Music companies are jumping into the virtual-artist space in a big way.
The three majors – Sony Music, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group – have all invested in virtual artist projects, but they are hardly the first.
The trend really began in Japan and Korea as far back as the 1990s, but back then, the technology was experimental, expensive and – maybe most importantly – audiences may not have been ready for virtual singers and bands, represented by cartoons or avatars and with no presence in the real world.
All that seems to be changing today, with social media sites often acting as incubators for a new generation of virtual artists.
Polar, created by TheSoul Publishing, boasts 1.9 million followers on TikTok. Lil Miquela, the brainchild of music producer Trevor McFedries and tech entrepreneur Sara DeCou, has 2.8 million Instagram followers.
But the phenomenon didn’t start with social media.
In fact, you can trace the history of virtual artists all the way back to the middle of the 20th Century, when Hollywood cartoon producers and comic book companies cashed in on the burgeoning rock music scene with bands like The Archies and the Grammy Award-winning Alvin and the Chipmunks.
