My Voice Without the Lies
The dissonance of pitch correction in KPop Demon Hunters
Last year, I reviewed KPop Demon Hunters. My main point was that I thought the story was weak, but the movie got by thanks to the strength of its music. I especially praised songwriter EJAE for her work on the film’s most popular songs. The movie’s most popular song, Golden, is still at #3 on the weekly Spotify “Top Songs - Global” list as of this writing.
I was surprised how much I enjoyed seeing Golden performed live by HUNTR/X (the pop group formed of the films’ singers), and my appreciation for the music grew with my respect for the writer and performers. Then I learned that they perform with pitch correction.
For the uninitiated, pitch correction (often colloquially called Auto-Tune, though that’s like calling all tissues Kleenex) is software used to snap a pitch exactly where you want it. It’s usually associated with singers, who use the software to make it sound like they’re on pitch when they aren’t. (Note: this is a massive oversimplification, and this video does a good job of explaining it without getting too deep into the science).
The general theory goes that if you use pitch correction then you’re an untalented hack who has no right to be a professional musician. That might be more blunt than many people would actually say, but growing up in choirs and around musicians, I think that sentiment is pretty close to their true feelings.
Visualizing the Lie: The Wings of Pegasus Analysis
I see your real face and it's ugly as sin
Time to put you in your place 'cause you're rotten within — "Takedown"
About a year ago, I started following the YouTube channel Wings of Pegasus. I enjoyed watching his analyses of vocal performances, determining which were pitch corrected, mimed, or otherwise altered. In this collection, he also highlights great performers, showing how the human voice can be beautiful without being perfectly “on pitch.”
As you may have seen in the Auto-Tune video above, voices make sound waves, which are inherently not flat (they go up and down, they don’t sit on a line). Add in vibrato, and the pitch can really get wild, and yet still be considered “in tune” because of how the human ear works. This is one of favorite videos for demonstrating how a pro can be “off pitch” but still sound great:
After I shared my KPop Demon Hunters review, I saw a Wings of Pegasus video go up, featuring the video I shared at the end of my article. I was disappointed because I had shared that video to celebrate their talent, only to find out the vocals are all being slammed onto perfect pitch by software in real-time.
Honestly, I can’t hear it. I’ve gotten pretty good at hearing pitch correction, but with this performance I couldn’t tell. I know it’s happening, I can see his pitch monitoring software, but without the visual, I wouldn’t have known. Part of me wants to believe that the performers are so close to being on pitch that the software doesn’t have much to do, but that’s probably wishful thinking.
Fil also mentions that “Golden” is obviously a challenging song to perform, live or not. It’s so difficult, it practically demands vocal tuning in order to sound good.
“Raw Vocals” and Other Myths
Oh you're the master of illusion
Don't try to fool me
Look at all the masses that you're foolin' — "Takedown"
EJAE did a long interview where she describes writing the songs for KPop Demon Hunters. She wasn’t the only writer, but her demos are credited as a large reason the movie looks, sounds, and feels the way it does.
Clearly, a lot of thought and care went into her writing. You can hear it in the way she inverts the “we are hunters” motif into the demonic “Your Idol” track. Or in the complex chords behind the lyrics “knocking you out like a lullaby / hear that sound ringing in your mind,” which create a genuinely hypnotic pull.
That’s why I can’t square the dissonance between this thoughtful songwriter and auto-tuned singer. In a later video, Fil demonstrates that EJAE’s demos are also pitch corrected. She refers to them as “raw vocals,” but they aren’t. They’re edited.
Does she prefer the sound of auto-tune? Because she came up through the KPop idol industry, is that how she’s used to hearing her own voice? Is she a liar? Did she misspeak? Or does she consider the edited demos to be “raw” because they hadn’t yet gone through the full orchestration and sound production?
Whether EJAE considers them raw or not, I’m curious what this means for the future of songwriting. Composers are constrained by physical limitations: The songs in The King and I were famously simplified to accommodate a lead actress with a limited vocal range. If she had had pitch correction software available to expand her abilities, what could those songs have sounded like?
