By: Luke McCormick
provided photo
T-Pain
“Thr33 Ringz”
Release Date: 11/11
Record Label: Jive Records
Rating: 3 out of 5
First things first, Mr. Pain loses half a point for the record’s title which is such a pain in the A to type. Lucky for him, the music here, for the most part, makes up for its awful title.
Producer/rapper/singer/autotune enthusiast, the man has many title and many talents. Chiefly, his work behind the boards.
He can certainly work up a hit as he boasts on one of the skits here, he has had 11 number one songs this year. I’ll take his word for it, because it sure has seemed like for the last few years, any rap, R&B smash he’s had a hand in.
Most of the standouts on the album (which shall not be named), are when guests take the reigns from Pain. The autotune, vocoder voice grew old a while ago and hearing it songs after song can be a bit grating. So it comes as quite the relief when T.I. or Musiq Soulchild (forgot all about this dude) or Raheem Devaughn show up. The guests who probably should have been left off the invite list might surprise fans. The turns here from Kanye West and Lil’ Wayne are phoned in (as Wayne’s been doing for a while now, man used to kill every guest spot. “Make it Work for Ya” anyone?) and of course sung through the vocoder. Both of these artists have drank that T-Pain autotuner Kool-Aid and can’t put the damn thing down.
A full album of T-Pain just doesn’t seem that necessary since basically all of these songs will be all over radio soon, and taking them one by one can be quite the rewarding experience. Stacked up back to back, the synths and robot voice begin to sound real similar.
So, prescription for the new T-Pain? Take in moderation for best results.
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