’t sure exactly what they were hearing. Unbeknownst to them, this was the start of something much bigger: for the first time, Auto-Tune had crept from the shadows.
In the process of designing Auto-Tune, Hildebrand had included a “dial” that controlled the speed at which pitch corrected itself. He explains:
“When a song is slower, like a ballad, the notes are long, and the pitch needs to shift slowly. For faster songs, the notes are short, the pitch needs to be changed quickly. I built in a dial where you could adjust the speed from 1 (fastest) to 10 (slowest). Just for kicks, I put a “zero” setting, which changed the pitch the exact moment it received the signal. And what that created was the ‘Auto-Tune’ effect.”
Before Cher, artists had used Auto-Tune only supplementally, to make minor corrections; the natural qualities of their voice were retained. But on the song “Believe”, Cher’s producers, Mark Taylor and Brian Rawling, made a decision to use Auto-Tune on the “zero” setting, intentionally modifying the singer’s voice to sound robotic.
Cher’s single sold 11 million copies worldwide, earned her a Grammy Award, and topped the charts in 23 countries. In the wake of this success, Hildebrand and his company, Antares Audio Technologies, marketed Auto-Tune as the “Cher Effect”. Many people in the music industry attributed the artist’s success to her use of Auto-Tune; soon everyone wanted to replicate it.
“Other singers and producers started looking at it, and saying ‘Hmm, we can do something like that and make some money too!’” says Hildebrand. “People were using it in all genres: pop, country, western, reggae, Bollywood. It was even used in an Islamic call to prayer.”
The secret of Auto-Tune was out — and its saga had just begun.
The T-Pain Debacle
In 2004, an unknown rapper with dreads and a penchant for top hats arrived on the Florida hip-hop scene. His name was Faheem Rashad Najm; he preferred “T-Pain.”
After recording a few “hot flows,” T-Pain was picked out of relative obscurity and signed to Akon’s record label, Konvict Muzik. Once discovered, he decided he’d rather sing than rap. He had a great singing voice, but in order to stand out, he needed a gimmick -- and somewhat fortuitously, he found just that. In a 2014 interview, he explains:
“I used to watch TV a lot [and] there was always this commercial on the channel I would watch. It was one of those collaborative CDs, like a ‘Various Artists’ CD, and there was this Jennifer Lopez song, ‘If You Had My Love.’ That was the first time I heard Auto-Tune. Ever since I heard that song — and I kept hearing and kept hearing it — on this commercial, I was like, ‘Man, I gotta find this thing.’”
T-Pain — who is capable of singing very well naturally — decided to use Auto-Tune to differentiate himself from other artists. “If I was going to sing, I didn’t want to sound like everybody else,” he later toldThe Seattle Times. “I wanted something to make me different [and] Auto-Tune was the one.” He contacted some “hacker” friends, found a free copy of Auto-Tune floating around on the Internet, and downloaded it for free. Then, he says, “I just got right into it.”
An old Auto-Tune pamphlet; courtesy of Andy Hildebrand
Between 2005 and 2009, T-Pain became famous for his “signature” use of Auto-Tune, releasing three platinum records. He also earned a title as one of hip-hop’s most in-demand cameo artists. During that time, he appeared on some 50 chart-toppers, working with high-profile artists like Kanye West, Flo Rida, and Chris Brown. During one week in 2007, he was featured on four different Top 10 Billboard Hot 100 singles simultaneously. “Any time somebody wanted Auto-Tune, they called T-Pain,” T-Pain later told NPR.
His warbled, robotic application of Auto-Tune earned him a name. It also earned him a partnership with Hildebrand’s company, Antares Audio Technologies. For several years, the duo enjoyed a mutually beneficial relationship. In one instance, Hildebrand licensed his technology to T-Pain to create a mobile app with app development start-up Smule. Priced at $3, the app, “I Am T-Pain”, was downloaded 2 million times, earning all parties involved a few million dollars.
In the face of this success, T-Pain began to feel he was being used as “an advertising tool.”
'Music isn't going to last forever,' he toldFast Company in 2011, 'so you start thinking of other things to do. You broaden everything out, and you make sure your brand can stay what it is without having to depend on music. It's making sure I have longevity.'
