For the second episode in our three-part miniseries about the future of music, Charlie Harding, a music journalist and co-host of the Switched on Pop podcast, joins the show to tell the story of Auto-Tune. He walks us through how a simple plugin became such a recognizable sound in music, why both artists and fans gravitated to the Auto-Tune sound, and why Auto-Tune has continued to grow even through backlash in the music business. Then we look ahead to AI, and try to figure out what — if any — lessons we might be able to learn about the sound and culture of the AI era to come.

Further reading:

• Charlie Harding on X
• Switched on Pop
• From Pitchfork: How Auto-Tune Revolutionized the Sound of Popular Music
• From Rick Beato: How Auto-Tune DESTROYED Popular Music
• From Gabi Belle: The Problem with Autotune on TikTok

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