1UP, Joe

1UP, on which T-Pain fashions a noose out of autotune, and gleefully swings.

I don't have a problem with autotune in general. Any studio technique can be successful if utilized correctly. I've heard Sufjan and Kanye and Bon Iver use autotune, and I think it adds to the atmosphere these artists are trying to craft. With T-Pain, it's subtraction by addition; every song is slathered in autotune, and it's fucking terrible.

It might as well be part of pop culture's mythopoeia that T-Pain is a "great singer," because he doesn't act like it on here. Does it really matter if you have a beautiful voice if you are just going to sing like you're using an electrolarynx? And he won a fucking singing competition! That would be like Nick Foles winning the Super Bowl but then spending every off-season in Argentina playing B-level soccer tournaments. Use your talents! Fuck this shit!

Listening to this album was torture in every possible way. Shitty trap beats are the bedrock for otherwise formless autotuning into the void, endlessly, forever. Seriously, this album is 45 minutes, and it feels like an eternity. If my atheist ass is eventually shocked to find that purgatory really does exist, it'll be "It's My Dog Birthday" on repeat, possibly during a CrossFit workout.

In anyone else's hands, a song called "It's My Dog Birthday" might actually be interesting. There aren't enough songs about platonic love between heterosexual males. But in T-Pain's hands, it's just another generic club "banger." It's fucking lazy. The chorus rhymes "Patrón" and "long," which should win some type of award for shittiest slant rhyme. Honestly, I kind of just wish that T-Pain had really steered into the skid and written a song about his actual pet dog. There are so many regrets here.

I don't think I can bring myself to award this album a grade of 0—we'll save that for an album especially noxious, instead of just vanilla bad—so let's try to justify that half of a puke that 1UP will earn. We turn our attention to the second song, "RIP to the Parking Lot." It's a bad song, but seen in the right light, I can almost get a glimpse of some pathos that T-Pain was attempting to reach for. It's ostensibly about a song about "good times gone," a type of song that I can usually find some thematic resonance in (we tend to be a little nostalgic around these parts). But then I realize that it's a mirage, that I have absolutely zero empathy for any asshole revving engines and "poppin' pussy" in some fucking parking lot. These are the fuckers that cut me off when I'm driving down Broad Street. There is no need to say RIP because these shitbags will never die.

In the past, I've been really defensive about writing reviews for music that I don't like, because there was a sense that maybe there were people out there who would like that particular music anyway. But no shitty fictional courtroom one-acts required here—I can't fucking imagine any scenario that anyone would serious enjoy this album. I sit in the next cubicle over from someone who just last week was blasting a song that featured a chorus that went "he make me come faster than Amazon Prime," and I don't even think that she would like this album.

Who exactly is this for? Furries? Port Richmond 2 AM hoopty drivers? Time-travelers trying to frighten '50s soc hop teens with a taste of an apocalyptic future? I have no fucking clue. This motherfucker was on three Billboard #1 hit songs, so you'd think he'd know how to make a song that would appeal to somebody. There are no #1 hit songs on 1UP. There are no #100000 hit songs on 1UP. Fuck this album.

GRADE: 0.5 pukes out of 5