It wasn’t until 1961, though, that a machine would sing. The next century saw more scientists create their own speaking machines, and in the early 20th century electrical synthesizers improved the quality of generated speech even further. The first attempts to replicate the human voice came in 1779, when Russian professor Christian Kratzenstein developed a machine capable of generating the five long vowel sounds (a, e, i, o, u). Ancient Roman poet Virgil, Roger Bacon, and Pope Sylvester II all claimed to own brazen heads – brass devices shaped like human craniums that could purportedly answer questions. Man has long been interested in inanimate objects that can speak. In short, the Vocaloid technology has carved out a massive place in Japanese pop culture, all through computer-generated singing.
Coupled with the growth of online video-sharing sites, musicians and producers developed a new genre that soon boomed beyond the Internet: Artists who once hawked CD-Rs at comics conventions became Japanese chart crashers, traditional pop stars tried to sound like robots, music retailers opened new sections devoted to Vocaloid music, and karaoke chains uploaded hundreds of Vocaloid songs into their libraries. Despite slow sales at first, Vocaloid became a phenomenon in 2007. Yet focusing on the cartoon avatar doesn’t do full justice to the impact the program has had in Japan. She even performed on the Late Show With David Letterman. (The 2012 Tupac Coachella show had yet to happen.) Others have embraced her: Miku was invited to open for Lady Gaga on several of her recent North American tour dates, she got remixed by Pharrell, and Hatsune Miku Expos were held in Los Angeles and New York in October. Western media outlets aired news reports about her earliest concerts in Japan, where flabbergasted anchors tried to describe a show starring a hologram. Outside of Japan, Miku has become bigger than the program she represents. The turquoise-haired Miku has become the face of Vocaloid, a singing-synthesizer program allows users to generate vocals through their computer. The audience screams, and start thrusting glow sticks into the air, as the holographic image of Hatsune Miku appears onstage. After a few more rotations, the music box’s toy jingle is replaced by an electronic voice stuttering out words over cymbal crashes. The crowd – along with thousands more streaming the show online – have spent all night at the third annual Nico Nico Choparty waiting to hear a specific computerized voice. Thousands of people inside a convention center just outside Tokyo watch as a woman turns a handle on an oversized music box.
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