Leaked Britney Spears Track is Real…Probably

Was the leaked Britney Spears track before Autotune Real?

Yesterday the social media and interwebs blew up with the “leaked Britney Spears track before Autotune”.  The track disappeared from existence after about an hour.  But it’s still floating around.

Britney Spears – Alien NO AUTOTUNE by dioguinhoblog
I’m not posting the video to add fuel to the flame, so that you can all hear for yourself.  But a couple things happened that show the significance of such a clip surfacing.  Here’s what the world learned or probably should.

The  Process of Audio Engineering is a Mystery

The track producer William Orbit posted a statement Monday, July 7, explaining that the track is a vocal warm-up session, not Spears’ final take.  Anyone who has experienced ANY recording session knows that it is a creative and time consuming process.  Personally I have not heard the recording, but I can atest to some incredible singers warming up in very unattractive and scary ways.  When the takes begin though, they flip a switch and lay down some incredible things.  If you think any artist walks in a studio, presses record sings the song once and that is the final cut, you are sadly unaware of the time of editing that takes place.  Not because the artist’s aren’t talented, but because we as an audience are picky.  We want to hear the perfect mix with zero errors, that takes a lot of time.

In the Case of this track, if the vocals were going to be autotuned to the point which they were for effect, than maybe to make it easier, they knew it could be sung less than perfect.  We weren’t in the studio.

Artists are not Robots

Why is it so hard to believe that an artist doesn’t sound perfect all the time, that they warm up, that they get tired.  Especially one that performs almost 7 days a week in a Vegas show.  Imagine, that you were a runner, everyday you ran for 4 hours.  Some days you may be sore, you may need to stretch out a bit more or maybe the whole day is a struggle.  I’m not a Britney Spears apologist or even fan ( I do like her work but I wouldn’t say I’m a Fan), but when you work day in and day out with artists, you know them as people.  They aren’t super humans and I’m sure they would be the first to tell you that.

Is the recording Real?

My answer would be yes.  But the purpose of it is unknown.  Do engineers really record warm ups?  Sure.  Should the tapes have leaked? No.  Needless to say, someone lost a job.

Why did they pull it so quickly if it was just a warm up?

I can’t say 100% for sure, but do you want people watching you take a shower?  Probably not.  Warming up in front of people is difficult, it is like them seeing you get ready for the day, it can be embarrassing and can show an ugly side of you.  There is no reason to believe it was anything more than that.

What do you think?  Is it much ado about nothing?  Does it make an artist any less talented to use AutoTune?  Let us know your take!