So, T-Pain did something unprecedented: He founded an LLC, then trademarked his own name. He split from Antares, joined with competing audio company iZotope, and created his own pitch correction brand, “The T-Pain Effect”. He released a slew of products bearing his name — everything from a “T-Pain Engine” (a software program that mimicked Auto-Tune) to a toy microphone that shouted, “Hey, this ya boy T-Pain!”
Then, he sued Auto-Tune.
T-Pain vs. Auto-Tune: click to read the full filed complaint
The lawsuit, filed on June 25, 2011, alleged that Antares (maker of Auto-Tune) had engaged in “unauthorized use of T-Pain’s name” on advertising material. Though the suit didn’t state an exact amount of damages sought, it does stipulate that the amount is “in excess of $1,000,000.”
Antares and Hildebrand instantly counter-sued. Eventually, the two parties settled the matter outside of the court, and signed a mutual non-disclosure agreement. 'If you can't buy candy from the candy store,' you have to learn to make candy,' T-Pain later told a reporter. “It’s an all-out war.”
Of course, T-Pain did not succeed in his grand plan to put Auto-Tune out of business.
“We studied our data to see if he really affected us or not,” Hildebrand tells us. “Our sales neither went up or down due to his involvement. He was remarkably ineffectual.”
For Auto-Tune, T-Pain was ultimately a non-factor. More pressing, says Hildebrand, was Apple, which aquired a competing product in the early 2000s:
“We forgot to protect our patent in Germany, and a German company, [Emagic], used our technology to create a similar program. Then Apple bought [Emagic], and integrated it into their Logic Pro software. We can’t sue them, it would put us out of business. They’re too big to sue.”
But according to Hildebrand, none of this matters much: Antares’ Auto-Tune still owns roughly 90% of the pitch correction market share, and everyone else is “down in the ditch”, fighting for the other 10%. Though Auto-Tune is a brand, it has entered the rarified strata of products -- Photoshop, Kleenex, Google — that have become catch-all verbs. Its ubiquitous presence in headlines (for better or worse) has earned it a spot as one of Ad Age’s “hottest brands in America.”
Yet, as popular as Auto-Tune is with its user base, it seems to be universally detested by society, largely as a result of T-Pain and imitators over-saturating modern music with the effect.
Haters Gonna Hate
A few years ago, in a meeting, famed guitar-maker Paul Reed Smith turned toward Hildebrand and shook his head. “You know,” he said, disapprovingly, “you’ve completely destroyed Western music.”
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He was not alone in this sentiment: as Auto-Tune became increasingly apparent in mainstream music, critics began to take a stand against it.
In 2009, alternative rock band Death Cab For Cutie launched an anti-Auto-Tune campaign. “We’re here to raise awareness about Auto-Tune abuse” frontman Ben Gibbard announced on MTV. “It’s a digital manipulation, and we feel enough is enough.” This was shortly followed by Jay-Z’s “Death of the Auto-Tune” — a Grammy-winning song that dissed the technology, and called for an industry-wide ban. Average music listeners are no less vocal: a comb of the comments section on any Auto-Tuned YouTube video reveals (in proper YouTube form) dozens of virulent, hateful opinions on the technology.
Hildebrand at his Scotts Valley, California office
In his defense, Hildebrand harkens back to the history of recorded sound. “If you’re going to complain about Auto-Tune, complain about speakers too,” he says. “And synthesizers. And recording studios. Recording the human voice, in any capacity, is unnatural.”
What he really means to say is that the backlash doesn’t bother him much. For his years of work on Auto-Tune, Hildebrand has earned himself enough to retire happy — and with his patent expiring in two years, that day may soon come.
“I’m certainly not broke,” he admits. “But in the oil industry, there are billions of dollars floating around; in the music industry, this is it.”
He gestures toward the contents of his office: a desk scattered with equations, a few awkwardly-placed awards, a small bookcase brimming with Auto-Tune pamphlets and signal processing textbooks. It’s a small, narrow space, lit by fluorescent ceiling bulbs and a pair of windows that overlook a parking lot. On a table sits a model ship, its sails perfectly calibrated.
“Sometimes, I’ll tell people, ‘I just built a car, I didn’t drive it down the wrong side of the freeway,'” he says, with a smile. “But haters will hate.”
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Milli Vanilli No Different From Auto Tune Music Today Online
There has been some good music..but then there has been some bad too!..
