A few weeks ago, Jay-Z released the song “D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune),” much to the delight of some corners of the Internet. It’s basically a song that rails against the proliferation of Auto-Tune, software that can alter/correct the pitch of someone’s voice. Its most notorious use is to make the singer sound like a robot, thus hiding their inability to sing at all. It’s huge in hip-hop, for whatever reason.
And while you’d think Jay-Z’s song would be bad for business, well, it’s just not. The company that produces the software, Antares Audio Technologies, wouldn’t get into hard numbers, but acknowledged that it has seen a “boost in business” in the weeks after the song’s release.
Here’s my problem: the song is produced by Kanye West, who, let’s face it, has ridden Auto-Tune for all it was worth. (Have you heard “Love Lockdown”? It’s Auto-Tuned to the nines.) It’d be like Barry Bonds railing against the evil of steroids.
Yet here’s Jay-Z self-righteously proclaiming the “death” of something that’s already lined to pockets of so many of his partners. How convenient.
And to quote someone from What.cd, “[Death of Auto-Tune,] And apparently the re-birth of cheesy guitar riffs?”
In conclusion: Jay-Z, rubbish hypocrite. (Nas was always better, by the way.)
You’re a tech site. Keep doing tech news. Music critiquing is not your forte.
LMAO!!! Definitely.
Lot’s of yawnsome half truths fill a mediocre and random post. No I.D. produced the track, not Kanye. Kanye’s use of autotune is obviously played out but irrelevant as no one has to like everything their friend or business associate does (you would have been far better off chastising his endorsment of t-pain).
Also any comment from what.cd is pretty much a laughable dig in the right direction, not the basis for vitriol and half-arsed opinions.
In conclusion: Nicholas had no news to fill his quota today so strung some ill-researched figures and opinions to make something resembling a story, kind of like Nas does with his tracks (nothing personal against nasir apart from everything he is and portrays himself to be).
Jay Z sucks and his song as terrible. Im not gonna defend auto-tune usage, but you do what makes you money. Today’s population is dumb enough to fall for it, so as long as they keep buying records, rappers will keep using auto-tune.
Jay z is fuccin great. stop bein a hater man. Jay has more money than you can count so fall the fucc bacc like. if he succs so much how the fucc is he makein so much money then. Jay is one of the only real hip hop artist.Every thing is crank dat, and Your a jerk.Now how is jerkin kool……
DOA may not be my kind of music but its a really sucky song.
Kanye West did an incredible job with 808s & Heartbreak using the Auto-Tune in every song.
T-pain is critically acclaimed with using the software in his songs.
heck Boom Boom Pow is auto-tuned.
The song isn’t great but Jay-Z does not suck. He may be a hypocrite in saying what he did cuz he works with many artists that do use Auto-tune but he’s also right. Most of these artists are not even putting in any work to their craft, just using technology to reap the money. I guess it really doesn’t matter how you make the money as long as you do. http://ziggytek.com/
Also – Jay points out that he may be offending people with this track in the actual lyrics!
Kanye has ridden autotune???
what about T-Pain: someone with absolutely no talent that has used Autotune to justify his entire career. Kanye used it on one album…
@Nicholas Deleon
Wow, who would have thought a blogger to intentionally start a FlameWar, ex-specially from TechCrunch, Go figure.
Naz, fell off the wagon YEARS ago. He had to make-up with Jay-Z to make some REAL money.
Jay-Z, why knock him for trying to bring some-kind of class to Hip Hop. He’s about the only Rapper out there who still uses real music in his songs. Great beats!!
Hip Hop has went south fast. There isn’t that many great artists left, why knock one of them.
The song isn’t great, but the message is loud and clear… GET RID OF AUTO-TUNE!
…Its most notorious use is to make the singer sound like a robot…
It’s, actually, a Vocoder that makes your voice sound like a robot not “Auto-Tune”.
Of course, they probably can be used in conjunction,BUT, it’s already evident that the Hip-Hop community doesn’t take that much time when they
stealwrite8bit sound effectsmusichaters hatin
jay-z is god PERIOD
Jay-z makes more money and I’m not taking nothing away from the brother but Nas is HipHop, Jay is just a rapper.
jayZ is the best rapper period. he lyrically destroies Nas im sorry but he does. JAY Z IS HIPHOP EVERYONE ELSE IS JUST RAPPERS
This song lays out a great message for all. Except, for the massive hypocrisy… within the SAME ALBUM
A mere 11 tracks after this song DOA, there is a song titled Forever Young. The chorus of this song is so heavily autotuned (by a guest performer obviously) it just ridicules the integrity of DOA.
this song sucks