The Incredibly Strange World of Vocaloids

Yamaha, the same corporation that has brought you everything from drum sets to motorcycles, has over the past six years slowly started a musical revolution that no one asked for or wanted, and more importantly is relatively unknown to anyone living outside of Japan - but with my frequency of 4chan for the hilarious antics that can be found there, I stumbled upon the inane and absurd nature that are vocaloids.

Developed in conjunction with the Pompeau Fabra University located in Spain of all places, Vocaloids are an application for creating entirely synthesized music - essentially a piece of software that realizes the dream of the 2004 Disney Channel Original Movie 'Pixel Perfect,' or Simone (from the Al Pacino Movie) in the creation of an artificial identity... that sings.

The vocaloid software enjoyed relative success when it was released in 2004, but it wasn't until the second version of the program and the introduction of a 'Pop Star' that vocaloids entered the mainstream. Initially released in 2007, Hatsune Miku - The Pop Star image behind one of the voice options offered, spawned the beginning of absurdity and a strange manufactured brand of ultra-saccarine pop that could only come from an unholy alliance of Japanese artists and one of the countries largest corporations.

If there is one thing that the Japanese have got down to a science, it's marketing and the exploitation of an image and ideal as opposed to reality. A rise in popularity from an upswell of content that became heavily viewed on Japan's equivalent of Youtube lead to albums, sponsorships, concerts, video games, and just about every kind of consumer merchandise that could be imagined.

Hatsune Miku's likeness is even on the recently failed (Well we'll know for sure in 6 years as it tries to enter the orbit of Venus) Venus Probe, Akatsuki, and it is on there not once, not twice, but three damn times.

In terms of sound, it lies somewhere under a heavily auto tuned melody and somewhere above the super deformed sounds that are created with a vocoder. While the manufacturing of pop music is nothing new, to see it actually take the singer out of the picture entirely is great in theory, but a tad less enticing in practice. This could be partly due to the fact that the music that is predominantly created due to the actual technical limitations of the software (fast pop music handed down from the devil himself - and by that I mean it would be my definition of a level of hell) is insufferable.

Subsequent 'Pop Stars' have been created which all feature an animated avatar to accompany the software.

English versions of the software are available, but don't seem to work as well as their Japanese counterparts due to the difference in flow between the two languages, creating somewhat of an uncanny valley as opposed to the Japanese version. A third iteration of the software is forthcoming and it has been rumored that english has been made a larger focus, so it may make an impact sooner rather then later in the States.

A song about vegetable juice... idk it has almost 1.7 million youtube views

Following in the footsteps of Gorillaz as far as technology goes (Certainly not in the quality of music) the concerts utilize 3D Hologram technology to project the character on stage. I shutter to think of the strange possibilities that both this technology and the introduction of a real english version of the software could create. It's rather an odd thing to try and predict what kind of impact the software could/will have in the states, especially with no real national affection for Anime styled characters. In all likelihood if the software were to catch on in the US it would be a much more 'Pixel Perfect' like scenario with the likeness of an actual person used to promote the music and brand - which is scary, yet somehow awesome at the same time.

Will pop stars like Ke$ha disappear in favor of computerized programs? Probably not (although in Ke$ha's case one could hope), but there remains that tinge of morbid curiosity that will keep me tuned into vocaloids, if simply to laugh at how terrible and absurd they become.