Ode to the Vocoder

Here’s a new book on my “To Read” list: How to Wreck a Nice Beach: The Vocoder from World War II to Hip-Hop, by Dave Tompkins (Stop Smiling Books, aka formerly awesome interview mag turned publishing house).

The title, in actuality, is the misheard phrase “how to recognize speech” as said over the vocoder. This book walks curious audiophiles through the history of this nifty voice tool, from World War II and Henry Kissinger to T-Pain and Neil Young. Tompkins describes the vocoder’s rise through the ages and how it spawned other vocal tools, like the autotune and cell phone vocoder technology.

Get ready to nerd out!