Journey Icon Steve Perry Says Auto-Tune Is Tragic

Keavin Wiggins | 12-27-2021

Count former Journey frontman Steve Perry among those who is not a fan of the artificial vocals produced by Auto-Tune software, which has become widely popular since being introduced in the late 1990s.

The pitch correction software was designed to digitally alter recorded vocals to tune them into perfect pitch, but also produces a noticeable synthesized quality to vocals in many recordings.

Perry shared his thoughts about Auto-Tune during a recent interview with Kyle Meredith (CoS/91.9 WFPK) and said of the software, "Auto-Tune has turned everybody into the same singer, which I think is tragic.

"I was told a long time by a very bright musician, he said when you listen to somebody as beautiful as a Streisand, your heart just goes, 'I can't believe she can do this. How is she doing this?' And then you listen to Muddy Waters and you get an emotional touch too. Well, they're totally two different vocal directions, totally two different vocal timbres, different styles.

"Well, one is angelic and beautiful and the other has some struggle in it, and it's the struggle and the imperfections that you pull for too. There's this human thing.

"Singing is the most primal thing, it really is a very primal form of communication. And, obviously, it's gonna be around for a while. Which is why I'm not so happy that people are washing out this description we just talked about with Auto-Tune." Check out the full interview below: