Autotune obesity

The ever more ubiquitous autotune is a new millenium phenomenon. First used, according to Wikipedia on Cher's "Believe" it has become ever more widespread since. It's a music production tool that will take a vocal recording and use a digital processor to adjust and filter any off tune frequencies to be perfectly on pitch. The effect, as we know, is to output a sound that is pitch perfect though robotic in sound. Presumably the robotic effect comes because the software filters out some of the wider frequencies to leave only the simple tones. 

A technical note on timbre; sounds are made by the combination of lots of tones overlapping and interfering with each other. In a musical instrument, each note is made of a basic, dominant tone, combined with the frequencies of multiple octaves above and below, along with a small amount of off tune frequencies. The variation in the volume and the combination of octave and other frequencies is what gives each instrument it's unique sound quality - timbre. A trumpet generates lots of additional high frequencies which bounce easily around the trumpet's brass body to produce a bright, hard sound. A guitar's long strings and wooden body allow for plenty of bass tones to echo and amplify. With a synthesiser, you can build your own sounds from the ground up by selecting frequencies and ways of combining them to create your own waveforms.

So; the autotune. It is beloved of producers because it's easy to process in studio; no matter how "unique" the vocal "artist" you're forced to work with, you can magically autotune the hell out of their vocal and produce something that's commercially acceptable. It's beloved of radio station programmers because the production is bright and loud and simple and well-defined, not quirky and awkward to program in a 9min commerical slot. Music like this is continually grabbing your attention, there's no time and space for your brain to wander off in other directions. This makes it very ad-friendly, very urgent and dynamic sounding.
And finally it's beloved of the demographic that listens to pop on any device - on a mobile phone, or a laptop, or a car radio. Sound fidelity is not a criteria. A simple, recognisable melody and the associated visual-social cache is the only point. So the autotune sounds just as great on a mobile phone speaker as it does when you watch the youtube on your home pc.

Why do we like it, why doesn't it drive us all crazy? My theory is that it's ear candy - something about the perfect pitch is instantly appealing. Ally it to a catchy melody and you've got yourself Pop Gold.

So what's the problem? Well, I'd argue that we're overdoing it, that we're now continuously gorging on this junk music and the effect it has, in a word - is monotony.  It's the sound it filters out that's the problem. The frequencies it leaves behind are the ones that provide character, uniqueness, personality. The vocalists on the majority of today's top 20 are literally interchangeable. Most of the time you can still tell whether it's a male or female singing, but beyond that it's any body at all.

Is this a fad that will pass when we get bored of it? Hopefully. But the fear is that the brain deadening banality of it will turn a whole generation off music altogether - what's the point when it all sounds the same.