By Staff Writer – Boonsri Dickinson (@boonspoon)

When “Auto-Tune the News” puts a video on YouTube, it goes viral.  Gizmodo put it best: Combine the news with Auto-Tunes, and you get “magic.”

I saw “Auto-Tune the News” perform at the Next New Networks Barely Digital party last night. They set the mood by singing “Empire State of Mind. Pretty soon, the standing crowd began to sway to their beat.

Funny. Jay-Z tried put an end to Auto-Tune in his new anti-auto-tune album. But he failed. We enjoy listening to Auto-Tune music. Auto-Tune is a software program that can make anyone’s voice sound like a perfect pitch. It’s not new. Cher used it in her song, Believe. So have Kanye West, Faith Hill, the Black Eye Peas, and Daft Punk.

Before singers wanted to keep their use of Auto-Tunes hush hush. So the company behind it, Antares Auto Technology, kept quite. Recently, Ad Age named Antares one of America’s Hottest Brands, welcoming pitch correction technology into pop culture. Musicians openly blab about their use of Auto-Tune because it’s acceptable now.

T-Pain told MTV that rappers using Auto-Tune in their music should pay him royalties just like Diddy did. Granted T-Pain did bring back Auto-Tune to the music charts. But he wasn’t the first one to use it and he won’t be the last.

In any case, do you want to sound like T-Pain? Just download the “I Am T-Pain” app. T-Pain should be happy with the money rolling in from the 10,000 downloads a day!

Image: Nick McGlynn