If you've never seen the film Before the Music Dies, you should. Here's a clip from it that relates to this whole discussion...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irk3_p15RJY
T-Pain is a good example. He sings flat on purpose FOR the Autotune effect, but I can't pretend to be a fan of him in the slightest - just not my thing. That is fine in my book because it's being used as a creative effect and T-Pain probably can sing in tune for what it's worth, although the talent of individual singers is not really what this is about for me.
I had this debate a while ago with somebody, he was advocating using Autotune as a way of reaching notes that the singer cannot sing. To me, I don't think that is necessarily a fair representation of the singer and that's defeating the point of what I think Autotune should be used for - which is an effect, not necessarily as a corrective tool. Personally, my aesthetic leans toward imperfection and I like so-called 'mistakes' in music, in fact I think perfection is a mistake in itself and can completely add to the experience. Joy Division not exactly being the greatest players absolutely adds to the listening experience for me and their ways around that are what formed the ideas that New Order used (obviously, that and the death of Ian Curtis, but they were going towards samplers anyway). Sadly, somewhere in the 80's, the idea of the 'perfect take' became obsessive and singers who actually can sing (like Madonna, love it or hate it, she really can) were replaced with flash. Which is commercialism. Music being relegated to a financial asset rather than art is really where the issue is, Autotune is just one misused symptom of that.
The use of Autotune is much, much deeper than you think. Although I don't think it's necessarily a bad tool either. It's just used for the wrong purpose - it is a perfectly applicable tool; a graded pitch shifter and pitch shifting is a very old technique; it goes right back to the earliest tape manipulation, only now all that has changed is the ability to pitch shift and keep the original speed. The Beatles used pitch shifting on numerous tracks, and they even used the technique to put various parts in tune with other parts. There's nothing 'wrong' with Autotune itself, I hope people realise this.
I don't use auto-tune in my studio when I record myself or any projects that come through. I'm not opposed to it, though, when used in moderation. If a vocalist gives the most emotion-filled performance of their career in the studio, and their top note in that take is a few cents flat, I don't see any reason why a little pitch correction would hurt anyone. I'd rather release the recording with that corrected take with the energy and passion in it than one of the next few takes that sound flat and lifeless compared to it.
With that said, I think that WAY too many artists are using it as a crutch rather than an aid...
Of course i know a lot of you like to have raw recordings. That's fine too. I guess there is something quite nice about listening to an old recording.
'Raw' and 'Old' are not necessarily synonymous, either. Take the very idea of glitch (a pet topic of mine at the moment) and you start to realise that the aesthetic of imperfection spreads far further than you think. Glitch purposely accentuates the flaws in the digital processing model (alias, clicks, etc) to create something that is purposely 'raw' - although that's probably one of the worst ways of describing it. Go and listen to some of Thom Yorke's solo album (I suggest 'Atoms for Peace' and 'Cymbal Rush') to hear glimpses of (accessible) glitch. There's whirring, buzzing, clicks and pops going on all over the shop and it's a good introduction to what post-digitalism can do. Of course, that's only a small part of the music, and it's not 'glitch' in the strictest sense, but it does have glitch elements.
Personally i really don't like that sort of thing. It's like the recording is trying to be something it just isn't.
I don't think you're quite understanding the concept. It's exploiting the flaws in the recording process to show that digital flaws are inherently there. That's what the recording IS. Glitches aren't invented, they are just demonstrated. They are there the whole time along - I won't get into digital audio theory unless you really want me to, but essentially digital recording is only possible because of the amount of time that goes into actually correcting the flaws in the conversion processes. Dithering is a good example of quantisation error correction, and anti-aliasing is another example of correction. Most of what we record into the computer is corrected heavily by processing.
of course this is true but i just really don't see the point in trying to make a recording sound "raw" by adding processes to it?