Music

Jay-Z’s Attempt To Kill Autotune: Fail

Autotune, the technology giving guys like T-Pain, Akon, and Kanye West’s 808s & Heartbreak their trademark sounds, was supposedly murdered by Jay-Z. Not so much: the I AM T-PAIN iPhone app enables ordinary folk to sound just like him.

Yes, for, uh, $US2.99, you too can now have the technology that gave rise to one of the most irritating sounds in modern hip hop and made Kanye West waste a bunch of months trying to sing. Rather than just sit down and die, T-Pain decided to cash in and bring autotune to the masses. If you thought the guy listening to music through his phone, sans headphones on the subway was bad, wait until you meet the one singing into his. This is wonderful, and awful, and I can’t not promise possibly sometime over the weekend posting a video of me using this in the comments, doing a Gawker Weekend Autotune Rendition of Jennifer Holiday’s “And I’m Telling You” verse. Meanwhile, watch and learn:

Comments (AU Comments | US Comments)

  • ms_priestypants

    Ancillary use- ransom demands.

    ms_priestypants

  • BooWahBabe

    That's kinda aight!

  • waldenasta

    that's kinda cool....

  • BallPtPenTheif

    The economy is in the shitter, war abroad and all this guy can cry about is rappers using Auto Tune?

    Wow... rap music is really irrelevant these days.

  • VoxPopuli

    I saw this on the latest installment of the "Autotune the News" bit and thought - hah, that would be a hilarious app.

    Uh, it's real?? Now I wish my ipod touch had a microphone.

  • jasonelias

    After seeing this commercial I'm pretty much waiting for the sweet release of death.

  • joshservo

    Oh snap! Now I can finally have my very own end-of-summer jam!

    [bit.ly]

  • Stream Of Consciousness

    @BallPtPenTheif: Dig a bit deeper. Jay-Z is as mainstream as you'll probably get.

  • Stream Of Consciousness

    Wack!! I can't stand auto-tune. Glad I'm not alone in that feeling.

  • huls

    as a dirty hipster, i want this. sadly i do not have an iphone.

    is that an oxymoron?

    huls

  • flyfrog29

    iphone apps are the new frontier of entrepreneurship. the ifart inventors made something like $800,000 in the first week the app was released.

    flyfrog29

  • Elpon

    @Elpon:

  • Elpon

    Jay-z can kill autotune only after this airs

  • raincoaster

    There is ONE legitimate use for Auto-Tune, and I can't believe nobody's posted it yet.

  • Tristan Alécksandt

    As a musician myself, who has spent my entire life studying music and perfecting the art, I find this sort of technology very, very annoying... especially so in the hands of these so called singers.

    Tristan Alécksandt

  • LutherHonduras

    @Tristan Alécksandt: As a musician who's always had to live with being a terrible, terrible singer, I agree with you. Suck it up, you can't sing. However, the music this crap is added on top of already sounds stupid, so the colors do match.

    LutherHonduras

  • cockfightbarmitzvah

    Jay-Z's slam on auto-tune was great, but KRS-ONe & Buckshot's "Robot" was better.

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