First off..I dedicate this to Linda Ronstadt..Now..Ronstadt rocks, but what she's going through sucks! She now has Parkinson's Disease which means she'll NEVER sing again! Maybe Ronstadt and Michael J. Fox can make commercials for Parkinson's awareness.
I know I'm returning to the 'Worst' Trilogy, but this year has been unlucky for me. I write these articles because I do them for entertainment reasons, now I can post them on the forum, but..where's the fun in that?
Who can be bad in music? Well..this is the reason why I have this list, and here it is..The 16 WORST Bands, Musicians, or Music!
#16..The Cast From 'Glee'
Wait..how can a TV Series be on this list? Well..First, the cast of 'Glee' are actors/actresses. Second, if you heard their songs by either watching this show or from their soundtrack..you'd rather hear a drunk man sing at a karaoke bar. Third, not all actors/actresses can sing! Listen to this..
This is like 'High School Musical' grown-up! Give me Nell Carter, Dan Aykroyd, or even Richard Harris, at least they can sing a tune without sounding like garbage..
#15..Britney Spears
No Chris Crocker..I CAN'T Leave Britney Alone! Sure, she went through a tough time by losing her aunt, getting a divorce, and having children..but many people have been there. But shaving your head, flashing your vajayjay, and NOT taking care of your kids is just making you a prone to the tabloids! Your music is sub-par and from the 'Mickey Mouse Club' Alumni..even Justin Timberlake and Christina Aguleria grew-up! Maybe one day, you'll be better..or not!
#14..Green Day
I can see why Johnny Rotten from The Sex Pistols called Green Day 'Sell-Outs'..with 'American Idiot', Green Day did that! Sure 'Anarchy in the U.K.' and 'God Save The Queen' were legend compared to Green Day's 'American Idiot', those songs were legend..'American Idiot' is just calling most of the United States Dumbasses! Look Green Day, you're just punk wannabees! And to think..after 'American Idiot'..where did Green Day go?
#13..Amy Grant
Amy Grant..she was the first to cross-over from Christian to Rock Music, though Cartman thought Creed was the first to do so. Amy Grant seems to have that way to talk about Jesus in a pop song, but she does have a few good songs in her library of songs..what the heck am I talking about and why did I put her on this list?!
NEW #13..Michael Bolton
Okay, soft-rock was popular in the 90's and though Amy Grant had good Christian songs, Michael Bolton is the real deal! His mullet, bad covers of classic 60's love songs, and 'Can I Touch You There'? He must be on my list of lousy bands, musicians, and that! Does Michael Bolton have a career now after the early 90's?
#12..Milli Vanilli
NO WORST Music List can be complete without Milli Vanilli! Who should we blame it on..the media? MTV? The Rain? George W. Bush? Well, with Milli Vanilli getting a Grammy and later having it taken away in 1990 because they didn't sing one note..this would tarnish music for the 90's until Nirvana. Milli Vanilli was planning to come back in 1998, but sadly Rob Pilatus died. Fab Morvan STILL makes music today, and uses his own voice!
#11..Kid Rock
Okay..what's wrong with 'All Summer Long'? The answer is..It's unoriginal! Kid Rock just put 'Werewolves of London' by Warren Zevon and 'Sweet Home Alabama' by Lynard Skynard and using his own lyrics? I call that lazy! And what the hell does 'Bawitdaba' mean? Sure, many classic rockers have covered 'All Summer Long' with 'Werewolves of London' and 'Sweet Home Alabama', but where's the heart Robert James Ritchie?
#10..Creed
Now Creed had a moment where they had songs with Christian meanings, but when the lead singer had a vid with Kid Rock (don't ask) I ask..does Creed have heart? No..it looks like they were in it for the money. If I want to hear some band who's in it for the money..I'll listen to Frank Zappa's 'We're only in it for the Money'! And if Zappa was around in 2001..he'd tell Creed the same thing!
#9..Marilyn Manson
DUE TO THE FACT THAT MARILYN MANSON VIDEOS ARE HIGHLY GRAPHIC AND CONTROVERSIAL..I CAN'T SHOW ANY, BUT I CAN SHOW YOU A SONG HE COVERED..
![Music Music](/uploads/1/2/6/1/126157086/908124005.png)
#8..Mitch Miller
Okay, Lawrence Welk squeaked-out of this list because of his bubble machine, his German accent, and his candy-ass monkey suits. But Mitch Miller..is the real deal!
