[iTunes App Store - Thanks, Andrew]

Not only can you sing your own version of On a Boat now, with your own lyrics describing how you are on a [plane, train, toilet, supermarket kiddie ride], Smule is having a contest that you can win actual money from.

Here's what you have to do. Submit your video performances to YouTube, and Smule will search out the best one.

* One grand prize winner will receive a cash prize of $5,000 and a Big Ass Chain ($47 value, approximate weight of 10 lbs)
* Ten finalists will receive a cash prize of $500 and set of Grillz (gold teeth)
* Other cool prizes, including autographed items, will be distributed during the contest. These prizes will go to contestants who make us (the Smule and Nappy Boy teams) laugh the hardest.

$5000 and a big ass chain for just doing what we were going to be doing anyway? Yes please. Contest rules are here. [iTunes]

And a bonus. Is anyone else getting the idea that video reviewing stuff with Auto-Tune, in song, is a genius proposition? Just us? [YouTube channel via BoingBoing]

Auto-tune really only entered public consciousness with the release of that one Cher song that's somehow still playing in malls more than a decade later. And lately, some rappers, most notably T-Pain and most distressingly Kanye West, have taken up the robotic vocal torch. Even stark minimalist Bon Iver used the software, made by Antares Audio Technologies, on his most recent EP. But Time's recent article explains that auto-tune is used on just about every major-label pop album these days, from Britney Spears to Faith Hill. It's now assumed that auto-tuning will be applied to almost any recording that doesn't specifically refuse it.

Some, including legendary producer Rick Rubin and possible love of my life Neko Case, aren't fans of the near-required use of auto-tuning. Rubin notes that many classic recordings were only achieved after repeated attempts, and that emotion and passion can be lost with the use of the software. Case, in typical brash honesty, declared, "That shit sounds like shit!" regarding auto-tuned singers, and compared it to the artificiality of diet soda.

We often forget that it's the imperfection of vocals that can make them the most powerful. There's nothing wrong with glossy bubblegum like T-Pain, but to use auto-tuning indiscriminately can absolutely kill honest emotion.

On the other hand, it's hard not to like T-Pain; his unabashed lack of singing ability doesn't make him a lesser pop artist, and his pledge to create an iPhone app that would allow anybody to auto-tune themselves into a crooning robot actually sounds like a great idea. Britney, you can fix your warble all you want, but leave the serious music alone, okay? [Time]