The culprit behind the revitalization of the vocoder/talk box, which has everybody following right behind him is back with his third album, simply titled Thr33 Ringz. Proclaiming himself as the “ringleader,” T-Pain actually starts this album off with his God-given voice on the ‘Welcome To Thr33 Ringz Intro,’ as he goes into rapper mode, and actually comes up with some decent metaphors, “T-Pain so active homie/the way the beat bump, n**as try to get Proactive on me.”

But as soon as that fades out, he retreats back to his comfort zone with ‘Chopped N Screwed’ featuring Ludacris. Upon first listening to the track, you might feel inclined to give your CD player re-adjustment smack because the song skips like you put it in a cheap Discman purchased at Wal-Mart; but as you get deeper into the track, you realize that’s the whole theme of the production.

Everybody that T-Pain assisted with their breakthrough singles pay back their debts by donating a small amount of time on his project, just as he did on theirs. With that said, the next major collaboration comes from the boy wonder himself Chris Brown on ‘Freeze.’ The feel-good track pits authenticity against automation as R&B’s new sensation opts to go with is real vocals, while T-Pain does what he does. ‘Blowing Up’ featuring Ciara also witnesses natural versus u n-natural, but the chemistry between both performers is very genuine.

The club atmosphere continues on ‘It Ain’t Me’ featuring T.I. and Akon. With Akon pulling double duty by providing a hook and a verse, he and T-Pain discuss what they won’t do for females, while T.I. manages to put in his two-cents, “Shawty look so good, so she think I should/throw dough to her, like there ain’t nothin’ to it/get you whatever you like, I could/but all I’ll be givin’ you tonight is this wood.”

T-Pain’s number one fan, Kanye West joins the festivities on ‘Therapy.’ Most likely they both came to the conclusion that two Auto-Tuned voices would be too many, so Kanye West actually uses his real voice in between T-Pain’s nursery rhyme chorus about woman drama. 

‘Reality Show’ should be renamed ‘Night And Day’ as it features two complete opposites of T-Pain in Musiq Soulchild and Raheem Devaughn. The Tallahassee, Florida native reprisehs is “stripper” subject matter on ‘Lap Dance Song,’ as he sings about getting more cash to keep the erotic encounter going.

The “Nappy Boy” closes the album out with other big-named guest spots with people like Diddy and Mary J. Blige who are featured on ‘Change’ (which also features Akon), ‘Karaoke’ featuring DJ Khaled, and ‘Can’t Believe It’ featuring Lil Wayne.

When it comes down to it, all the songs on Thr33 Ringz aren’t much different from each other, and the only way to really tell them apart is by artists who appear on the tracks. T-Pain managed to find his niche in a game filled of people riding the coattails of their colleagues, but now with everyone pulling on his tuxedo from the backend, it looks like he’s becoming a victim of his own success. Thr33 Ringz is the perfect album if your eardrums can tolerate 15 tracks overran by a vocoder, and if not then you’re better off being spoon-fed his offerings on the radio, or at the very club that Auto-Tune allows him to sing about so diligently.