In some ways, Michael Bublé is just of a different time. The songs the Canadian crooner sings are the Motown, jazz and swing classics he grew up listening to with his grandfather. Bublé says he misses the pure, unadulterated sound of music made back then — though he is willing to use a little Auto-Tune once in a while.
"I use it as a means to get onto pop radio, onto Top 40 radio," Bublé says. "It's kind of an effect, I guess, that you hear so much on modern radio that if you don't have it, you don't really get played."
"People's ears are so tuned to it now. It's almost cosmetic surgery — you can fix little things. I think if it's not overused, it's okay. I have a feeling that if Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra were alive today, they might just use it once in a while."
Bublé's latest studio album, his eighth, is called To Be Loved. Here, he discusses singing — in the New York subway, in the shower, and as a way of staying in touch with his emotions — with NPR's Rachel Martin.
Interview Highlights
On spending time in the family business
My father was a fisherman, and I was a fisherman, and my father's father was a fisherman. My great-grandfather emigrated from Italy, and he was a shipbuilder. It's hard work, but I found great camaraderie in it."
On what's changed since the heyday of the male crooner
"These guys ... sang these incredibly romantic songs, and you know what? It was macho. There was something that was very manly about having the strength and having the courage to sing about love and romance. And I don't know what happened in our world where that was turned into being soft, because I don't think it's soft at all."
On why he won't cover Frank Sinatra's "My Way"
"I just — I haven't lived enough to sing the song yet. I'm a 37-year old kid. I haven't lived enough to sing that song with the conviction that it deserves to be sung with."
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