Terri Gross interviewing Richard Carpenter, played his original version of Superstar, then Sonic Youth’s. “Like it? Why would I like it???”

Felt a bit less oblivious than usual the other night when I discovered that one of Stuck’s contributors had never heard of auto-tune, nor had an accompanying Music Head who doesn’t happen to be a Stuck contributor. I’ve been seeing the term “auto-tune”  thrown around (mostly derisively) on Twitter for a year or so, but had not been able to divine its meaning from context. OK, so we all apparently live under a huge Dad Rock, despite best efforts to stay relevant.

By sheer/mere coincidence, just stumbled across rocketboom’s excellent hagiography on the history and mystery of auto-tune, which amounts to the use and abuse of an audio-editing software plugin in genres of tunage to which I have no exposure. The sound is pretty cool, but beware – the meme is apparently now so old that it’s already dead, so this confessional post is definitely uncool.

Begrudging thanks to Weird Al Yankovic for helping to illuminate.

Know Your Meme: Auto Tune (featuring “Weird Al” Yankovic) from Rocketboom on Vimeo.

Via Very Short List

In the 30 years since the Stooges recorded “I Wanna Be Your Dog,” the song has been covered by a variety of other artists, including Uncle Tupelo, Joan Jet [sic.] and Sonic Youth (“Weird Al” Yankovic even paid tribute, with the parody “Let Me Be Your Hog”). But perhaps the most unexpected—and entertaining— version is this short film by Georgie Greville.

Would Iggy approve?