Rather than a trendy sound effect, Kanye saw in Auto-Tune the power to communicate detachment and despair.
He clearly saw vast potential in the effect beyond T-Pain’s sex-robot routine - “I could never be your robot,” he later rapped on 808s highlight “RoboCop,” a notion no one ever doubted, at least until his recent Manchurian Kan-didate behavior in support of Donald Trump. Kanye is no one’s idea of a great singer, and Auto-Tune certainly emboldened him to attempt ideas he would have otherwise delegated to more gifted vocalists, but his headfirst dive into Auto-Tune in 2008 had more to do with creative expression.
Artists either took a stand against Auto-Tune, decrying it as a crutch for people who can’t sing, or they began to dabble in it themselves - sometimes because they did need a crutch, but also sometimes because they recognized it was just another sound effect opening up new creative possibilities, no different than the distortion pedal. It was one of those polarizing forces that sometimes sweep through music. Kelly’s “I’m A Flirt,” Flo Rida’s “Low,” DJ Khaled’s “I’m So Hood,” Lil Wayne’s “Got Money,” Chris Brown’s “Kiss Kiss,” Plies’ “Shawty,” Jamie Foxx’s “Blame It,” and Kanye’s own “Good Life”) were what ensured Auto-Tune became an inescapable aesthetic. The Floridian made waves with 2005 debut Rappa Turnt Sanga, but his 2007 chart-topper Epiphany and an endless stream of high-profile guest spots (among them R.
The pitch-correcting software, which makes humans sound like highly emotive machines, was all the rage in the late aughts, largely thanks to T-Pain. One thing 808s & Heartbreak did not do was popularize Auto-Tune. As the years roll on, it only looms larger over the landscape of rap, R&B, and the whole of mainstream pop. We can debate in circles about how original 808s really was and whether it’s a work of genius, but there’s really no argument against its status as one of the most important albums in music history.
Dissenters occasionally push back against that narrative, dismissing it as a byproduct of Kanye’s self-mythology, but they’re fighting a losing battle. And if you’ve followed critical discussions about rap during that time period, you’ve probably noticed the prevailing theory that 808s changed everything. If you’ve followed the development of rap music over the past decade, you’ve undoubtedly heard the influence of 808s & Heartbreak, the album Kanye released 10 years ago this Saturday. Here it is: the pivot point in Kanye West’s career and maybe recent hip-hop history at large.
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