David Draiman is a classically trained singer and has an amazing sound and range. Disturbed is a phenomenal metal band. Really enjoyed your take on his performance. David was actually under the weather for this performance and yes the producers added autotune without him wanting it. He never uses it. He was irked.
The above comment appears below a lovely Youtube video of vocal coach Tara Simon analyzing Disturb’s performance of “The Sound of Silence” on Conan.
I naturally suspect Draiman’s comments a little– who wants it to be known that they asked for Autotune– but it’s believable, and his performance is extraordinary. And Tara Simon’s skill is extraordinary: she spotted the Autotune immediately.
Why would anyone enjoy listening to a performer who cheats?
Well, why do San Francisco Giant fans still lionize Barry Bonds? Because humans have an endless capacity for self-delusion. We love what we see and hear and we want to believe it is real and we really don’t want to know if it’s not.
That why we would not enjoy a race between a motorcyclist and a bicyclist. Not because we’re smart enough to realize that it isn’t a real race: but because it is obvious that it is not. We can’t pretend the motorcyclist won because he was more fit, or more beautiful, or more virtuous: we cannot pretend that he didn’t cheat.
But if we saw a race between two bicyclists and one of them crushed the other, we wouldn’t want to know that he had an electronic motor and batteries hidden in the bike’s frame.
Did Dolores O’Riordan know about Autotune? Her live performances with the Cranberries are among the worst I’ve ever seen of a well-known band. That said, I would still rather watch her blunder her way through “Linger” honestly than hear a pristine, perfect fake version with Autotune.
Do you listen to CBC radio in the afternoon on your way home from work? Virtually everything they play now is what I call factory-pop. Fake beat, fake tone, fake instruments, and fake (Autotuned) voice. It is shit.