Jay-Z Calls for Death of Auto-Tune in New Song
Though hailed by some critics as a harbinger of the impending apocalypse, the auto-tune phenomenon has proved to be an entirely unexceptional trend in hip-hop.
Like most movements in rap, from afrocentricity to bling, sped up soul to G-Funk, the voice-altering technology has had its share of good (Kanye West, T-Pain) and bad moments (most everything else, T-Pain). But the pitch changing software made popular by Cher appears to have to finally come to its unfortunate end as Jay-Z has taken it on himself to bestow the vocoder-like plug in with its official eulogy on a song entitled 'Auto-tune is Dead.'
According to reports, the song calls for artists to stop using the technology, over a beat by former Common producer NO ID.
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While Jay's forthcoming album 'Blueprint 3' was said to feature a fair amount of auto-tune initially, Hova scrapped it all and recorded 'Auto-tune Is Dead' instead. Having worked with Kanye and Timbaland on BP3, both staunch auto-tune advocates, attacking the technology seems an odd choice.
"We actually removed all the songs with auto-tune off of his album to make the point that this is an anti-auto-Tune album, even though I released an album that has all Auto-Tune," West told MTV, about Jay's upcoming release. "I like auto-Tune, so I do it, but you want the other thing -- like you'll wear a suit to a wedding and gym shoes to a basketball game. I think it's a perfect moment for Jay to provide some gym shoes to a basketball game."
From what we hear, the one person who isn't happy about the album's new direction is Timbaland, who had a lot of auto-tune on the tracks he produced for BP3.
Though Jigga-man can hardly be considered a current trend-setter, we can't be mad at him for taking a stand. After Kanye's '808's & Heartbreak,' it wasn't like anyone was going to do anything better with the technology, anyway.
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