I hear that very often. I guess that phenomenon has something to do with lazy pronunciation, since I heard it mostly in songs, especially in rock or metal songs where singers shout and don't articulate the words properly. While I'm writing this post, I'm listening to a song where you can notice that clearly,
Paradise City by Guns 'n' Roses:
"Take me down to the paradise city where the grass is green and the girls are pretty" ---- the
y in
city and
pretty is not the same sound as the vowel in the verb
lead. The one in
city tends to the vowel sound in
lid, the same applies to the one in
pretty, but it even tends to the vowel sound in
led.
The fact is that I listen so much to that kind of music that I practically never pronounce a word with a final
y rhyming with
see. My
y in happy, pretty, city, electricity, etc. is very similar to the
i in
sick ( actually, I think it could vary from a sound halfway between
seek and
sick to a sound exactly equal to the one in
sick).
So, the music I listen influences my pronunciation, and I guess that's also true of other learners.