At Eurovision, it was illegal to use autotune to improve the performers’ voices. Now the EBU appears to be bucking the rule, revealing an exception on Norway’s TV 2 channel.
It should be noted that while the Eurovision rules ask the participants to sing live without the support of autotune , NRK allows its use, in the Norwegian national final MGP.
STATEMENT FROM EBU
Live vocals are very important to the format and tradition of the Eurovision Song Contest. The quality of the vocals is a big part of the overall evaluation of the performance of the entries, both for the jury and the audience at home. The EBU emphasizes:
This contest must be live and without manipulation. Autotune can be used as a sound effect in some parts of a song, but we don’t allow it to fix the singer’s pitch or vocals in the whole song.
This means that the use of autotune is allowed on a song, as long as it does not cover its entire three minutes. In fact, it is the first time that the organization of the competition clarifies this specific rule. Naturally, this created some reactions.
THE REACTION OF THE FANS
Morten Thomassen, president of OGAE Norway, is not satisfied with the fact that there is autotune in the MGP contest, which is the way to select Norway’s Eurovision entry. He spoke to TV 2 on Tuesday and stated:
I’m still not a fan of it, but unfortunately it’s here to stay. Autotune in a contest like Eurovision is like “putting too much makeup on the bride on her wedding day” and I already talked to NRK last year to withdraw it as a rule.
With this rule, the Eurovision Song Contest is not going to stay the same. Significant changes have already been made with the use of pre-recorded vocals from 2021 onwards, and these were not acceptable either .
What do you think should be done in this case? Is autotune progress for the competition or its “ruin”?
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It’s ruining the whole thing. It seems you can win the whole thing lacking talent. Poor, poor, poor…
disgusting – autotune should be banned – we ve enough autotune on the radio on mostly every 2nd dance track.