People can hear it and that's expected and intentional. To a large extent the to-the-cent precise vocal pitch and quantized beat is the "sound" of modern popular music. There are a huge number of tiny decisions that affect the final "feel" or sound of a recording and there have been since the beginning of recorded music. Each era/genre combo in that matrix has a different set of norms and expectations around those decisions.
The median technical skill and musicianship of most mainstream musicians now is just unreal compared to any point in the past that I know of. Applying those tools in that way is not technically necessary and is essentially part of their artistic statement: "I am part of this moment, I am influential within it." Musicians, even popular ones, still do release recordings with a different feel, but that is making another sort of statement.
I'm also not the biggest fan of this sound, I like a fair bit of sloppiness in my music. But it's a mistake to consider this either a necessary or accidental tradeoff with these tools. It's intentional, even if it may be one of those things that most producers wish they could just not do.
Another factor, minor in general but relevant to the current thread. The more you freak your relationship to the pulse the more you need to be precise elsewhere to keep the feeling of mastery over your instrument & performance. Being late can be in a groove, being flat can be really feeling it, being both registers as sloppy etc.
In the style influenced by Dilla, the beats don't land where you "expect" them to, and for that to feel intentional they need to be quantized precisely so they're off by consistent amounts. There's flexibility here for sure and good live percussionists can push both very far. But in a recording, there's already other pressure to nail everything to the grid so why not play it safe.
"Just fix it in protools" is a common phrase uttered by too many musicians to count in the pages of TapeOp as well as their podcasts, to a degree that would seem to argue against your points raised here. There may be many artists that are technically proficient and still employ these techniques as an element of their aesthetic, but there are far more who acknowledge using it as a crutch.
Agreed, I don’t think most current-day musicians are amazing or even technically proficient at what they do. Hell, most people can’t even name a non-vocalist instrumentalist who recently appeared on a record they enjoyed.
Not that that’s some kind of mark of shame on anyone, styles and tastes differ. But I know that personally in my own musicianship (semi-pro/bedroom artist) I’m absolutely nowhere near the level of some of my idols, who themselves aren’t as much once-in-a-generation virtuosos as they are masters of feel, production, and atmosphere.
The median technical skill and musicianship of most mainstream musicians now is just unreal compared to any point in the past that I know of. Applying those tools in that way is not technically necessary and is essentially part of their artistic statement: "I am part of this moment, I am influential within it." Musicians, even popular ones, still do release recordings with a different feel, but that is making another sort of statement.
I'm also not the biggest fan of this sound, I like a fair bit of sloppiness in my music. But it's a mistake to consider this either a necessary or accidental tradeoff with these tools. It's intentional, even if it may be one of those things that most producers wish they could just not do.
Another factor, minor in general but relevant to the current thread. The more you freak your relationship to the pulse the more you need to be precise elsewhere to keep the feeling of mastery over your instrument & performance. Being late can be in a groove, being flat can be really feeling it, being both registers as sloppy etc.
In the style influenced by Dilla, the beats don't land where you "expect" them to, and for that to feel intentional they need to be quantized precisely so they're off by consistent amounts. There's flexibility here for sure and good live percussionists can push both very far. But in a recording, there's already other pressure to nail everything to the grid so why not play it safe.