been wondering what fil at wings of pegasus had to say about the oasis reunion.
if you haven’t run into him he’s the guitar guy who analyzes live performances of singers to talk about the rampant use of playback autotune and heavy pitch correction in the music industry. i forget what video was the first one of his i caught some modern singer was being compared to judy garland? but generally i have very low patience for video essays normally. so i was pleasantly surprised. i find him to be just a very knowledgable voice down to earth and using his online space to share with fans some tips on how to use their ears and demand better from the (increasing plastic) music industry. we need more people like him. but as celine dion fans can attest it can be kinda brutal when he starts analyzing someone you’re fans of. and no one has been spared he’s analyzed even paul mccartney. so i’ve been sorta worried what he would find with oasis reunion vocals. but by my ears i really could not hear any correction live which was a relief (liam had sometimes used it in the past). i expected the proshots and soundboard recordings released so far would have some correction. i would have liked to see him look at slide away soundback recording officially released which i suspect had some heavier correction based on the audience recordings ive heard. but he looked at the acquiesce proshot instead. and it’s nice to see that while pitch correction was used it was rather minor and almost so cosmetic as to be not needed. his conclusion at the end is basically hey why was this even necessary when its so accurate as a live vocal already? and that feels sound to me. let live vocals be live. all the fiddling just justifies the need and value of every audience recording to preserve the true live sound warts and all.
owen morris has mentioned a type of earlier pitch correction used on liam’s vocals for wtsmg but indicated it was relatively minor. critically autotune was not around when oasis recorded their first three albums. it was available for sotsog sessions and noel played around with it a lot one could say too much (i certainly do). i think you can chalk it up to his fascination with electronic music at the time along with his insecurity about his own voice. but it’s why i often refer his live versions or demos especially with where did it all go wrong. i think he has a habit of messing with it too much. and that carried far into his birds era where the name of the band itself came from the idea of using women’s backing vocals to fill and carry his voice to heights he didnt think he could reach alone. i think he was wrong on that and dead in the water proves it but that’s another argument for another day.
here fil’s analysis shows the part of acquiesce that was “corrected” is noel’s vocals. and i think it’s worth saying it was not needed. he hit all the notes he needed to hit save a little wobble flat or sharp that is the nature of a live performance and the human voice. true perfection has to be imperfect noel so whats up with that? specifically the hitch on the our soul that was corrected feels like smudging a line on a painting to me. there was character in that hitch there! let it be!
