You say you'd like a 3D hologram on stage jamming with a live band in front of a large audience?
Well, okay. Hit it!
Update: Commentor Clayton sums it all up with:
I, for one, welcome our new robot entertainers; they're likely more talented than the human crop we have now, and probably less inclined to lecture me about global warming killing lesbian snail darters when not singing.Posted by Vanderleun at November 14, 2010 11:07 PM
So where's Hologram Elvis?
Posted by: Mike Anderson at November 15, 2010 5:33 AMSore wa sugoi to subariishi desu! (Japanese lessons with the youngest last summer)
Posted by: Jewel at November 15, 2010 5:36 AMAnd the Dark Age of Technology begins.
Posted by: David McKinnis at November 15, 2010 5:57 AMYea, but she was lip singing.
Posted by: tim at November 15, 2010 5:59 AMNRO links to Hatsune Miku this AM; I come home from work to see it on AmDigest.
I wonder what the breakout was? As a Den Beste-trained anime otaku, I've been listening to Vocaloids for years, but just in the past few months Hatsune Miku has caught on in Europe and S. America.
I, for one, welcome our new robot entertainers; they're likely more talented than the human crop we have now, and probably less inclined to lecture me about global warming killing lesbian snail darters when not singing.
Posted by: Clayton Barnett at November 15, 2010 3:39 PMWell, I don't know about you all, but I'm sticking with mono.
Posted by: rickl at November 15, 2010 8:35 PMThe musicians appear to be playing live--that's some spectacle of synching the vocals and music, that's for sure.
Given that these things are pre-recorded, I wonder how long it will take for them to figure out that they can make "concert" versions of their studio recordings--make it look improvised even if it isn't, so to make the concerts even more lucrative.
I can't imagine where this is going to be in 10 years.
Posted by: Eric Blair at November 17, 2010 9:36 AMEric Blair:
Virtual hentai.
JWM
Posted by: jwm at November 17, 2010 9:14 PM"I, for one, welcome our new robot entertainers; they're likely more talented than the human crop we have now, and probably less inclined to lecture me about global warming killing lesbian snail darters when not singing."
Amen to that.
The interesting thing about the Vocaloids is the HUGE boom in collective effort that they represent.
Absolutely nothing about Miku, aside from her voice and appearance, is to be considered 'canon', and the vast majority of the Vocaloid repertoire has been created by lone individuals experimenting in their home studios. There are literally hundreds of people, in Japan and elsewhere, writing and producing songs with the help of this software -- in only three years they've come out with about forty albums' worth of material for Miku alone.
And of course there are talented artists and animators with enough free time on their hands to create music videos for some of the most popular songs. There's even an indie freeware program to create choreography for them.
The Vocaloid phenomenon, in short, is Serious Business for those in the know. And it is, most vitally, a GRASSROOTS movement; only over the last year or so have any big companies taken note of what's going on and thrown their support behind it. The packaging and commodification of this "superstar" is almost entirely the creation of the audience, and has happened OUTSIDE the mainstream music industry. Miku is the perfect object-lesson for the decentralized, do-it-yourself era of Internet creativity -- people are making their own films and shows, publishing their own books and comic books, producing their own music, programming their own video games... and now they're building their own pop stars.
More information here, if you don't mind it coming from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocaloid
Posted by: Jake Was Here at November 21, 2010 9:07 AM"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper N.B.: Comments are moderated to combat spam and may not appear immediately. Comments that exceed the obscenity or stupidity limits will be either edited or expunged.
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