Top 15 Vocoder Songs of All Time
On a more silly note, below is a compiliation of the greatest uses of the fantastic musical instrument, the Vocoder created by the genius Robert Moog Homer Dudley. If you are unfamiliar with what a Vocoder is, it’s pretty much the equivalent of taking your voice and then running it through a robotic cheese grater. What comes out is 100% D-Lite! Enjoy.
15. Bomfunk MC’s – Freestylers
14. Cameo – Word Up
Is that LeVar Burton?
13. Styx – Mr. Roboto
12. United States of Electronica – Party People
11. Air – Sexy Boy
Top 10…After the break.
10. Mylo – Drop the Pressure
9. Ghostland Observatory – Vibrate
8. MSTRKRFT – Easy Love
7. Chromeo – Needy Girl
6. Grandmaster Flash – Scorpio
5. Kraftwerk – The Robots
4. Ferry Corsten – Punk
3. Beastie Boys – Intergalactic
2. Afrika Bambaataa – Planet Rock
1. Daft Punk – One More Time
Honorable Mention for Soundwave of the Transformers
And how did I forget Benassi Brothers? Awesome!
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The Vocoder was invented by Homer Dudley
What about Imogen Heap’s “Hide & Seek”?
That’s a really great song made only by vocoder and all acapella groups sing it, ’cause it’s amazing xD
I’m sorry I know its your list and your choices, but Imogen Heap’s “Hide and Seek” should be SOMEWHERE in there. Its one of the most haunting and breathtaking songs ever written, and in terms of the vocoder, it manages to transcend the technology by not using it just as a gimmick, but as part of the haunting quality.
Just my opinion, but I know I’m not alone on this one.
Is “One More Time” vocoder or autotune? I would have guessed the latter. I agree with the “Hide & Seek” recommendations, but I was more surprised that Laurie Anderson’s “O Superman” didn’t make your list.
I don’t think this list is complete without the badassery of “California Love” by Tupac
What about Cher? What about Cher’s Believe huh? The Queens will lynch you!!
I love Prayer of the Children. It’s worthy of at least an honorable mention. Not quite so far out there as Hide and Seek but that’s what I like about it. It uses the technology not in a way that sounds techy. You could almost mistake it for being an overdubbed recording because it sounds natural enough while still giving you that full sound.
I’m looking for the track “Daydreamin’ that was remixed where a vocoder was used. Probably around 1999 – 2001. Unfortunately I don’t know the name of the band so i’m pretty much screwed trying to search for it. The lyrics start with “Daydream, I fell asleep beneath the flowers for a couple of hours, on a beautiful day….” Does anyone know what the group’s name is?
And I forgot to mention that the track’s name might also not be “Daydreamin” for their version so this could make it very difficult to find.
the name of the song is “daydream in blue” by I Monster
Hide & Seek (Imogen Heap) and Prayer for the Children have GOT to be there; they’re about the best Vocoder songs ever! Please put them in!
I found about 10 of them on Spotify – here’s the playlist:
http://open.spotify.com/user/jambamatt/playlist/3B5dUAnTje5RBWI9oyqWKc
Top 15 Vocoder Songs of All Time???
Who is Ferry Corsten? Who is MSTRKRFT?????
Daft Punk don’t use Vocoder in that song, in in “Around the Wold”!!! Daft Punk’s “One More Time” and Cher’s “Believe” use Autotune.
And Cameo effect is not a vocoder…
If you wanna hear real vocoders, listen to Electric Light Orchestra (yeah, how about some good old non-electronic music?). Their 1977 OUT OF THE BLUE and 1981 TIME records are full of fat, organic and real analog vocoder effects, made exclusively for them. Nothing was digital then!
Is sad to see people judging what they don’t know about…
Mad Dog is correct!! What about the vocoder songs on Neil Young’s Trans album?? Giorgio Moroder?? Midnight Star?? The ones I agree with on this list are: Styx, Air, Grandmaster Flash, and Kraftwerk. There are far far superior vocoder songs than all the rest on your list. Laurie Anderson should be on here. Herbie Hancock should most definitely be on this list, and so should Les Rockets!! Other than the ones I agree with…you know nothing about good to great vocoder music. Your list is a failure.
Dude! Imogen Heap-Hide and Seek
It has to be on this list!
It’s just a list for fun..nothing serious, like he mentions at the beginning.
Also, the general public doesn’t hear the difference between a real vocoder and a digital effect based upon it.
Mvg
Ok. I Use a vocoder, in fact I own 3. I do not judge your list, however, some of these are not effects made with a vocoder. The tracks that use a vocoder are 2,3,5,6,8,9 and 13. Tracks 7,10 and 12 use a talkbox. The talkbox is an instrument that sends sound through a tube that is inserted into the mouth. The mouth then makes shapes to give the sound the appearance of speech. You can actually see this device in the Chromeo video you posted above. Track 1 uses a pitch correction that shifts the voice into a perfect pitch which causes sharp jumps in pitch to give a robot-like effect. Track 11 just has a heavy tremolo effect on a regular voice. As for the remaining songs, tracks 4,14 and 15, I may be wrong, but, I didn’t hear any vocoder effects in them at all. The vocoder is a machine that electronically takes the sound shapes from one source (i.e. a voice) and places these characteristics on a different sound source (i.e. A synthesizer). When using the human voice the vocoder takes the shapes like vowel sounds ah, ee, and oo and uses the synthesizer (or other input sound) as the voice by using different bands of filters. So in a sense it is similar to putting your synth through a human-voice-shaped cheese grater. I admit I was dissapointed with some of your selections too, but you said this was just for fun, you are entitled to your opinions. I just wanted to clarify for people. There is a world of confusion between these voice effects. I hope this helps the harsh commentors above.
Ernst
P.s. @dave bones, Cher’s ‘Believe’ is done with AutoTune. For lack of a better analogy, the ‘T-Pain’ sound.
Imogen Heap Hide and Seek should be the absolute top song on this list, cos it uses the vocoder as an actual instrument, an integral part of the performance and emotion in the song, not just as a neat vocal effect.
Um.. I think that “P.Y.T.” and “Funkytown” are just a little bit more famous than most of these songs.
Oops.. I apologize. I misremembered the title of the article as “most famous” and not “top”. It’s late.