A new wave of computer-generated AI boy bands are pointing the way to a future where all of our entertainment is created with no human involvement.
Since the dawn of the rock and roll era, music fans have looked for "authenticity" from artists. But the resistance against virtual artists is fading.
For example, six-piece boy band Strawberry Prince are real people, but hide behind digital avatars for their huge YouTube presence. They have 690,000 subscribers to their channel and have logged more than 190 million views.
Another virtual band, Ascana, racked up an incredible 1.3 million video views in less than two weeks.
And Western music fans have already grown quite used to the idea.
Gorillaz, created by Blur frontman Damon Albarn and comic creator Jamie Hewlett, have won innumerable awards for their six albums. A rotating cast of well-known musicians provides the voices for the band’s four cartoon character members.
This strange trend started – as online trends often do – in Japan. There, people have an easy relationship with technology – in some cases even marrying digital avatars.
So Japanese teens happily accept virtual music stars, and get as fanatical about them as they would a living, breathing boy band.
Even more so in fact, they know a fake star will never let their fans down the way that a real one might.
Virtual boy bands are even more perfect than their human counterparts. Their voices are provided by the very best singers, their dance moves are captured from the coolest dancers, and their computer-sculpted good looks are never going to fade.
And if it works for the fans, you can bet that it works for the business interests that create these virtual bands: they’ll never burn out, or start demanding more creative input, and with huge teams of writers and musicians working behind the scenes they can produce as much content as required.
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Kwame Kwaten, who had hits in his own right with D’Influence before managing the likes of Shola Ama and Laura Mvula, says the emergence of computer generate stars seems inevitable. He told Daily Star Online: “I’ve seen a lot of coverage on computer-generated stars in music and on Instagram. I guess it was bound to happen – the tech is moving fast!
"But," he added, "Gorillaz have been hinting at it as a way forward in their own way for a while. Even as far back as Kraftwerk people using machines in music have sparked outrage. I say ‘Bring It!’”
The bands are created using digital tools ranging from simple iPhone apps to the sort of full motion capture rigs you will find being used on the sets of Hollywood blockbusters.
While many of these bands use human singers on their recordings, some are created with software that mimics a human voice. The programmers of virtual voice tool Vocaloid have even given the computer-generated singer a name and a face.
Hatsune Miku can sing in English and Mandarin as well as Japanese and has become an international cultural phenomenon. She fronts motorsport teams and video games and is expected to appear in hologram form at this year’s Coachella festival.
Technology writer and musician Rhodri Marsden isn’t too worried by the rise of the robots. He told Daily Star Online: "People in the field of AI get very worked up about computers simulating the creative process. But the machines aren’t being creative.
“I believe that music that’s made by simply piecing together existing, established building blocks without bringing anything else to the party will ultimately be found out."
