This isn't a phenomenon without precedent. In 2007, the Japanese (who else?) introduced Hatsune Miku, a singing, dancing pop sensation who just happened to be completely computer generated 3D model. In this case, the vocals came from heavily treated samples from a voice actress, but the rest was all created in the lab (or wherever the programmers hang out). This being Japan (where new technology is simply a friend you haven't met yet), Hatsune is naturally a stadium-packing hit.
But Virtual Tupac is different. One, this is America, where we value authenticity above all, especially when it's made up. But also, Tupac was a real person – an actual, flesh and blood man who lived and breathed and finally died, who created a body of work in that time. More importantly, a man who may have wanted a say in how his work was performed.
Anyone paying attention to the sausage-making aspects of the comics world knows that creators' rights is a major issue right now, with more comic-makers taking sides for or against (usually the latter) certain publishers (and their parent corporations). So with that in the forefront, it puts a certain troubling spin on the whole Tupac “performance.”
Not a lot of people probably know this, because it didn't get much media attention, but in 2000 the Recording Industry Association of America approached Congress hoping to get legislation passed that would make materials created by bands designated as “work for hire” for their labels. This would mean that anything the band put out would be wholly owned by the label, who could then pay the band once for coming in and recording. The bands would no longer own the songs they created – no royalties, no say in how they were used, nothing. A band who went platinum could still be living in a flat in some broke-down part of town, working day jobs to survive, while the label head watched the royalties pour in.
Needless to say, this scenario never happened, and in the age of the Internet, more artists are opting to go the self-release route, or at least retain greater creative control if they do sign. Could it be coincidence that you see more Mickey Mouse Club kids turned into adult pop stars – people who are already used to the machine, who've been trained to trust the guy in the suit? If you're one of the old labels, and you see more up and coming artists disinclined to sign with you, what do you do? Particularly if you're so ingrained in the old, top-down control mindset that you'd sue your own fans for downloading music?
Enter Virtual Tupac. Still beloved by millions of fans, but dead long enough that tacky cash-in moves can be spun to appear as well-intentioned “tributes.” The songs are already there, the persona is already there, the act is already there. Just scan some old photos, program in some moves, and instant pop star. No worries about whether or not he'll sell, that's already been proven. And, no worries about him asking for a bigger cut of the royalties or moving to another label.
When director Kerry Conran spliced in old footage of Sir Lawrence Olivier to play the villain in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, it was handled probably as tastefully as could be and most likely well-intentioned (the film was a tribute to the epic serials of yore), but much like the splitting of the atom, it was the act that unleashed all sorts of unforeseen results upon the world.
In a future age where artists see large companies as necessary evils to be kept at arm's length at best, or anachronisms to be avoided at worst, the labels have to think of something. There has to be something new and shiny to dangle, even if it's recycled. Just look at the Rolling Stones. Or better yet, the Beatles. A band that hasn't been together in 40 years, with only half the group still alive, still outsells the vast majority of living, working bands today – and will most likely continue to do so for the unforeseeable future. What if you could have a Beatles reunion?
True, you might have to wait for the rest of the band to shuffle off the mortal coil, just so they all look consistent. But it's not as though flesh-and-blood “reality” has been a sticking point for most people when it comes to experience. Anthony Burgess commented on this in 1962, with his novel A Clockwork Orange. “It's funny how the colors of the real world only seem really real when you viddy them on the screen,” says the narrator Alex, as he's being forced to watch behavior modification films.
But in an age of “reality tv,” where a great number of people view the world through a backlit plastic screen (just like right now), what's the difference? If you're 500 feet away, watching forms move on stage and having to look at the screens alongside the stage to make out any detail anyway, does the authenticity of the performer matter?
Maybe Virtual Tupac is a one-off stunt. Maybe the inherent inhumanity of “him” is too much for the average person to accept as anything other than novelty. But then, entertainment is all about novelty, and in an era where filmmakers will spend half a billion dollars to create virtual replicas of the world just a few miles away, maybe we just met our new American Idol.
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