As I had guessed, I've already had someone threaten to unsubscribe from my blog due to the publication of this week's Snoop Dogg research. But I've had twice as many people say that they loved it, so I won't let this blatant bullying censor this important work!
I'm not the only one who's boarded the Auto-Tune Express, though -- check out these great reactions from around the web. On Little Yellow Different, Ernie captures the conversation from when I first considered devoting my life this week to blogging about Snoop:
Ernie: i am honest to god speechless
Anil: i win! i think it's so specialErnie: did they fucking put PCP in his weed?
Anil: no they put GENIUS in it.
Anil: this is why he's snoop doggErnie: this is on level with ice cube starring in kids movies, except... completely not
Anil: right
Anil: cube went soft
Anil: like, eddie murphy soft
Anil: meanwhile snoop got even more real
Anil: he's like "yeah, i used to kill people. now look at my round bed in space."
And meanwhile, Des McKinney gets all academic with it -- fantastic! Check out Auto-Tune Abuse in Pop Music, where Des regales Hometracked readers with 10 examples of what he considers Auto-Tune abuse. I have to quibble with some of his findings; Songs like T-Pain's are about the deliberate, prominent use of the effect. But some of the other examples are so abominable and wondrous that you'll want to listen to the entire audio clip regardless.
A side note: The most amazing thing about the Ice Cube-as-sitcom-dad evolution we've discussed above is not that the Crazy Motherfucker Named Ice Cube is now Disney-ready, but rather that Snoop can get away with wearing these pimped-out 80s-style clothes! Indeed, Eazy E had called our Dre for exactly that kind of outfit, if I remember correctly. There was a mocking photo of Dre in a baby blue outfit, released sometime around that 5150 album where Eazy E had the Black Eyed Peas (!) join him in making a dystopian Christmas song about how horrible life is. Now Eazy's dead, Snoop's appropriating the look that used to be worth mocking, the Black Eyes Peas are making overwrought musical presidential endorsements, and Cube is Ward Cleaver. And Dre is still making beats. Who'da thunk?
