My mom introduced me to a band she heard on NPR, called “Chromeo”

Chromeo – Rage – Youtube (video)

They used a talkbox, so I had to grab some screenstills and post them here along with other people using talkboxes. 

A talk box is a musical sound effects device that allows a musician to modify the sound of a musical instrument. The musician controls the modification by changing the shape of their mouth. The effect can be used to shape the frequency content of the sound and to apply speech sounds (in the same way as singing) onto a musical instrument, typically a guitar (its non-guitar use is often confused with the vocoder) and keyboards. From Wikipedia (here)

Talkbox in beginning and middle of song
Peter Frampton – Youtube (video)

Mayhem Freestyle – Youtube (video)

Merry Christmas Melody through Talkbox – Youtube (video)

Stevie Wonder sings the Carpenters through Voicebox
Youtube (video)

This guy is pretty good – Youtube (video)

[update: if you ignore the theatrics at the beginning (approx 1:10 of intro), you will be treated to one of the best uses of a talk box (seen above in this picture). I count this song as one in classic talk-box history]
California Love – Youtube (video)

Zapp and Roger - youtube (video)

Filed under: Music