Love it or hate it, for a while in the mid-to-late aughts, it felt as though nearly every song on the Top 40 featured Auto-Tune. That of course was thanks in part to the work of T-Pain, who used the audio processor to alter his voice on hits like “Buy U a Drank (Shawty Snappin’),” “Low,” and “Blame It.” But in an upcoming episode of Netflix’s This Is Pop docuseries, he reveals that the backlash to his signature style (which, of course, inspired many copycats) had a real impact on his mental health.
“Usher was my friend. I really respect Usher. And he said, ‘I’m gonna tell you something, man. You kinda fucked up music,’” T-Pain said in a clip from the eight-part series that was released by Entertainment Weekly on Monday. He added that he initially laughed and thought the “U Got It Bad” singer was joking, but he apparently wouldn’t drop the subject.
“He was like, ‘Yeah man you really fucked up music for real singers,’” he continued. “I was like, ‘What did I do? I came out and I used Auto-Tune.’ He was like, ‘Yeah, you fucked it up.’ I’m like, ‘But I used it, I didn’t tell everybody else to start using it.’ That is the very moment, and I don’t even think I realized this for a long time, but that’s the very moment that started a four-year depression for me.”
Of course, trends come and go, and the idea that any one in particular has the ability to ruin music as a whole is ridiculous. The same has been said about disco, or hip-hop, or even the Beatles; every generation loathes and fears the music made by the one that follows it. But just because you don’t understand something or care for it, doesn’t mean it’s capable of destroying the medium. And we’d be remiss if we didn’t point out that Usher himself used Auto-Tune on his 2010 single “OMG.”
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