Why is so much music recorded out of key?

That auto tune garbage

it makes the music match the voice or something.

years ago, real musicians did t have this issue.

these new bands and singers are all idiots, and need autotune to sound average

check YouTube for that Brad Delp singing without,music to his Boston song  more than a feeling, that was all him, a real singer. These days. Blechk!

all junk, minus a few of course

When I was younger I played guitar constantly- rarely was A440 tuning used. Most rock guitar players followed the 1/4 step down tuning- others standard. It was all about the range of the vocalists. There are many others as well- Drop D and open tunings as well as the move to 7 string instruments with offsets on 6th and 7th. It just takes a trained ear to catch what’s going on.

Interesting comments.

@designsfx Doesn't make sense to me to tune down a quarter tone for the vocalist as a quarter tone difference shouldn't be that hard for a vocalist to deal with ,even at the top or bottom of their ranges. Also this phenomena occurs with recorded music that is all instrumental as well. I suspect bdp24 is right in that the producers do it for some reason. 

@alvinnir2 

Not sure exactly how it got started but that is what I had heard when I first asked the question. When I first started learning I always tuned the guitar to my folks piano only to walk back to my room, put on a record to play along with and found that I was out of tune. I don’t think it has to make sense- it’s just what it is.

Google says that the 440 hz A was established by the American Standards Association in 1936. In other words, the choice is perhaps a bit arbitrary. But it always seemed to be somewhere in that neighborhood.