✖ The future is a robot K-Pop star
And: We need more women founders; Anghami investment; Cameo's growth; With safety measures concerts won't see Covid infections spike; Government indemnity schemes for concerts and festivals
A couple of weeks ago Bas wrote about AI music stars. Discussions surrounding virtual stars focus mainly - what’s in a name - on the virtual. But what if they had an actual footing in the real world?
Step in Boston Dynamics. If you hadn’t heard of them yet, you’ll probably have seen this video over the past holiday period:
It’s great, it’s catchy, it’s eerie, it’s a feat of engineering.
Recently, Boston Dynamics switched ownership for the third time in the last 7 years. Hyundai Motor Group, a South Korean company, has acquired an 80% stake in the company from its previous owner SoftBank, who will keep the remaining 20% stake. Techcrunch’s Brian Heater summed up the need for the ownership switches succintly:
“Each owner served its function for the company’s bottom line — Google offered resources for exploration, SoftBank compelled it to productize and Hyundai will deliver the sort of engineering and manufacturing know-how required to scale up its products.”
The whole idea, it seems, is to be able to utilise Hyundai’s robotic production lines to step up the commercial path to profitability for these types of robots. Currently, Spot costs around $75,000. Of course, Spot looks cool on YouTube videos but it’s not really much more than a walking camera. With Hyundai, development could move much faster than before. And the question arises: what could robots do that will help propel them into the mainstream?
Back in 2019, a couple of South Korean students landed a little bit of internet fame with a set of robots they developed that mimicked well-known dances by members of BTS.
There isn’t a lot in the world right now that has more pop-cultural clout than BTS and K-Pop in general is in a strong moment. And BTS has been experimenting with creating experiences that allow their fans to experience something virtual in an offline real-life environment. Their pop-up showcase launched in Seoul last November was, according to Big Hit Entertainment, a preview of the online store, which is available in the Weverse app (both the pop-up showcase and the online store are available until 24 January if you’re keen). The South Korean connection makes a collaboration between Hyundai, Boston Dynamics and a K-Pop band like BTS not unimaginable. What would it look like?
Avatar-like robots that can act like BTS band members, or perhaps even start their own idol-type group.
It could be as simple as making the robots a part of the band, added in first instance as a kind of dance crew.
More interesting perhaps than matching the robots to a real-life group such as BTS is to match them to a mixed real-life & virtual idol group such as Aespa. In that case, the robots can truly become an extension of the virtual domain in the real world.
None of this will probably happen soon, but it does suddenly feel a lot closer. Virtual and real-life actors continue to mingle as fans experience music as much online as offline. Adding robots into that mix could be a way to bridge worlds. Of course, it can be a creepy experience. Where BTS can hardly do anything wrong, both offline and online, Aespa is much more divisive. Robots look cute when they’re doing some rock ‘n roll dances, but different responses will be evoked if we interact with them directly and ascribe them more anthropomorphic qualities.
Maarten Walraven-Freeling
TECH
⭐ What am I talking about robots for, the future of music is in the hologram. At least, if you ask the people working at PORTL.
📟 Like many other direct-to-fan style services, Cameo has seen massive growth in 2020. There’s over 10,000 people in the service who’s talent you can use to get a happy birthday message or a personal song, etc. This talent created over 30,000 hours of content and 1.3 million Cameos were fulfilled across 178 countries. This growth has now led Cameo to upgrade their C-suite. Among the newbies is former Quibi CTO Rob Post.
🤦♀️ Hundreds of start-ups go public every year. Only 20 have ever been founded and led to an IPO by women. Moreover, fewer than 13% of all VC decision-makers are women. Just let that sink in.
💰 We’re always talking about the big streaming services, but there’s so much more around. Anghami, founded and run from Beirut, has now received investment from Dubai-based Shuaa Capital. I’ve personally always been impressed by the depth of features available on the Anghami service and this investment could help it leap from the MENA region into the rest of the world.
🌐 World-building remains an attractive way to incorporate music into games and vice versa. Project Hyphae is a great example which takes place in a Minecraft World on the brink of collapse. It’s a collaboration between Club Matryoshka, CTM Festival, and art collective Children of Cyberspace.
CORONA
📕 With the pandemic raging on in many places around the world, it’s becoming more and more difficult for iconic venues to remain open. Next up: Birdland Jazz Club in New York. They’ve already raised close to $150,000 on their GoFundMe so hopefully they can turn it around.
😷 Some results from the PRIMACOV live event trial that provide optimism: there’s no evidence that, with safety measures in place, a live concert will increase Covid-19 infections.
🎷 Great interview on Jazzfuel with Michael Stückl, who runs the legendary Unterfahrt Jazzclub in Munich. Besides some great tips on how to get noticed by a booker, there’s also this gem on how Unterfahrt got through the lockdowns so far:
“In 2020 we were astonished how much stability was ensured through the organisation. We got many supporting members, even without any live shows, and their support made it possible to do around 100 streaming concerts this year with extraordinary fees for the artists.”
Direct-to-fan works for venues as much as it does for artists.
🏆 The Grammy Awards, due to take place on 31 January, have been postponed until 14 March. I’m not surprised they postponed it, but I wonder if they shouldn’t have postponed until a bit further along in the springtime…
🏟️ UK Music, a lobbying group, has released a report that calls for:
an indicative date for a full capacity restart
a Government-backed indemnity scheme
targeted financial support for the sector
an extension to the VAT rate reduction on tickets and business rates relief and a rollover of the paid 2020 Local Authority licence fees for festivals to 2021.
The indemnity scheme is something already in place in Germany, and also being considered by the Dutch government.
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Music
It’s 15 years since Dubstep broke into the mainstream, at least in the UK and at least to a small section of the mainstream. This high-water point happened with the truly seminal Dubstep Warz night on Mary Anne Hobbs’ Breezeblock.
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