A scientific tool for those lacking a voice, a means of encrypting voices during World War II, and a way to drop the funk, the vocoder has had many exhale its praises, from General Dwight D. Eisenhower to Chromeo. The strange history of this piece of equipments usage for both international espionage and making suckers dance was lovingly detailed by author Dave Tompkins in his 2010 book, How to Wreck a Nice Beach. Developed by Bell Labs in 1928 and patented by engineer Homer Dudley in the late '30s, the device was "the first electrical synthesizer which attempted to produce connected speech…[it] contains 10 contiguous band-pass filters which span the speech frequency range," wrote James L. Flanagan in 1965.
Introduced at the 1939 New York World's Fair, the American government invested in the device as a speech-encoding technology during the height of World War II. Well after the war, Robert Moog and Wendy Carlos built another vocoder, now coupled to the Moog modular synthesizer, introducing a new robotic voice into the musical world. Its wartime function was drastically altered as Carlos used it to warble the fourth movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange.
From there, the vocoder began its creep into pop music, often via Kraftwerk's post-human take on R&B. The vocoder caught the ear of Kraftwerk, Afrika Bambaataa, Roger Troutman, Michael Jonzun, and more, making this futuristic sound the embodiment of funk. The vocoder is where the first instrument—the human voice—might meet the last, the inhuman voice. Adapted by everyone from Dr. Dre to Daft Punk, presaging Auto-Crooners like T-Pain, Akon, and Future, the frog gurgles, HAL lullabies, Flubber hiccups, and ethereal human-after-all sighs of the vocoder continue to give voice to that divide between man and machine. These 16 songs feature vocals from the vocoder, as well as its sister piece of equipment, the talk box.
"Glossopharyngeal Speech/ Frogsound" (from Speech After Removal Of The Larynx), 1964
Maybe it’s not the first recorded instance of the synthesized voice, but this Smithsonian Folkways album showed how the alien timbres of our own vocodered voices did have precedent in the natural world.
Boney M: "Nightflight to Venus", 1978
Europop masters Boney M opened their ambitious space-themed 1978 opus Nightflight to Venus with thundering drums, Sun Ra-worthy space chants, and a robotic rocket operator chatting about the Venusian vistas just over the horizon. This is what would happen if "Battlestar Galactica" was turned into a tour bus.
Jonzun Crew: "Pack Jam (Look Out for the OVC)", 1982
Name-dropping the OVC (Outer Visual Communicator), a trippy device well known to Sun Ra and his Arkestra, Michael, Soni and Larry "Maurice Starr" Johnson similarly explored the cosmos as the spacy electrofunk group, the Jonzun Crew. Their distaste for a popular arcade game led to the creation of "Pack Jam," its queasy vocodered growls turning into a breakin’ classic.
Roger: "So Ruff So Tuff", 1981
A protégé of George Clinton and Bootsy Collins, Ohioan Roger Troutman banded his brothers together as Zapp. And when he purred through the vocoder about mass measurements, he had an instant hit with "More Bounce to the Ounce." It set the template of the Zapp sound, which carried over to his solo albums as well, as on this sweet, tough, trilling thrill.
Hashim: "Al-Naafiysh (The Soul)", 1983
Bronx-born producer Jerry Calliste Jr.’s first release as Hashim broke down the barriers between the underground sounds of hip-hop, electro, and dance music.
OutKast: "Synthesizer", 1998
OutKast called on the funk godfather George Clinton on this Aquemini deep cut. Paranoid, defiant, honeyed yet harried, futuristic and funky, Big Boi spits barbecue and mildew, André raps about nose jobs and making seven babies, while Clinton croons of Valley girls, virginity, and life’s "half illusions" against a mean vocoder.
Boards of Canada: "In a Beautiful Place Out in the Country", 2000
Trust Marcus Eoin and Mike Sandison of Boards of Canada to find beauty in the purrs and hisses of this device, rendered as ephemeral and opaque as highland fog. Listen for a reference to former Branch Davidian member Amo Roden (also a track title) and David Koresh’s infamous religious compound.
Holger Czukay: "Ode to Perfume", 1981
While his fellow German progressives Kraftwerk were famous for their embrace of the cold coo of the vocoder on albums like Trans Europe Express and The Man Machine, Can's Holger Czukay swooned over the device's atomizing properties. On this contemplative track from a post-Can album, he twirls his voice into mist.
Cities of Foam: "Last Man Standing", 2005
This UK duo made but one full-length album, working with a jazz vocalist, saxophonist, trombonist, and vibraphonist. But on this sunny, infectious track, the gentle kiss of the vocoder gives the chunky breaks a weightless air befitting their name.
Will Powers: "Adventures in Success", 1983
Will Powers was the curious one-off from famed rock photographer Lynn Goldsmith. Using a vocoder, she neutered her gender into the androgynous voice of Will on this leftfield self-help boogie track, making its positive affirmation into a hook: "Make it habit/ Make it happen."
"Q": "The Voice of 'Q'", 1982
A project of Bruce Weeden and Michael Forte, this is a hybrid of space-disco and leftfield electro, funky and cuddly at once. Since it emanates from the same year as E.T., one wonders if the duo envisioned some sort of Saturday morning cartoon for this, as one can hear a child pleading with the vocoder-voiced alien cipher: "Come back, Q."
Ginuwine: "Pony", 1996
Its lecherous hook might now be drowned out by squeals thanks to its tantalizing placement in the film Magic Mike. But 20 years ago, "Pony" and its croaked come-on from Timbaland re-introduced the vocoder to a new generation of R&B fans (and made them get low to the sound of Frogger squatting and hopping).
The "P" Crew: "Nasty Rock", 1983
While Garrett’s Crew ignited the b-boys in North Carolina with "Nasty Rock" (complete with southern drawl through vocoder), it was when Patrick Adams recorded his version with the "P" Crew that it became a staple for NYC breakdancers.
Stevie Wonder: "Race Babbling", 1979
Tucked amid the dense foliage of The Secret Life of Plants, his charming but befuddling double album about plant telepathy, Wonder delivers a leftfield dance floor track with "Race Babbling." With his and Jose James’s voices slurred by the vocoder, they embody the plants themselves, warning humans "You need us to live/ But we don’t need you."
Herbie Hancock: "Tell Everybody", 1979
An early adapter of new-fangled analog synths like the Poly-Moog and Arp 2600 on his early '70s albums, it's no surprise that Herbie Hancock was also an early vocoder enthusiast. He embraced both that and the thumping sounds of disco-funk on this maligned yet catchy album, even garnering play at the Paradise Garage.
Rockets: "Future Woman", 1976
Decades before Daft Punk donned robot helmets, this studio group (produced by disco godfather Tom Moulton) were coated in silver paint and twitched like French man-machines. Early albums featured stiff stabs at "Apache," "Ave Maria," and Canned Heat. But this stomping space disco cut features furious vocoded harmonica blasts and a coda that blazes like that nightflight to Venus burning up upon re-entry.
Correction (01/2016, 2:50 p.m., EST): Earlier, this piece conflated the effects of the vocoder and the talk box, a different piece of equipment that produces a similar effect. It has been corrected to reflect that the songs feature both devices.