Radio 2's 100 Best Albums

[madcow]

Is that why (IMO) Lady GaGa's "Pokerface" sounds very , very similar to "Maneater" by Nelly Furtado?
Or is the process just to ensure that  on every Lady GaGa record her voice sounds the same? 
Bands  like The Kinks were doing that naturally in the 60s.

[caerau]

I was trapped in a car the other day with someone who listens to BBC radio of one flavour or another and I heard a track ostensibly by Buble. There was nothing left of his own voice on the track, entirely autotuned. Then I heard another, think is was gaga, exactly the same. Is this what popular music has become now, manufactured even to the point of vocals? Beyond the computer operator masquerading as a sound engineer no talent required at all, just a face that fits?

I'd be surprised if Lady Gaga was autotuned. She has a great voice.

I'm frankly amazed people can't hear it, same for Buble; maybe it's just the one tune [I doubt it] but the one I heard had, as I said, almost nothing left of his own voice. Yes she has a great voice but gaga even says in interview that she does it deliberately, she wants people to hear the effect.

"So I asked her why she felt the need to amend her vocals in the studio. "Its not for my voice," GaGa replied. "The radio is used to a certain perfection and it compresses the voice in a certain kind of way, it smooshes all of the sound together so it sounds smaller but fatter, its not open, very condensed. Unless you are Duffy, where its this extremely organic record, its important to play into the psychology of the listener who is used to a certain sonic quality in the voice. If they don't hear that, its not hip.""

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/neilmccormick/8217928/Lady_GaGa_and_Akon_the_mysterious_rise_of_autotune/

Like I said, I don't pay enough attention to be bothered.  Lady Gaga is OK in a sort of repetitive, poppy way - Buble is just offensive and I can't remember actually hearing his records on the radio.
I'm amazed you've paid enough attention to notice this. ;-)

[Peter]

specializta, I owe you an apology.  I'm not a fan of Michael Buble but think he has a good if not particularly characteristic voice.  I have only ever heard him sing swing or standards.  I have none of his records.  But I just looked up auto-tune on wikipedia, where I found this:-

Big band singer Michael Buble criticised Auto-Tune as making everyone sound the same – "like robots" – but admits he uses it when he records pop-oriented music.

So I apologise!  I'm also pissed-off that it is now a "style".  Pop is almost literally eating itself!

Peter

[Specializta]

It's nothing new, just another variant on the whole reverb/echo/layer/eq/compress thing that producers have been doing for decades. As soon as recording became available engineers started looking for ways to disguise how horrible live vocals usually are. Soon be able to synthesis vocals from scratch and use CGI for the actual model miming them.

And then Kraftwerk will finally be crowned the kings of pop. Saw them at the Tate a while back and they were fecking awesome.

[Littlesox]

Bloody Nora !

Duran Duran, Rio ?

Words fail me.

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

Bloody Nora !

Duran Duran, Rio ?

Words fail me.

You prefer Seven and the Ragged Tiger?

[Littlesox]

Bloody Nora !

Duran Duran, Rio ?

Words fail me.

You prefer Seven and the Ragged Tiger?

I prefer to be without Duran Duran in any shape or format !

[LEE]

What's a "Doobie Brother" ?

Ah..I see.  This is a very loaded poll.

Radio 2 obviously plays "What a fool believes" a lot and that means the Album "Minute by Minute" is listed as a "Favourite Album".

I expect many albums on the list make it there due to one iconic track.

We should play a game of "Name the track that got the Album on this list"

[Exit Stage Left]

What's a "Doobie Brother" ?

Ah..I see.  This is a very loaded poll.

Radio 2 obviously plays "What a fool believes" a lot and that means the Album "Minute by Minute" is listed as a "Favourite Album".

I expect many albums on the list make it there due to one iconic track.

We should play a game of "Name the track that got the Album on this list"

Jeff 'Skunk' Baxter features on both 'Minute by Minute' and 'Can't Buy a Thrill'' by Steely Dan, which features 'Reelin In the Years,' an obvious Radio 2 track. Baxter's subsequent career in missile defence makes for interesting reading.

Baxter fell into his second profession almost by accident. In the mid-1980s, Baxter's interest in music recording technology led him to wonder about hardware and software that was originally developed for military use, i.e. data-compression algorithms and large-capacity storage devices. As it happened, his next-door neighbor was a retired engineer who had worked on the Sidewinder missile program. This neighbor bought Baxter a subscription to Aviation Week magazine, provoking his interest in additional military-oriented publications and missile defense systems in particular. He became self-taught in this area, and at one point he wrote a five-page paper that proposed converting the ship-based anti-aircraft Aegis missile into a rudimentary missile defense system. He gave the paper to California Republican congressman Dana Rohrabacher, and his career as a defense consultant began.
 
Backed by several influential Capitol Hill lawmakers, Baxter received a series of classified security clearances. In 1995, Pennsylvania Republican congressman Curt Weldon, then the chairman of the House Military Research and Development Subcommittee, nominated Baxter to chair the Civilian Advisory Board for Ballistic Missile Defense.
 
Baxter's work with that panel led to consulting contracts with the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency (MDA) and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. He now consults to the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. intelligence community, as well as for defense-oriented manufacturers including Science Applications International Corporation ("SAIC"), Northrop Grumman Corp., General Dynamics, and General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. He has been quoted as saying his unconventional approach to thinking about terrorism, tied to his interest in technology, is a major reason he became sought after by the government.
 
"We thought turntables were for playing records until rappers began to use them as instruments, and we thought airplanes were for carrying passengers until terrorists realized they could be used as missiles,"[4] Baxter has said. "My big thing is to look at existing technologies and try to see other ways they can be used, which happens in music all the time and happens to be what terrorists are incredibly good at."
 
Baxter has also appeared in public debates and as a guest on CNN and Fox News Channel advocating missile defense. He served as a national spokesman for Americans for Missile Defense, a coalition of organizations devoted to the issue.
 
In 2000, Baxter considered challenging Rep. Brad Sherman for the 24th Congressional District seat in California before deciding not to run.[5]
 
In April 2005, he joined the NASA Exploration Systems Advisory Committee (ESAC).
 
Baxter was a member of an independent study group that produced the "Civil Applications Committee Blue Ribbon Study" recommending an increased domestic role for U.S. spy satellites in September 2005.[6] This study was first reported by The Wall Street Journal on August 15, 2007.[7]
 
Baxter is listed as "Senior Thinker and Raconteur" at the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition.[8]
 
Baxter is a Senior Fellow and Member of the Board of Regents at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies [1] .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Baxter

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7Twg_NpQmk

[Exit Stage Left]

Another artist who makes multiple appearances had an interesting career path. Nile Rodgers of Chic, and producer of 'Let's Dance' by David Bowie, and a number of Duran Duran's hits, was a Black Panther.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_former_members_of_the_Black_Panther_Party