Cher's "Believe," released in 1998, was the first song to utilize Auto-Tune's now ubiquitous vocal warping vocal effects that experienced massive commercial success. What was most memorable about it wasn't that the vocals sounded mechanical or synthesized (certainly that had been done before), it was the way that they moved—seemingly jumping from pitch to pitch.
Since then Antares Audio Technology's Auto-Tune has become a brand name to the process of pitch correction—like Unilever's Popsicle is to frozen treats, or Jacuzzi is to...jacuzzis. For many, it has also become a modern parable for mass-manufactured music, peddled to an undiscerning public like an unsafe food additive.
Nonetheless, it continues to be used across all genres of music (whether your know it or not). James Blake has coaxed warm, soulful character from it; other artists, like Aphex Twin point to the otherworldly and not-quite-human aspects in a more unsettling way.
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