![2017 2017](/uploads/1/2/6/1/126157086/647965073.jpg)
..you needed a fork and knife for rock and roll! I can surpass all that. But what I CAN'T forgive Mitch Miller is..what he did to Frank Sinatra when Miller was Columbia Records! Miller made Sinatra sing the crappiest songs of all time, but maybe the crappiest would be 'Mama Will Bark', just listen!..
Even Sinatra Fans called this the WORST Sinatra Song Ever! If you said the song to Sinatra, you'll need a new face. Even many Disc-jockeys flipped this single to the B-Side, which was more Sinatra at this time..
Like Britney Spears in his time..he was going through a bad relationship, having strains by his record company (Columbia), and almost died in 1951! After Sinatra left Columbia for Capitol he gave Mitch Miller something in 1957..'Fuck Off, Keep Moving!..' Now whose 100th Birthday will be celebrated? In 2011..no one gave a shit about Mitch Miller, but in 2015..The Chairman of the Board WILL be recognized! Mark..My..Words!..
#7..Kanye West
Kanye West Barges In..
Wait, I'm a gonna let you finish. I'm a gonna let you finish!
Thanks for NOT letting me be on the #1 Spot, but I shall inform you that 50 Cent should be #1!
Wait, I'm a gonna let you finish. I'm a gonna let you finish!
Thanks for NOT letting me be on the #1 Spot, but I shall inform you that 50 Cent should be #1!
Now THAT'S the problem with Kanye West! Sure, he has Gold-Digger..but he has to be getting attention from barging on the stage at the MTV Music Video Awards to blaming Bush after Hurricane Katrina.
Can't you keep your mouth shut? Your music sucks as well! You weren't raised in urbia, you were raised with a well-to-do family! Even Elvis knows about the harder times than you! No wonder he's forgotten, because he never encountered this..
Kanye..do yourself a favor and go to Detroit! It's the worst city in the nation and it's beyond your comfort zone..it IS a Ghetto! I, myself live below the poverty line though I'm NOT in the poorest big city in the nation, but it's hard out there!
#6..AC/DC
Yes..'Highway to Hell' made many Bible-Thumpers object and parents ask why. I ask..why does the guitarist Angus Young HAVE to wear that School Uniform? You're in your 50's, even Jaleel White (who played Steve Urkel) stopped being a nerd after 'Family Matters' ended! Their music is just the same and if AC/DC is on the Highway to Hell..they can have it! Their music is just Pop-Metal and almost the same song. Also Young..wear longer pants, otherwise people will think you have Jerry Sandusky Syndrome!
#5..Bon Jovi
If my brother made this list, he'd put Bon Jovi at #1. But I'm making this list and I feel that Bon Jovi deserves to be on here because they made hair-metal to just shave their hair! Now I can see why people in South Park would want to kick Jon Bon Jovi right square in the balls!
I, myself feel that they aren't true heavy-metal. But I do chuckle with the line in 'Livin' on a Prayer' because people think the line 'It doesn't a difference if we make it or not' sounds like 'It doesn't make if we're naked on not'!
Milli Vanilli No Different From Auto Tune Music Today Youtube
#4..Nickelback
Yes..we ALL wanna be rock stars, but Nickelback made it that anyone can be a rock star. They either got their name after watching football or having someone say 'Here's your Nickel Back'. They just have no talent. I can take any bad band anyday, but Nickelback is in a league of their own. But then again..
#3..Anyone who was on 'American Idol'
Milli Vanilli No Different From Auto Tune Music Today Show
Question:How do you lower the bar?
Answer:
By having a show where anyone can sing!
And that's what 'American Idol' is! Let's have a contest on who can sing and if they suck..they go home and cry! Well..Simon Cowell is gone, but this show has tarnish music forever! When it came on 10 years ago..I couldn't watch this show having people be degraded since they have no talent.
Unfortunately..one made his untalent into a cult following, enter..
Yes..William Hung made his untalent into a cult following with 'She Bangs', a song done by Ricky Martin and if Martin redid the song it should be 'He Bangs'..if you know what I mean!
#2..Tween Music
Where to start? Miley Cyrus? Jonas Brothers? Justin Beiber? How about..Kidz Bop?..
