I'm in the group that wasn't very blown away with his vocals on LALP, even though my friend insists its the best he has ever sounded. On this release, which I love very, very much, he still doesn't sound too great. Another Day particularly has what sounds like Chaos in Motion style tuning all over it (at least to me).
Your friend might need a little refreshment. Put on Live at the Marquee, or Live In Tokyo DVD for him to remind him what JLB USED to sound like.
But of course, it would be incredibly unreasonable for us to expect him to sound like that after 25 years and a vocal cord injury. But would I say he sounds better than he did on the previous couple of live DVDs that he's done in the 2000s? Yeah, I'd say so. I mean, he sounded very solid in Score, but he also played it very safe for that entire show, never doing any improvised screams or varying the parts too much. On the recent releases, there's a lot more showmanship from him. He's being a better "front man" not just a better singer.
Another Day was absolutely tuned and I mentioned that earlier too. You can hear it clearly if you're good enough at listening for it. In the real performance he hit some notes great and some notes flat. Here they're all in tune, but unnatural and CiMmy sounding much of the time.
How many times did he do Another Day during this previous tour? Was it a regular part of the set at some point? I only remember one Youtube video I watched where he did Another Day during the encore, as an Images and Words anniversary celebration. And it sounded pretty bad. But of course, I think making him do a song like Another Day for the encore is kind of ridiculous. It's a tough song as it is, and at the end of the night when he's all worn out, it would be very tough.
But my point is, if that's the performance on the Holiday release, then I'm not surprised at all that they had to autotune it. And I actually don't mind how it sounds at all.