Super-popular Vocaloids. Case of Hatsune Miku

We will talk about virtual artists who gather stadiums of live fans. So that those on the dance floor or from the stands can celebrate the virtual, completely inanimate digital image that they see on stage. Some “unreal” pop performers, “vocaloids,” have become more popular than living pop and rock idols.

Vocaloid (from English vocals and android) is originally software from Yamaha Corporation that imitates the voice of a singing person based on given melodies and text, using full speech synthesis technology using previously stored natural language fragments.

One of the brightest and, undoubtedly, super-successful Vocaloids is the Japanese virtual singer Miku Hatsune. Miku has a living prototype, human performer Saki Fujita. Unlike her virtual counterpart, she is known only to specialists as a singer who has voiced songs in several Japanese cartoons – anime. The voice-over artist's professional high point came when she agreed to lend her vocals as a prototype for Hatsune.

Since then, the image generated with the help of IT technology has become the full owner of her voice. Animation and voiceover of a virtual singer done

IT company Crypton Future Media from Sapporo. To synthesize the original voice based on the live one, the already mentioned VOCALOID software from Yamaha Corp. was used. With certain reservations, we can say that Miku has his own original voice, because not everything is taken from the prototype, but only the vocal basis (musicians know better how to correctly describe this from the point of view of musical literacy).

The visual image of Hatsune Miku was created by Tokyo-based CG artist and animator Kei Garo. According to legend, Miku has the following “personal details”: she is 16 years old, height 1 m 58 cm, weight 42 kg. I think there is no need to explain that Miku will always be the same young, slender, with a naive look and the charm of beautiful youth.

Soon after her creation, Hatsune Miku became Japan's most famous female vocalist and pop star, with albums in the top charts of the Land of the Rising Sun. Judge for yourself, in the video – a full house at the Miku concert, Tokyo, 2016:

As you can see, Miku’s performances attract stadiums with a capacity of thousands. She has millions of subscribers on all global social networks. In Japan, Miku became a real pop star.

Are there any other similar projects? Yes, a few are definitely worth mentioning. Firstly, the virtual rock band Gorillaz can undoubtedly be included in the TOP of the most popular projects of virtual stars of the scene: this project has been on the main rock and roll charts for the second decade.

And in South Korea, the leader is, of course, the pop girls band project K/DA. Virtual girls are also known to many fans of computer games as the heroines of the hit game League of Legends.

However, unlike Hatsune Miku, they are voiced by real singers: two members of the popular K-pop group I-DLE and two American performers, including the fairly famous Madison Beer.

And Gorillaz also sing in the voices of real people. One of them is Damon Albarn, a British musician and singer, frontman of the band Blur.

Of course, this phenomenon makes us think about the sincerity of people’s relationships with virtual characters that exist only in cyberspace. And this adoration and sincerity is genuine. At concerts, people happily greet the star with gestures of sincere love, selflessly wave to the star with smartphone flashlights, and throw flowers at her “feet.” But Miku’s legs are just a projection of light onto the stage, nothing more. And she will never appreciate gifts, flowers, and even the light of her fans’ telephone flashlights.

In one of my publications, I explored a phenomenon that was described in the film “Her”. Let me remind you that the film tells how a young man fell in love with artificial intelligence. But “She” is a movie, a story completely made up by a science fiction writer. And the fans’ love for Mick and other virtual singers is not made up, it is 100% a reality of today.