{"id":974245,"date":"2020-01-03T09:53:16","date_gmt":"2020-01-03T16:53:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=933263"},"modified":"2020-01-03T09:53:16","modified_gmt":"2020-01-03T16:53:16","slug":"hatsune-miku-holographic-japanese-idol-makes-her-coachella-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/music-news\/hatsune-miku-holographic-japanese-idol-makes-her-coachella-debut\/","title":{"rendered":"Hatsune Miku, Holographic Japanese Idol, Makes Her Coachella Debut"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Coachella<\/a> Valley Music and Arts Festival will host a new holographic performer this year \u2014 but it won\u2019t be Tupac, or any other deceased musician. On Thursday night, Japanese holographic performer Hatsune Miku was announced as part of the festival\u2019s 2020 lineup<\/a>, scheduled to perform April 10th on Weekend 1 and April 17th on Weekend 2.<\/p>\n

To Western audiences unfamiliar with Hatsune Miku or her uninterrupted success in Japan \u2014 she\u2019s routinely sold out arenas in the country for more than a decade \u2014 her origins can sound like something out of a sci-fi novel. She is not a real person, but a combination of a software program and a virtual animated character.<\/p>\n

Hatsune Miku was first released by audio-media company Crypton Future Media in 2007 as a singing vocal synthesizer software called a Vocaloid. (The name \u201cHatsune Miku\u201d roughly translates to \u201cfirst sound of the future.\u201d) Modeled after the voice of anime actress Saki Fujita, the software has the capacity to \u201csing\u201d lyrics and phrases through a user\u2019s text commands. Since its launch, more than 100,000 user-generated songs have been created for Hatsune Miku, and more than 4,000 are now sold through Crypton\u2019s record label, Karent.<\/p>\n

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But what Hatsune Miku is best known for today is her personified character, created during the software\u2019s initial marketing. She appears as a 16-year-old Japanese pop idol with turquoise twintails, usually wearing a silver vest, black miniskirt and a tie that matches her hair color. When performing \u201clive,\u201d she appears on a video screen or, more commonly, as a hologram. But unlike other virtual artists such as U.K. band Gorillaz<\/a>, Hatsune Miku\u2019s voice is entirely computer-generated.<\/p>\n

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