That was the beginning of the end for music! In a decade where we had NO entertainment quality, we got Tween Music in 2001! When I was a child, there was no such thing as Tween Music..or Tweens in that regard! I was into The Beatles at that time, so if I want to hear bubblegum music (which it should be called) give me this..
So music like Justin Beiber ISN'T original..what is now tween music was once called bubblegum music!
#1..Auto-Tune Music!
In 1998, Cher brought us a new invention that would make her voice 100% in 'Believe'!
Even Disco is better than Auto-Tune Music! I wonder if her ex Sonny Bono heard it then died? I wonder if Sinatra heard this and died? I even wonder if Paul McCartney's 1st wife Linda heard this and died? Yes..this song came-out in 1998! This song basically gave us the auto-tune..or as I would like to call it, the Drum Machine for vocalists!
Look Cher..you did well without the auto-tune, this is a song!..
No auto-tune, it has natural vocals. I'd like to see The Black-Eyed Peas sing a song without auto-tune..that'll happen when Cleveland wins a Championship! Sinatra, Elvis, The Beatles, nor Elton John depended on auto-tune..It's the work of the devil!
But to end Part 2 of 3 of this Trilogy, I feel that I should give you my feel about this year and that some actors/actresses CAN sing..
Now..do you agree with this list? It's okay that you don't, we live in free countries that can share opinions. If you think AC/DC Rocks but The Beatles should be on this list..okay. Feedback is good and so is opinions.
Stay Tuned for Part 3 where I review bad movies!
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Amy Grant is so hot I'd eat her shit.
Ok, ok, ok - I know this is written with tongue in..
My comments don't begin 'til I saw the Kanye West thing (I don't listen/never heard him - seriously) so, I don't care about that.
I'm perplexed about you saying (re: Elvis) ('no wonder'..he's forgotten ..'
I'm no Elvis/Graceland nut, I do like his voice, but, I can't believe he's even close to 'forgotten.'
Kanye - as most of these others will as well - will be forgotten.
The thing about 'tween music' (which I wholeheartedly agree) and 'bubblegum;'
The longest-lasting form of (pop) music is/has been bubblegum.
You even put up probably the best piece of bubblegum ever - The Archies'Sugar, Sugar.
Bubblegum, simply because it's written off as so innocuous - is the music with the most salacious lyrics imaginable (just really think about Sugar, Sugar, for example).
End of Part One
My comments don't begin 'til I saw the Kanye West thing (I don't listen/never heard him - seriously) so, I don't care about that.
I'm perplexed about you saying (re: Elvis) ('no wonder'..he's forgotten ..'
I'm no Elvis/Graceland nut, I do like his voice, but, I can't believe he's even close to 'forgotten.'
Kanye - as most of these others will as well - will be forgotten.
The thing about 'tween music' (which I wholeheartedly agree) and 'bubblegum;'
The longest-lasting form of (pop) music is/has been bubblegum.
You even put up probably the best piece of bubblegum ever - The Archies'Sugar, Sugar.
Bubblegum, simply because it's written off as so innocuous - is the music with the most salacious lyrics imaginable (just really think about Sugar, Sugar, for example).
End of Part One
As for ‘tween,’ I never heard of it either.
It's just a marketing gimmick, but unfortunately, this one tries to take ‘rough’ music, & ‘smooth it out'by having little bobble-headed annoying prepubescent's ‘sing.’
The last thing I'm going to bemoan is AutoTune (is it one or two words?)
While I found the Cher song annoying, it actually wasn't bad.
But, like anything else that's a tool - which she overused for a point, is now being over (mis)used - not just for us singers of ‘modest’ talent, but to supplant ‘singers’ of no talent (no names mentioned, but there's many to pick from).
It's just a marketing gimmick, but unfortunately, this one tries to take ‘rough’ music, & ‘smooth it out'by having little bobble-headed annoying prepubescent's ‘sing.’
The last thing I'm going to bemoan is AutoTune (is it one or two words?)
While I found the Cher song annoying, it actually wasn't bad.
But, like anything else that's a tool - which she overused for a point, is now being over (mis)used - not just for us singers of ‘modest’ talent, but to supplant ‘singers’ of no talent (no names mentioned, but there's many to pick from).
AC/DC? Really? That's insane you put them on this list.
