If you’re a fan of virtual musicians with computer-generated bodies and voices, and you live in North America, then do I have news for you.
Hatsune Miku, Japan’s “virtual pop star,” is coming to the US and Canada next year for a seven-city, synth-filled tour—her first tour in this neck of the woods. Miku herself may be a digital illusion, but her unique impact on the music industry is very real.
Her bio describes her to her 2.5 million Facebook fans as “a virtual singer who can sing any song that anybody composes.” She debuted in 2007 as software called Vocaloid developed by Crypton Future Media, a Sapporo-based music technology company. Vocaloid software generates a human-sounding singing voice, but without any actual humans.
Here in America, she appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman and opened for Lady Gaga last year.
Here’s the lineup for her 2016 extravaganza:
April 23 in Seattle, WaMu Theater
April 30 in San Francisco, The Warfield
May 6 in Los Angeles, Microsoft Theater
May 14 in Dallas, The Bomb Factory
May 20 in Toronto, Sony Centre for the Performing Arts
May 28 in New York, Hammerstein Ballroom
And one more spot TBD.
Her name means “first sound from the future.” Do you agree? Is this what the future sounds like? I mean, half of our human performers are all so autotuned, they sound virtual anyway, so I’m on board with this.