Last weekend, we showed you The Economist’s “Did You Know 4.0” video. This week, we spotlight another internet novelty as part of a new series called AGD. Similar to the attention-getting devices used in speeches, we’ll spotlight news, novelties, and nonsense around the internet each week that should catch your attention and maybe even your audience’s as well.
Dragons in Congress, Michael Vick returns to the NFL, and geese get a no-fly zone in NYC.
They’re all part of this week’s headlines, and they’re also featured in the latest installment of auto-tune the news.
A 24-year-old Brooklyn musician named Michael Gregory has combined a number of evening news broadcast clips and turned them into an R&B/hip-hop/technco-music extravaganza called Auto-Tune the News.
Time magazine sums up the series and what auto-tune is for the uninformed:
For those unaware, Auto-Tune is a software program that alters singers’ voices to achieve perfect pitch. Used too much — or when they’re not actually singing because, y’know, they’re on the news — it makes people sound electronic. Cher was the first to use Auto-Tune in her 1998 hit “Believe,” and since then everyone from Kanye West to Faith Hill has gotten by with a little technical assistance. (Auto-Tune isn’t always a way to cheat; Daft Punk turned it into another instrument when they wanted to go all futuristic/animated in their video, “One More Time”).
The group has produced several videos in the series for the enjoyment of “shawteys” everywhere. You can find them all on their YouTube channel.