Musical Musings

I hate Auto-Tune. It is the bane of the music industry, imbuing those who lack the ability and talent to control their own voice with a superficial, robotic overtone, ostensibly granting them “perfect” pitch. It’s the latest designer drug and everyone’s doing it. The opiate of the average, redeemer of the talentless, Auto-Tune has managed to worm its way into the music industry and pollute the airwaves as seemingly every other song on the radio is cursed with overly and unnecessarily synthesized vocals. As far as this jaded listener is concerned, Auto-Tune has long overstayed its welcome.

So, what does this little rant have to do with OUTERSPALiEN REiGN? The duo of Johnny ROCKET(!!!) and S. McFLYY has crafted a very cohesive and thematically impressive work in OUTERSPALiEN REiGN, and they used Auto-Tune to do so.

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It’s been a long while since I’ve heard an album as cohesive as this; an album that transcends its own medium and becomes something else entirely. This is one of those rare albums that needs to be listened to from beginning to end at least once to truly be appreciated. In much the same way that you lose some of the experience when you enter a movie theatre well after the movie has started playing, jumping into the middle of this is highly unwise. The ArchAndroid, the long-awaited debut work from Janelle Monáe, is an album that everyone needs to listen to. It’s just that good.

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