So out comes Jay-Z’s ‘D.O.A.’ track from the upcoming The Blueprint 3 album scheduled to release on September 11, 2009. Nice date.. Jay.

The death of Auto-Tune? Sure thing Hov… but highly unlikely.

Whether you know it or not.. Auto-Tune is used in almost every top 40 hit song that requires some type of melody. Even country music singers such as Tim McGraw or Faith Hill will admit using it during live concerts as an insurance to give their fans a good show. What you have been hearing on the radio recently from the likes of Lil Wayne, Kanye West, and the entire Konvict line-up is the ‘misuse’ of auto-tune dubbed the ‘T-Pain effect’.

But it goes back further than that.. this technique has been employed in dance music for ages with Cher being one of the first to employ it (a little differently) using a Digitech Talker vocoder pedal in her song ‘Believe’. And before T-Pain, the sound was dubbed the ‘Cher effect’.

I personally like the sound of Auto-Tune. It might not sound very ‘hard’ as in gangsta… but it’s definitely fun. Granted.. used too much it can get old really quick. I would never do a full length album based on it… but a mixtape or something.. yeah, why not? I’ve even used it (or misused it) in songs such as my RoboCop Remix. It’s also sprinkled throughout The Infection… some blatantly obvious.. some not so much.

So what prompted Jay-Z to get his panties in a bunch and declare the death of Auto-Tune? He told a Chicago radio station after watching this Wendy’s commercial.. he’s had it. Well.. I don’t blame him for this one. After watching this clip.. I would be disturbed too.

Now a lot of people think the effect can be used by just anyone and it will crown them King.. not true. Trust me.. you still have to be good rapper or singer to pull it off. And you definitely need to have a good sounding voice (like mine.. lol).

If you want proof of how horrible it can get without skills.. check this out… WARNING! it’s really really bad:

Forget Auto-Tune.. I think these kids are responsible for the death of music period.