Swamp Dogg - Love Loss & Auto-Tune - LP - Joyful Noise

Love, Loss, and Auto-Tune is a gem, a unique and unpredictable moment in the life of a unique and unpredictable artist that some consider a national treasure. Despite the record’s overriding theme of loss, Swamp Dogg’s warped sense of humor is still intact. Let’s remember that we’re talking about an artist who released a “greatest hits” album in 1976 filled entirely with new songs! Swamp’s comic side is evident on “$$$ Hunting,” which rolls out with a funky Zapp-like bounce. There’s also “Sex With Your Ex,” where Swamp Dogg extols the benefits of the song’s title theme over random bursts of feedback and noise.

The reference to Auto-Tune in the title is not incidental, the album’s sound is built around Swamp Dogg’s experimentation with the ubiquitous vocal processor. While Auto-Tune has become a fixture of the modern pop music landscape, this is Swamp Dogg’s first major exploration of the device. “Every time I listen to some new music that everybody thinks is the greatest thing since hot biscuits, it's full of Auto-Tune,” Swamp Dogg says. His use of Auto-Tune technology is not gratuitous. Like Kanye West on 808s & Heartbreak, Swamp Dogg utilizes the cold digital tone of Auto-Tune to convey a sense of emotional detachment during the album’s most anguished moments.