Line Out Music & the City at Night

  |  

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Teh Internets / ??!! / Television Death Cab vs Auto-tune, SNL vs TVOTR

Posted by on Tue, Feb 10, 2009 at 11:47 AM

Christopher R. Weingarten is killing it over on Idolator re: the two most important music/internet happenings of the day, Death Cab For Cutie's (light-hearted?) ribbon-wearing campaign against Autotune and SNL's total (intentional?!) flubbing of TV on the Radio's sound on their live broadcast performance.

On Death Cab:

Death Cab For Cutie have taken a political stand against AutoTune, the devil scourge that puts the moral turpitude of our nation's teenagers at risk, exposing them to savage robot noises, leaving them confused and helpless. All that bleeping and blooping and buying of dranks! Thank god there's Ben Gibbard—savior of the flaccid—to speak out about this national dilemma! Death Cab wore suits and blue ribbons (pictured above) to the Grammy Awards to raise awareness of the fact that T-Pain would benefit from the fun, flat sound of a Chris Walla production.

Said Gibb:

"Auto-tuning is a digital manipulation, a correction of a singer's voice that is affecting literally thousands of singers today and thousands of records that are coming out... We just want to raise awareness while we're here and try to bring back the blue note... The note that's not so perfectly in pitch and just gives the recording some soul and some kind of real character. It's how people really sing."

On TVOTR (aka "Ayo Blogger Idiots... You Know "Saturday Night Live" Is Screwing With You, Right?"):

The verdict is out: TV On The Radio sucked on Saturday Night Live. The acclaimed critics' darlings, the band whose last Brooklyn show caused The New York Times to boast it was "complete ownership of its sound," the band fresh off a 28-date tour, the band whose sound design is so pristine that it made even Scarlett Johansson wanted to cuddle up with a buncha Billyburg beardos. Yeah, they sucked. Just like Ashlee Simpson, and Kanye, and Fleet Foxes, and Taylor Swift. And, I'm no R. Buckminster Fuller but, is there a pattern here? Maybe since the pattern is "music bloggers passionately taking about how they never miss an episode of Saturday Night Live," and NBC would have to be pretty short-sighted to actually do anything about the musical performances' lousy sound quality instead of just basking in the free publicity. Thanks for taking the bait, suckers! Here's a video of Andy Samberg on a boat!

I just don't know what to believe anymore.

 

Comments (15) RSS

Oldest First Unregistered On Registered On Add a comment
1
WHO FUCKING CARES
Posted by grandy = idiot on February 10, 2009 at 12:23 PM
2
I second that.
Posted by so on February 10, 2009 at 12:35 PM
3
When they take a stand against Pro Tools, let me know.
Posted by trstr on February 10, 2009 at 1:00 PM
4
I thought the Fleet Foxes sounded great, and I'm not even a big fan. In fact, a friend of mine who'd never paid any attention to them before became an instant convert after that appearance. I do have mixed feelings about TVotR. Loved that horn section, but their vocals definitely sounded off. That said, I blame the band for that more than anyone operating the soundboard.
Posted by Kathy Fennessy on February 10, 2009 at 1:27 PM
5
Re: TVotR - the vocal delivery was a little thin/pitchy, but the performance seemed ok. DCFC's SNL performance was weaker, comparatively. (I remember them seemed really nervous.)
Posted by Potatoes O'Brien on February 10, 2009 at 1:53 PM
6
i wasn't a TVotR fan until this record, and that SNL appearance was shockingly awful. i'm not looking to place blame, but i do recall seeing AFI perform on the show a few years back and the vocals were completely absent from the mix for half of the song. certainly made the music more tolerable though.
Posted by brian cook on February 10, 2009 at 1:55 PM
7
More importantly, the bass player for DCFC finally got a current haircut. Though, now he is going for the troll on Lord of the Rings look.
Posted by metallica on February 10, 2009 at 3:04 PM
8
I thought Fleet Foxes' sound was fine except they decided to play songs that had no hooks whatsoever. If you played those songs for me now I would not be able to identify them as the songs they played on SNL. Where was "White Winter Hymnal"?

TVOTR sounded terrible. I think it was the volume of the vocals vs. the horns. I think the sax was out of tune too.
Posted by Dutch on February 10, 2009 at 3:11 PM
9
Hey ben gibbard, autotune is a vocal effect. it's like being against a distortion pedal. if you don't like it, don't use it or buy music that makes use of it
Posted by T.v. coahran on February 10, 2009 at 4:49 PM
10
Conspiracy theories drive me nuts. SNL would not intentionally botch the mix for publicity from a few music blogs. Who gives a shit. No, the more likely culprit is the L of SNL: It's a fucking LIVE broadcast. Colbert was recorded live, sure, but the sound could be tweaked all they needed until broadcast some 6 hours later.

Live TV is fucking hard—look at the Grammys. You think they didn't have some of the best in the biz? Yet it sounded like shit, because the Grammys are live and that shit is tough.

Oh and Fleet Foxes sounded fucking divine, so I don't know what he's even talking about there.
Posted by Emmet on February 10, 2009 at 5:44 PM
11
Ugh TVOTR sounded crazy. I put it on mute and played "Golden Age" on my laptop and my boyfriend wasn't even sure if it was the same song. And yet Fleet Foxes were great.
Posted by marsgirl on February 10, 2009 at 10:49 PM
12
I guarantee you that Death Cab pitch corrects their vocals: guarantee it. Technically it's not auto-tune if you go in and manually fix the pitches, but it's still pitch correction.

SNL is one of the only real live music shows around (Ashlee Simpson withstanding). The late night shows all let their music acts have a few takes and then use the best one. So it makes sense that there would be some uncharacteristically raw performances on SNL. I thought Fleet Foxes were great. Didn't see TVOTR on SNL, but saw them on Colbert two nights ago and thought they sounded good (probably had a few takes to get it right.) Real live rock music is often off key. I remember how bad Chris Cornell's voice was on SNL back in the 90s.
Posted by T-Bone on February 11, 2009 at 9:55 AM
13
one of the best things I've ever seen was wilco on snl last year. damn that was good.
Posted by john s on February 11, 2009 at 10:57 AM
14
it was pretty clear on the second song that it was slightly better but that the vocals were still way under the instruments.
hate to say it in this economy but maybe it is as simple as the fact that whoever is in charge of sound on snl needs to find a new profession.
Posted by dontrocktheboat on February 11, 2009 at 11:04 AM
15
Oh man, I was shocked when Soundgarden played SNL. He was so horrible. They were pretty much my favorite band at the time and it was incredibly disappointing. Also, I think his voice sounds kinda strained now compared to his Superunknown glory days.
Posted by Errrk on February 12, 2009 at 12:21 AM

Add a comment

 

All contents © Index Newspapers, LLC
1535 11th Ave (Third Floor), Seattle, WA 98122
Contact Info | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use | Takedown Policy