Holy god. Not 12 hours ago I was thinking to myself, “what is that awful sound-effect everybody is using nowadays, and can I blame Cher?” Now I know. Thanks SDMB!
I have no idea why this is tolerated, I really don’t. Back in my day (get off my lawn!) we excoriated Milli Vanilli for trying to pass off someone else’s vocals as their own, but if those vocals are done by Windows, it’s okay?
Fuck that shit. If you need Auto Tuning on more than 1% of your notes, get a fucking vocal coach, bitch. Or start getting music written in a key you can handle.
(Stance softened for SMG, who’s not and never claimed to be a professional singer, thank gods.)
Me too, but partly just because it was different. I really like the use of unconventional sounds and effects in music, but when overdone anything gets old.
Fortunately for me, I don’t like rap, so I haven’t had to endure it like the OP has.
Two questions:
- Why did you go back the second time?
- Why did you go back the third time?
That experience sounds T Painful! 
(sorry, that was so horrible, I know)
Just to be clear, you understand that what’s being criticized in the OP is only tangentially related to pitch correction, right?
-FrL-
I agree with this completely; it does SOUND very unique in Waynes case. He uses auto-tune better than anyone else that’s doing it right now (which is everyone). And I thought *Dedication 3 *was a perfect follow up to The Carter 3. But that’s beside point. He’s doing something that everyone else in the industry is doing. Royce’s new mixtape. 50 Cent. Cam’ron. Kanye’s entire 808’s and Heartbreaks album. TI. Wayne’s new stuff. 50 Cent and Cam’ron can be forgiven because no one has ever accused them of being ground-breaking, but the rest have no excuse.
Like I said, it’s hard enough being a rap fan, having to defend their lyrics or out of booth antics, and this doesn’t make it any easier. Critics of the music now have something else to point to when they argue that rap isn’t art. They’re still wrong, but I understand their dismissal.
That being said, I think that the ONLY rapper who should EVER use auto-tune would be Weezy. Or Jadakiss. That could be dope too…
I support it in cases where it’s meant to convey a sense of ironicness or disconnectedness, as in “Nails for Breakfast, Tacks for Snacks” by Panic at the Disco.
And fortunately I don’t have to listen to non-intropspective stuff if I don’t want to.
never mind
You’ve never heard of **Rakim, Biggy, Jay-Z, Eminem, Big Daddy Kane, WuTang, Public Enemy, A Tribe Called Quest, The Lost Boys, KRS-1, NAS, DMX, Rah Diggah, Jean Grey, Heavy D, Big Pun, LL… **there’s a very long list of excellent spitters - these are just off the top - you really believe that *this *guy will be known as one of the greatest?
Of course I’ve heard of everyone of those. And yes, his name will be right up there. I did not say he was better than any of them, I said he was in the same league.
On a sidenote, I would substitute Big L for DMX, The Lost Boys, Rah, and LL. While all four of them brought something new to the scene, none of them were particularly nice with their lyrics, certainly not on the level of Big or Rakim*.
*This is generous. I would love to hear how in the hell Rah fucking Diggah made your list. I’m pretty sure her whole career is because she slept with Busta. Spliff Star has to have gotten his start the same way too.
Thanks for the info. I tried to find her singing it in her normal voice, but no dice. That was one of the sweetest examples of the human voice I have ever heard.
Thank you **FreeByAnyMeans **and jali, I was going to comment on the same line.
I was all set to agree with the OP (well, I still do) but damn that one line just killed the thread. I mean Lil Wayne seriously? Basically all the TRL/“sucka free” Mtv shit, strikes me as what old, rich, white guys think Hip Hop should be- dumbed down, cash obsesses, mysoginistic, and violent. That is *not *what Hip Hop is all about but because the marketing reps say so thats the face it gets. You can argue that obviously there is a market for that, but my problem is that the gate keepers(record execs) only market that. Pisses me off to no end.
Kayne is good, but not great; I don’t know if his ego is an act or not, but it loses him alot of props in my book. He does still carry alot of props for the Bush/Katrina thing though.
STT, If you like Kayne and Wayne, might I suggest Danny!(D.Swain) or Lupe Fiasco. Similar styles, but the level in talent in lyrics and beats is worlds apart.
On top of jali’s list of classics I’ll add a few favorites of my own; some old, some new:
Arrested Development
Atmosphere
Blue Scholars
Blueprint
Brother Ali
Buck 65
Bus Driver
Common
Danny!
