A Blog About Making Culture
When Auto-Tune Strikes
February 6, 2008
Beginning with our exploration of Snoop Dogg's "Sensual Seduction", we wandered into the history of vocoders, talkboxes, and the most nefarious of voice manipulation technologies, Auto-Tune.
But it's hard to express just how delightful horrible it can be when Auto-Tune goes wrong without actually diving into examples. Let's start with an obvious illustration. Rapper/singer Faheem Najm, who goes by the stage name of T-Pain, (see more on Wikipedia) has staked his entire career on vocals where he uses digital pitch correction to various degrees; This has opened him up to the completely accurate accusation that he can't actually sing.
You don't have to take my word for it -- there's a pretty good case made for the fact that T-Pain can't sing in this popular YouTube video, which is entitled T-Pain Can't Sing.
Sure, it's easy to pick on a relatively less established artist who's trying to cross over from rap to the world of R&B crooning. So let's pick on someone more deserving of our scorn, someone who's actually a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, Billy Joel!
If you scroll in to about 20 seconds, his vocals on the National Anthem start sounding like he's auditioning to be T-Pain's backup singer. This performance clearly would have been vastly improved if Joel had simply inserted a transparent breathing tube into the corner of his mouth and insisted that he was opening up last year's Super Bowl game with an homage to the talkbox. Peter Frampton would understand.
Previously: The Death of Analog, AutoTune Edition
Des
I figured Billy Joel worked the auto-tuner on purpose, as an act of protest for being forced to sing through it.
My fantasy conversation goes along these lines:
NFL: “Please sing through this”
Billy Joel: “But I don’t need an auto-tuner. I’m Billy F.N. Joel”
NFL: “Yes, but this is the Superbowl, we take no chances. Everything must be perfect.”
Billy Joel (to himself): “Fine, then enjoy your audio equivalent of a wardrobe malfunction.”
l.m.orchard
Thank you for your coverage of this important phenomenon in pop music today. :) I’ve been hearing this for awhile now and never bothered to find out what it was called or how it was done.
I like how it sounds in synthpop and industrial stuff - it’s turned up to 11 there because most of those guys can’t sing and want to sound like bots anyway.
For awhile I thought the more subtle settings in pop music were kind of a sneaky trick, but these days I just assume all pop singers are bots.
Leland Johnson
The Auto-Tune effect, intentional or not, just hurts my ears. Luckily, The Simpsons covered this in Season 12 when *NSYNC appeared as guest stars.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEq9w69nHM8
I ended up downloading Auto-Tune at the time and experimenting with it. As someone who can actually sing, it was mostly just entertaining. I was also relieved to know that Auto-Tune is one thing that can’t actually be credited to NASA.
jlo
Spending more that 15 minutes on the Snoop Dog video is mind boggling to me. Enjoyed some of your views in the past but enough is enough. Unsubscribed.
michelle
Spending more than 15 minutes on Snoop Dog?!?! And autotune and recording affects and the pop universe?!?! Will you be my best friend? Subscribed!
Jason Scott
Let me be the first vanguard of commenting on this, the post-jlo Anil Dash weblog.
I couldn’t resist noting how there was a notable section on Wikipedia about T-Pain and Autotuning but that the endless erosion of dozens of hands has stripped it completely out of the entry, and locked it under protection.
Adam 
1.) The gentleman in the first video here refers to it as the “T-Pain effect,” when it is actually the “Cher effect.”
2.) I LOVE this effect when used properly. See: Cher. See also: Daft Punk. See also: R. Kelly (“Leave Your Name,” Double Up)
3.) R. Kelly can actually sing, so it’s even more interesting to hear the effect used very sparingly, as he does in “Leave Your Name.”
chason
Someone actually unsubed for a discussion on what may be the greatest music video of the ’00s??
Jackson West
When I first saw that Snoop had a reality show, I was a tad concerned for the universe. This video, however, has restored more hope than an Obama oratory. Thank you.
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