The other comment is right that autotune is almost always present in recent pop vocals - even when the singer is excellent, a little bit is now commonly added to give it that certain sound.
Having said that, I think what you might be hearing is actually another modern trend - which is just boosting the high frequencies in the vocal a lot. Pop vocals right now are mixed very 'bright', sometimes almost painfully so.
Also common to actually have multiple vocal tracks. Sometimes just a double singing the same thing, but sometimes it can be pitched up or down an octave, and I've also seen "whisper" tracks where a whispered vocal is layered with the main one to give it even more of that bright breathy sound.
> autotune is almost always present in recent pop vocals
Autotune is often present in almost any decently-high budget studio recording of loads of different genres. Its just not obvious.
Autotune doesn't need to sound like Cher in Believe or T-Pain in any song he sings or Kesha. They're just cranking some of the settings to make those super obvious artifacts. When a sound engineer uses autotune (or the many other similar effects) you wouldn't even notice its there.
Speaking as someone who moonlights doing live music production, autotune is used loads of places.
When Cher's Believe came out, autotune had been a thing for several years. Its just that most people thought people didn't like speed == 0 until Cher made it a thing.
Having said that, I think what you might be hearing is actually another modern trend - which is just boosting the high frequencies in the vocal a lot. Pop vocals right now are mixed very 'bright', sometimes almost painfully so.
Also common to actually have multiple vocal tracks. Sometimes just a double singing the same thing, but sometimes it can be pitched up or down an octave, and I've also seen "whisper" tracks where a whispered vocal is layered with the main one to give it even more of that bright breathy sound.