And the rising trend of “hologram technology,” a blanket phrase for all kinds of projections popularized when a Tupac facsimile performed at Coachella 2012, literally brings musicians back from the dead for morally dicey nostalgia.īut Miku stands apart from these other virtual figures. Gorillaz, the collaboration between musician Damon Albarn and artist Jamie Hewlett, performs as cartoon characters backed by live musicians. Miku’s not the first virtual musician brought to life by projections. The next logical step: stepping into the real world to grace her fans in the “flesh.” Creators of all skill levels can use her voice technology as an instrument by inputting their own lyrics and melody, which Miku then “sings.” Over the past decade, fans have turned Miku into a bona fide digital pop star: she has almost a million YouTube subscribers and, by one count, she’s the vocalist on at least 100,000 fan-created songs.
(In the wake of Coachella’s postponement, the North American leg of the Miku Expo tour has also been rescheduled for the fall.)Īt her crowd-sourced heart, Miku is a voicebank officially “fluent” in Japanese, English, and Mandarin Chinese. This year, she was poised to make a splash on one of Western music’s biggest stages - Coachella 2020.
The teal-pigtailed wunderkind, whose name literally means “the first sound of the future,” is a virtual pop star created by Japanese music software company Crypton Future Media. Sixteen-year-old Miku isn’t your typical teen music prodigy. Though she’s been performing for over a decade, she never worries about her evolution in the public eye.
She will never be able to drive but she has a dedicated race car team. Miku can’t see the memorabilia, officially licensed or homemade, her devotees wear when they make the pilgrimage to their closest stadium. Hatsune Miku doesn’t drink in the roar of her audience, which she commands in the thousands.