He was doing just fine with it, churning out countless hits and becoming the featured King. Literally at the 2008 Grammy Awards, T-Pain was on every song that was nominated in one of the categories, that’s how in much demand he was.
Surely but truly, other artists wanted in on the phenom which kick-started the all too familiar saying “all good things must come to an end.” Other artists started incorporating the effect into their songs thinking that they could eliminate the need for REAL singers by using auto-tune like toilet tissue, literally and figuratively.
Soon everyone grew tired of the sound of auto-tune and that is when the bashing began. At the center of it all was T-Pain, who was dubbed the person that made it popular again, and it seemed like his career suffered a crushing blow during the summer of 09’ when Jay-Z declared auto-tune dead.
With the lack of hits T-Pain has been able to supply from 2009 till now, does he still have some fire left in his career?
I’ll be honest; when T-Pain first came out I just didn’t get his style. I thought it was a gimmick that would soon run its coarse. Of course other people did not share the same sentiment and boasted him as the future of music. T-Pain successfully teamed up with some of the most sought after artists and was soon a household name.
But then he started to create this character which in personal opinion did more harm than good. Parading around like a circus leader in his colorful suits and top hats got annoying for some and although he felt it was him being original, there was nothing original about him.
He depended on the software to put out music, that’s the first road block. Using the software here and there on songs is fine, it shows that an artist has diversity and can change it up here and there. But making it the sole foundation to one’s career isn’t wise especially when you don’t have other things going for you.
Though all of the listed things contributed to T-Pain becoming played out, it was Jay-Z declaring auto-tune dead that set the score. We all had been saying it from the beginning. Auto-tune had become quite predictable and overused not only by T-Pain but other artists who were interested in stealing a piece of other performer’s blueprint to cash in. But when Jay-Z said it, it was pretty much set in stone that it was no longer tolerated.
Let’s be clear here, Jay-Z isn’t the King of music or the voice of all fans. To be honest, Jay has dibble-dabbled in auto-tune himself. In fact, it was rumored that his album Blueprint 3 originally consisted of nothing but auto-tune tracks so clearly he was going down the very familiar road. Maybe he realized that he sounded horrible with the software and decided to axe the idea (we’ve all heard Jay sing and it is not pretty). Whatever the case may be; Jay throwing his opinion in the ring about auto-tunes set the tone for T-Pain’s future in music.
Can T-Pain still be a hot topic despite fans not being interested in auto-tune? Of course he can. He already is falling back and riding it silly by appearing in commercials and releasing iPhone applications that promote the use of auto-tunes; so as far as him being able to put food on the table using the software, T-Pain is good.
As far as music goes, he is going to have to give the auto-tunes a rest and get some singing lessons or stop singing and go back to rapping. He is a good songwriter and producer so working behind the scenes wouldn’t be too foreign to him.
He may be getting excited over Grammy’s and being recognized but that doesn’t mean that he will be able to duplicate that type of success. He has to get in the good graces of fans and the way to do that is to refrain from giving us the per usual and start shelling out the classics.
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