The Sex Pistols were as manufactured as any other boy band of recent memory. Not that I'm an advocate for Green Day, but Johnny Rotten is probably one of the last people who should be calling other musicians sellouts.
Yes - and no (manufactured, that is).
Yes - Malcolm McClaren came in and did his..'stuff.'
But, no - the emotions of Johnny Lydon, et al, were (quite) real.
You can't (now or then) tell Mr. Rotten to 'become' anything.'
Sid.
Poor Sid.
He was just a little boy, who was horribly used.
Yes - Malcolm McClaren came in and did his..'stuff.'
But, no - the emotions of Johnny Lydon, et al, were (quite) real.
You can't (now or then) tell Mr. Rotten to 'become' anything.'
Sid.
Poor Sid.
He was just a little boy, who was horribly used.
Only down side to an article like this is no two people can agree on the content. (AC/DC? Really? ) The only other thing I question is Milli Vanilli. Is your dislike for them based on their fraud or did you always hate them?
No Jonas Bros? No Miley Cyrus? No One Direction? No Taylor Swift? No Lil Wayne or TI or any other modern rapper? I can't agree on AC/DC and Bon Jovi being on the list.
Mentioning those that you listed might end up making the article more of a flop. A lot of people from the internet community are already aware of how much they suck so just talking about them again sounds pretty boring if you ask me. I find it odd how opinionated articles get bombarded with hate. I'm one of the few that hates Adventure Time because to me it's nothing but hipster crap and loose on originality and yet there's not a care in the world on how I think about it. That's how all opinions should be.
If you can't accept one's opinion, just ignore it and move on
If you can't accept one's opinion, just ignore it and move on
coachbullington_c0LE3g86b Posted 6 years 6 months ago
Being a musician is just like any other job. I earn royalties, licensing agreements, I do session work and play live. And I get paid just like anyone else. I just happen to work from a home studio and play music live on stage, no different than you going to your job everyday. It's a job just like any other, based on a skill that I have, that others may not. Just like being a soldier, a doctor, a lawyer, a pro athlete..whatever, I do a job just like everyone else does, if you like it you buy it, if you don't, then you don't. It's like being a contractor. If you like my work, then you hire me to build your house, if you don't..then you hire someone else..This article would be like you saying 'I don't like Levi jeans, I prefer Wrangler'..so I'm going to write an article about how much Levi jeans suck.That's dumb, immature, and just a huge waste of time. Your not suppose to like everything, that's why there are 500 brands and 500 companies making the same product. It's called options
*you're
*supposed
You're welcome
*supposed
You're welcome
You're absolutely right.
But, then most writers wouldn't have much to write about, and, besides - 'like/dislike' list are fun to read.
Mr. Blackwell used to do it about the 'best/worst' dressed.
It's just a way to let off some steam.
But, then most writers wouldn't have much to write about, and, besides - 'like/dislike' list are fun to read.
Mr. Blackwell used to do it about the 'best/worst' dressed.
It's just a way to let off some steam.
coachbullington_c0LE3g86b Posted 6 years 6 months ago
When you hear a Green Day song today, you know who it is immediately. That's all that any musician or artist could ever ask for in a career, to have your work be so heavily circulated and easily recognizable, on a world wide scale, that millions of people know your songs and your band just by listening to a few seconds of a song. That's Awesome!
It's like McDonald's. Don't you think the creator of McDonald's would be so proud that something as simple as a yellow 'M', all over the world, makes people immediately think of McDonald's? That's amazing marketing. Not necessarily super creative, but it worked at an amazing level. A yellow 'M', in just about any context, makes you think of one thing and one thing only. Green Day, The Beatles, Nickelback..these bands are the same thing. You may not like it (I don't care for it myself) but you cannot deny that if your a musician, and you want to play music for a living, these guys did it at the highest level and made a killing doing it!