This is where I become torn. As a singer, I pride myself on being able to find notes and stay on pitch. There are thousands of singers struggling to perfect their craft, only to be overshadowed by professionals using software instead of hard work. But… I like “Golden.” Does that make me a bad musician?
I don’t work in black and white, so the answer is obviously “no,” but how can I add to these song’s billions of streams while also saying I’m against using pitch correction?
Singing is really hard. I get not advertising that you are using help. No one is going to buy tickets to “SEE TAYLOR SWIFT PRETEND TO SING!” But don’t explicitly deny it, either. If you’re using tools, treat them like tools, not dirty secrets. Treat pitch correction like a guitar pedal or a backing track—part of the production, not a replacement for talent.1
The Hypocrisy of “My Voice Without the Lies”
So we were cowards, so we were liars
So we're not heroes, we're still survivors — "What It Sounds Like"
If you don’t know about KPop, there’s one thing you need to know about KPop: people are crazy about it. Fil seems to have learned that the hard way:
He talks about the cognitive dissonance people feel when they discover an artist hasn’t been upfront with them, but I think there’s more to it with HUNTR/X. This may be projection on my part, but I think people feel like Rumi, the movie character, lied to them.
What’s the message of KPop Demon Hunters? Be yourself, and your friends will love you, even if you’re not perfect. Using pitch correction is the opposite of “being yourself.” It’s lying. Ironically, the main verse of KPDH’s beautiful finale ends with the lines “my voice without the lies / this is what is sounds like.”
“My voice without the lies”? I can’t hear that line without smirking now. Because her voice does have lies. It’s pitch corrected. At the end of the movie, we don’t actually know what Rumi’s real voice sounds like because her performer uses Auto-Tune.
It’s like the Little Mermaid deciding to stay in the sea at the end of the movie. What was the point?
Turning Auto-Tune into Lore
Hear our voice unwaverin' 'till our song defeats the night
Makin' fear afraid to breathe 'till the dark meets the light — "How It's Done"
I’ve already said I think KPop Demon Hunters could have used some punching up in the story department. This pitch correction analysis gave me a whole new idea for their story: make the film a commentary on KPop.
Once upon a time… A trio of Korean women saved their village from demons by combining their voices into a powerful song. That song created the Honmoon: a magical barrier that slows demons in their attempts to wreak havoc on Earth.
Over the centuries, trios of women have kept the Honmoon strong by battling demons with song. Now, the Honmoon is almost at its strongest. The latest iteration of protectors is the KPop girl group HUNTR/X, but music isn’t what it used to be.
Instead of using their own voices to guide and inspire, the KPop industry forces them to go through infinite layers of software and correction, dulling their magic. They can’t even perform live without being weakened by Auto-Tune. Maybe the Auto-Tune is a tool co-opted by demons to limit the hunters’ abilities.
When demons pretend to be HUNTR/X and reveal Rumi’s secret demonic patterns, they cut off her pitch correction: showing her real voice. It’s nice, but it isn’t perfect. HUNTR/X’s popularity crumbles under the weight of the revelation that the girls weren’t truly singing with their own voices.
When Rumi comes to terms with her patterns and her voice, she rushes to save her friends from the demons’ influence. As she counters the demonic music, she doesn’t have any performance equipment with her, all she can use is her own natural voice. It’s shaky, and she might not have the range she reached in “Golden,” but her voice grows strong.
Her friends join her, and their grounding harmonies help her find the song’s key. Their voices grow more powerful and more beautiful as they get used to hearing them unaltered. Eventually, the surrounding people grow to prefer this authentic sound to the demons’ fake, perfect music, and they release themselves from the evil trap.
The Honmoon is sealed and stronger than ever, not because it’s “perfect,” but because it’s real and raw and human.
Does knowing an artist uses pitch correction ruin the magic for you, or is it just part of the modern industry? Let me know in the comments.
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Karin Manley
Founder & Editor
Read, Watch, Write: Unveiling Media’s Magic
ReadWatchWrite.substack.com
This post was created with the assistance of an AI, to help edit the content.
I don’t want to be too hard on the singers. Often, it seems like producers and managers modify performances without the singers’ knowledge, but since it happens to singers most often, it’s an easy shorthand.