Herbie Hancock - Lite Me Up (1982)

At some point in the 1970's, Herbie Hancock decided he wanted to sing on his records, besides having little-to-no vocal talent. Have no fear though, he found a solution in robotically distorting his voice by singing through a vocoder most of the time. Lite Me Up is one of a number of sleek, vocoder-laden R&B/disco/funk albums he made. He even hired Rod Temperton, the songwriter behind a lot of Michael Jackson's hits, to write most of these tunes, making me think Herbie was gunning for some sort of Off the Wall/Thriller-style crossover hit. As a result, it's as much a Herbie Hancock album as it is a Rod Temperton one. Even considering the talent involved (hey, dudes from Toto played on this too!), this album comes off mostly as disappointingly generic. The VERY PROFESSIONAL-SOUNDING guest vocalists who sing most of the songs don't really do it for me, either. However, on the few times when Herbie takes over on vocoder, everything changes. The aptly-titled "Gettin' to the Good Part", yesssss that's more like it! And "Give It All Your Heart" is jaw-dropping, a romantic duet between Hancock and Patrice Rushen (of "Forget Me Nots" fame), both on vocoders and sounding like two robots very much in love. Was this inspired by the movie Heartbeeps?!? These tracks sound so much like the last Daft Punk album, you could probably fool most people into thinking they're new Daft Punk singles or something. Lite Me Up was the last album Herbie did in this style before shaking things up further and hitting pay dirt with "Rockit". Most of it sucks, but check out those vocoder tracks!
https://open.spotify.com/album/5LsdfUYg3pWMyjoyAnS3fE