Digable Planets
Dose-One
Flobots
Fugees
Gnarls Barkely
Guru
Immortal Technique
Jedi Mind Tricks
Kool Keith
Living Legends
Lupe Fiasco
MF Doom
Mos Def
Pharoahe Monch
Rass Kass
Sage Francis
Saul Williams
Talib Kweli
The Coup
…I could do this all day. Between the two list I would say Kayne fit in there, as well: Busta, Rass, Gza, (I haven’t heard enough of Royce to say).
Wayne, Pain, Fiddy and Diddy, however, suck. Just like a autotune/vocoder, marketing does not equal talent.
Damn! I forgot about L. Okay, but how about we keep X and nix Heavy D? Yeah DMX is “cash obsesses, mysoginistic, and violent” like I was ranting about, but the dark, grittiness of it makes it work.
Bone Thugs have to be on here too, a good and really unique sound.
Daz and Kurupt rank in on my all time list also.
ETA: Double damn- I forgot one of my top favorites: Illogic. Check out the original of his “1000 whispers”; best hiphop song EVAR!
I agree with this 110%. Following Wayne since Hot Boys and his one line on “#1 stunna” (“you know how slow the new rolls royce be”) has been absolutely fascinating. I think it was “The block is hot” that I really started to notice him and wonder if he’d stick around, but it was stuff like “fireman” and the first Dedication that was the turning point, I think. He’s grown into one of the weirdest, most interesting, and flat-out greatest mc’s working.
And Nasir Jones…holy shit, how do you get endless acclaim out of “the world is yours?” I don’t even think it’s Illmatic at this point that he’s coasting on! Truly the most overrated mc of all time.
Ugh, no. Just no. I thought backpackers died off in '02? 
Get beyond “lollipop,” seriously.
Nah, just got a little hungry.
“I heard a few heads say that hip hop is dead
No it’s not, it’s just malnourished and under fed”
-Geo, Blue Scholars
RAH DIGGAH!?!??! :eek::eek::eek::eek:
Somebody start a new hip hop thread please.
God, if ONLY they got a little hungry! What backpackers got instead was complacent and lazy, and then suddenly there were major label records coming out that were twice as weird and creative as anything from the undieground. I mean, “A milli” alone singelhandedly laps the entire recorded output of Anticon, Rhymesayers, and Def Jux combined, man.
The turning point for me was Ghost’s Pretty Toney in '04 - the same year that Def Jux was releasing stuff like S.A. Smash. You could practically hear the entire industry change right in the middle of Trife’s verse on “Biscuits.”
One thing I wanted to point out is that Autotune wasn’t necessarily designed to be used it the way that some artists are using it. So its not really really Autotun which is to blame but the artists that “abuse” its power. Used properly (and subtly) it is a powerful studio tool.
I am the OP, and I condone this hijack.
First, there is a HUGE difference between the shit you hear from Wayne on MTV and the stuff on his mixtapes. I LOATHE his singles and club songs, but lyrically, there is not anyone out right now who is on his level. For real.
And you’re not going to like this, but 99% of all your top lyricists list is back-packer stuff. Now, I’m from Duluth MN. All college radio up here plays is Brother Ali, Atmosphere, stuff like that. To me, and this is my personal opinion, when you listen to a white guy from St Paul rap, the hunger is lacking, and it’s that hunger that is what makes rap music so compelling. I’m not saying that white people can’t make good rap music, I’m saying people from the 'burbs can’t make good rap music. It’s impossible. IMHO.
As far as the consumerism and violence and misogyny in Weezy and other mainstream artists stuff, I see all that as beside the point. It’s all about the turn of a phrase; the cleverness and out-of-the-box thinking needed to come up with some of their lines. 50 Cent does not have this (anymore, when he was poor, he sounded like a pitbull on the mic. Give him a few dollars and he becomes Ja Rule, but that’s neither here nor there.) Also, I don’t like the implication that because I like Weezy I must like Puff or Fifty or any other “mainstream” artist. There’s good rap music and there’s bad. 90% is bad.
As far as your list goes, I would agree with Kurupt, Guru, Ceelo, Monch, and Rassy. I would add Killer Mike also. The rest are all the same. Saying the same things the same ways. Except Kool Keith, but the market for songs about space dinosaurs and haircuts from the future is only so large. (If you havn’t already, get an album by The Analog Brothers called Pimp To Eat. It’s Kool Keith, Ice T, Mark Live, Black Silver, and Pimp Rex and you will probably love it.)
And I will say that if rap music is around in 20 years, it will sound like Saul Williams. That man transcends genres and categories. Hand’s down the best thing to happen to rap/hip-hop since Kool Herc.