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Last updated: Thursday, May 24, 11:59 a.m.
Style & Culture

The Beat Report: T-Pain and Van Halen: gimmicky artists who changed music forever

By Kegan Zema
Posted on March 25, 2010, at 3:50 a.m.

If the auto-tuned R&B hits dominating the pop music charts are this decade’s version of trashy ’80s hair metal, then T-Pain is this decade’s Eddie Van Halen.

Both musicians are gimmicky and weird, but also revolutionaries. Much like Van Halen’s distinct guitar technique, T-Pain’s musical style has completely changed music. He is much more than just his signature shouts of “Shawty!” and “Yeah-ee-aah-ah.”

Let’s compare. Van Halen’s guitar work is still ringing through, even in the most serious of metal genres. Some form of his tone, his tapping, his solos or his guitar philosophy are present in bands from ’80s legends Ratt to Metallica to modern shredders like Mastodon. Van Halen changed the guitar and the way it is played, making music with staying power — even if a lot of the music he influenced is less than great.

T-Pain has completely changed the popular music world in the same way. You can’t listen to pop radio for 15 minutes without hearing some overtly pitch-corrected R&B or rap song. Thousands of artists have taken a crack at using the effect, including Lil’ Wayne, Kanye West and Snoop Dogg, but T-Pain still does it best. Even Akon, who has a similar style, can’t capture the swagger of T-Pain.

Van Halen didn’t necessarily invent all of the techniques he is known for, but is responsible for popularizing them. T-Pain didn’t invent Auto-Tune — technically software engineer and floutist Andy Hildebrand did — but he blew it up to what it is today.

Their music is much bigger than the sum of its parts, but both make good music. T-Pain is a decent singer, even without the Auto-Tune. He changes his voice for the effect, not necessarily to correct pitchy singing. T-Pain can also rap — check out “Karaoke” — but clearly his niche is in singing. The bottom line is that his songs are super-catchy and awesome to dance to. I could listen to “I Can’t Believe It” 1,000 times.

Van Halen is an awesome band, pretty much only because of Eddie Van Halen. Their eponymous album is ridiculously good and their discography is full of great songs led by great guitar work. Cheesy songs like “Dreams” are horrendous, but are products of their time and can be excused.

In some ways, Van Halen and T-Pain can even be considered musical instruments themselves. T-Pain is on so many tracks just singing the chorus because his voice is so distinctive. T-Pain makes hits, from Kanye West’s “Good Life” to the hilarious “I’m On a Boat” by The Lonely Island. Everyone knows that Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” would not be the same without Van Halen’s solo.

It’s clear the two artists are similar, but there’s one thing everyone is thinking — “Van Halen has been around forever and proven himself, but T-Pain is just getting started. What makes you think he’s better than all the music he has influenced?”

Answer: “Freaknik: The Musical” and “Aqua Teen Hunger Force.” I need no other reason to believe that T-Pain is a creative superpower than these two Cartoon Network shows. “Freaknik: The Musical” is a hilarious, star-studded hip-hop spectacle. The plot is hilarious and the music is amazing. Also, he starred as Frylock in the live-action episode of “Aqua Teen Hunger Force.” That was awesome.

Let the record show that long past Auto-Tune’s death — sorry Jay-Z, it’s not fully dead yet — T-Pain will still be the man.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 25th, 2010, 3:50 am. You can follow any responses to this article through the RSS feed.

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  • Jun

    I cannot understand how you’ve come to the conclusion that Van Halen is gimmicky. I don’t believe that anyone else considers Eddie Van Halen gimmicky.

    I’m not a huge Van Halen fan, I like some 80′s stuff and think that VH with DLR was pretty good, but I don’t feel compelled to defend them as much as I think you’ve really chosen a poor adjective.

    Van Halen was actually a little ground breaking and certainly very popular, these two things are not gimmicky. Your comparison doesn’t make sense. In many areas you seem to want to compare things which have less in common than you’d have the reader believe.

    I’ve never heard of T-Pain and am going to assume that they are not so groundbreaking or popular. When you include MJ into the mix it simply seems incorrect again. Do you think that MJ was gimmicky as well, or only EVH’s guitar solo?
    Or are you saying “Beat it” is gimmicky?

    It is all the more confusing because you have written that Eddie Van Halen is the primary if not only source of Van Halen’s greatness, but he is also in your lead comparison, which you’ve termed gimmicky.

    I think a better choice of band to compare, using the term gimmicky, would have been Kiss (you know, since they had a gimmick?)

    Even then it wouldn’t be a comparison I’d make. Perhaps your article is gimmicky in comparing two things with little in common in order to try and create interest.

  • Jun Strikes Again

    1. Hair bands were inherently gimmicky – the 80s hosted arena rock at it’s height. It was more about crafting a big, fun sound than really great songwriting. To address Van Halen specifically – have you heard “Jump”? You don’t think Eddie going all synth on everybody’s ass to churn out a formulaic pop song wasn’t a gimmick?

    2. I seriously laughed out loud when I saw you wrote being popular was an indication that something wasn’t gimmicky.

    3. He didn’t use Kiss because Kiss was all gimmick – though Van Halen and Eddie himself were gimmicky they had artistic merit. That they share this in common with T-Pain is the point of the article. Kiss pushed music forward about as little as AC/DC did.

  • Jun

    yeah, no.

    Van Halen had talent and they used a back bone of tried and tested pentatonic blues which isn’t gimmicky to me. Plus, they had talent. If Van Halen was gimmicky then then entire catalog of 80′s music was gimmicky, which wouldn’t make any sense.

    That they had large hair is only a fad of the times. If they were the only band that did it then I’d say it was gimmicky, but as you pointed out, everyone did it. It isn’t a gimmick, its a fad.

    My point about their popularity could be taken the way you phrase it, I guess, but that isn’t what I meant. I’m glad you laughed out loud!

    Laughing is good for you.
    You’re welcome.

  • Jun Strikes Again

    “Van Halen had talent…Plus, they had talent.”

    I won’t give the whole band that much credit, but I agree Eddie certainly did. That has nothing to do with being gimmicky though. Both Kegan and I are arguing that while they had gimmicky aspects to their style and music they made legitimate, important contributions to modern music.

    I really wish you had explained what exactly it is you meant about the relationship between gimmick and popularity because your comment about gimmicks and fads only suggests I got it right. A gimmick can catch on and yeah, become a fad (see, as Kegan pointed out, auto-tune). That doesn’t mean at its core it isn’t just a gimmick. 80s hair bands – a genre distinction that by no means comprised “the entire 80s catalog” – were ultimately cheesy as hell. “Jump”? “Hot For Teacher”? Hair bands played off nearly theatric partying and mischief, pushing the actual music to the back-burner. What seperated Van Halen from the pack was while many bands were pretty simple-minded in terms of technicality, Eddie could actually shred. Van Halen was till gimmicky, just not exclusively.

    You’re welcome.