It's like McDonald's. Don't you think the creator of McDonald's would be so proud that something as simple as a yellow 'M', all over the world, makes people immediately think of McDonald's? That's amazing marketing. Not necessarily super creative, but it worked at an amazing level. A yellow 'M', in just about any context, makes you think of one thing and one thing only. Green Day, The Beatles, Nickelback..these bands are the same thing. You may not like it (I don't care for it myself) but you cannot deny that if your a musician, and you want to play music for a living, these guys did it at the highest level and made a killing doing it!
coachbullington_c0LE3g86b Posted 6 years 6 months ago
How can anyone think this is a good article? Wow there must be a lot of uneducated morons on here if you think this is a good article. It's barely even readable! I can barely follow your train of thought and most of every word you wrote is just your hate ridden opinion. I actually do agree with most of what you were trying to say, but found the writing to be immature and poorly executed. I think some your a opinions are a little off, and I would be surprised if you yourself knew anything about writing or composing music. I am a musician, and take my word for it, composing is not easy. And though I DO agree with most of the bad music you mentioned, some of these artists are innovators and deserve respect for that. Green Day is an amazing band (and I don't personally care for them but..) they created a sound that is so amazingly simple. Yeah, they ripped from other punk acts from the 80's, who doesn't rip from their predecessors? But they now have a sound that is uniquely their own.
This article had a score of a 4 just a couple of days ago. What in the world happened?
Oh right, more people who can't take opinions seriously. I thought this was a pretty good article. Too bad the best I can do is boost it up once
Oh right, more people who can't take opinions seriously. I thought this was a pretty good article. Too bad the best I can do is boost it up once
Everyone has their own opinions about music. Ranting about yours doesn't do anyone any favors. You could have written something thought-provoking, but instead, it's just a highly opinionated piece of junk that leaves you with a bad taste in your mouth.
So, yes, my critique is on how crappy this article is rather than your musical opinions. That's how it should be anyway. Thumbs down.
So, yes, my critique is on how crappy this article is rather than your musical opinions. That's how it should be anyway. Thumbs down.
AC/DC!!!! For Real! SMH. AC/DC on same list as Kanye, Milli Vanilli and Bolton is insane.
your list is fine but please do not shit on AC/DC, they are one of my favorite bands of all time.
You forgot RUSH, Elvis, Niki Minaj, Deadmaus, ICP, and Robin Thicke.
As much as I can't stand the tween bands I have to play the Devil's advocate and ask are they really that bad or is it just that I'm getting older and no longer understand the music that the kids of today are into? I certainly remember the older generations not understanding the music I was into when I was in middle school.
80'a Bon Jovi I like, same with Michael Jackson. Nice list!
Surprisingly I agree with all but one on this list. Though I completely understand why he's on the list, I have to admit that Michael Bolton is a guilty pleasure of mine.
I've always loathed Nickelback. Not just b/c of their songs, but b/c they seem to be frauds. One song they're talking about how much they miss some chick, then they're choking her (or another chick) in the next. Are you bad asses or softies?
I don't know if I'd add the Beatles to this list, but they're definitely overrated. I would, however, add Bruce Springsteen. He's a horrible singer and most of his songs are depressing. In fact, the only thing good about his music was Clarence Clemons. And any singer that talks about politics at his/her/their concert should be kicked off the stage.
I've always loathed Nickelback. Not just b/c of their songs, but b/c they seem to be frauds. One song they're talking about how much they miss some chick, then they're choking her (or another chick) in the next. Are you bad asses or softies?
I don't know if I'd add the Beatles to this list, but they're definitely overrated. I would, however, add Bruce Springsteen. He's a horrible singer and most of his songs are depressing. In fact, the only thing good about his music was Clarence Clemons. And any singer that talks about politics at his/her/their concert should be kicked off the stage.
Milli Vanilli No Different From Auto Tune Music Today Youtube
Some parts of this list I agree some I don't agree with while others have gone to guilty pleasure/ 90's cheese for me. However good article though this could use more of something.... Oh yea It needs more Cowbell
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You forgot that no talent piece of crap known as Lil Wayne, also the disrespectful group of bastards called One Direction. AC/DC does have some good stuff, but I can see why you added them. I like some Bon Jovi and Green Day was great in the 90s, now they're just pure crap.
One Dimensional and Justine Beaver were on this list as they are Tween which counts for the entire wave of crap music.
In fact the Beaver is under both 2 & 1 as he does Tween with an auto tune flaver at the same time.
One Direction are nicknamed One Dimention because they are One Dimensional.
In fact the Beaver is under both 2 & 1 as he does Tween with an auto tune flaver at the same time.
One Direction are nicknamed One Dimention because they are One Dimensional.
Gotcha, I'm glad they're included in that whole crap genre. I also forgot to mention Pitbull who I hate with a passion. Drake and Jay-Z too.