Back in the early 80’s there was this group called Zapp. They were fronted by Roger Troutman. Allow Wikipedia to explain in further detail:

Roger Troutman (November 29, 1951 – April 25, 1999) was the lead singer of the band Zapp who helped to pave the way for West Coast hip hop after the scene’s rappers heavily sampled his music over the years. Troutman was well known for his use of the talkbox, a device that is connected to an instrument (frequently a keyboard) to create different vocal effects. Roger used a custom-made talkbox–the Electro Harmonix “Golden Throat,” as well as a Yamaha DX100 FM synthesizer. As both lead singer of Zapp and in his subsequent solo releases, he scored a bevy of funk and R&B hits throughout the 1980s. In his later years, he was mostly known for singing the chorus to the hip-hop classic, “California Love”.

So in the 80’s his whole Talkbox/Vocoder sound was completely kick-ass, mind-blowing & totally groundbreaking (even though Frampton did the whole thing earlier he’s kind of a douche so he doesn’t really count).  Frampton was just aimlessly wanking with his Talkbox, whereas Roger made it FUNKY. To this day, I still consider “More Bounce To The Ounce” to be one of the funkiest songs ever recorded, right up there with “Atomic Dog”, “I Want To Take You Higher”,  & “The Big Payback”.

Fast-forward 20 years. Now everyone from Cher to T-Pain is overdosing on the Auto-Tune, which is like the next-gen version of the Talkbox. But while the Talkbox was actually played like an instrument, Auto-Tune is a piece of software that can make even the most talentless hack in the world sound coolly robotic. Ever wonder why choads like Kanye West self-destruct in epic fashion every time they try to pull it off live? Auto-Tune! Auto tune is to music what the calculator is to math. All you have to do is push a few buttons, and it just does all the work for you. So if you can’t sing but you still want to be a pop star, go out & buy Auto-Tune & just fuck around with it for 5 minutes. Before you know it you’ll be sounding like a Madonna club remix.

Every time I’m subjected to a pop radio station I hear some “singer” auto-tuned like a fucking chipmunk robot, and I think, “Roger would be rolling around in his grave if he heard this shit”. Unfortunately Roger is dead- his brother killed him in a murder-suicide- so we’ll never know what he thinks about it.

But a while ago my hatred of Auto-Tune was transformed! I discovered something so amazing, so brilliant, it’s like the creative extension or Roger’s dream… Auto-tune the news!!!! If you don’t already know, I can’t even explain it. Just go to YouTube & find it. It’s the perfect combination- apply something ridiculous to something else that’s already ridiculous. Total genius. At last, everyone in the world can see Auto-Tune for what it really is- an incredibly funny joke.

- Patrick Buchanan