Robot-Vox

I was at a local pizza joint yesterday when I heard T-Pain's "Can't believe it." I know the song's been around since July 2008, but I'd somehow missed it.

And there it was again, the "Cher effect" that has sullied so much of contemporary pop music. I listened and wondered: what's the best way to explain the sound?

• A cat being strangled by Robby the Robot?
• An 8os-synth band chewed up by a food processor?
• The auditory culmination of all that is conventional and trite in pop music?

I dunno, but it reminded me of a New Yorker piece about the effect. Here's a snip reminding me to chill out a bit:

"At this late date, it’s hard to see how the invisible use of tools could imply an inauthentic product, as if a layer of manipulation were standing between the audience and an unsullied object. In reality, the unsullied object is the Sasquatch of music. Even a purely live recording is a distortion and paraphrasing of an acoustic event."

Read the entire piece: The Gerbil's Revenge