T-Pain: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

That was definitely the way he marketed himself. He knew exactly what he was doing and is a great example of marketing vs music. T-Pain knows music, and is a fantastic musician, check out his NPR gig with just a keyboardist and his natural voice ▶ this video

You can thank T-Pain for it [1], but the hilarious thing is he can actually sing [2] unlike most of the others using it. [1] link [2] ▶ this video link

Pop performers are optimizing for something outside what hits a recording -- that is to say, in the same way that opera singers have to have some theatrical ability in addition to singing the music, pop performance these days involves a huge amount of choreographed dance. A pop singer I'll not name performed on a late night show and was a target of internet ribbing for having brought only some semi-awkward samba-like side-stepping -- though it's more than I or the karaoke singers could do! Once you start looking at the best singer-dancers rather than the best singers, you'll get closer to the real prerequisites for that genre. (And of course, "the obviously artificial sound" can be an aesthetic choice made by vocalists fully capable of recording impeccable vocals: ▶ this video )

Is autotune ubiquitous? Other than the trend of artists like T-Pain who used it for stylistic effect (who actually has a great natural singing voice- ▶ this video ), I don't think it was ever overwhelmingly used except in certain genres such as EDM. Any ignorance of Kanye West song names may simply be a reflection of his more avant-garde new albums not having the same memorable hooks as old ones, but I can at least think of one recent song by him ("Donda").

for what its worth T-pain has pretty conclusively proved that he didn't need autotune, he just used it as a gimmick to stand out: ▶ this video

T-Pain is a great singer, and I'm pretty sure he's the first person a lot of people think about when they think about autotune. ▶ this video