Hello Amnesty Week Two!
[Video]
[6.57]
Ryo Miyauchi: Associations of technology, The Future and robots are trite cliches at this point in discussion of heavily synthesized electronic pop music, though it’s intriguing to find something like the music of Kizuna AI where the product seems like a reverse-engineering of that phenomenon. Context guides and subconsciously informs its landscape: the seiyuu-like idol voice singing over sugary, hyperactive bass music is more or less what casual music-listeners might imagine how a pop single by a Japanese virtual YouTuber to sound. That said, the expectations producing a rather normal reality is actually comforting when I can also see other, more purportedly ~experimental~ musicians leaning into the Uncanny Valley aspect to the concept behind Kizuna AI by either exaggerating or entirely removing her humanness. Without the context, “Hello Morning” can blend in alongside a CY8ER single or a SoundCloud upload by a netlabel, but that very lack of novelty is one of the most compelling things about it.
[7]
Katherine St Asaph: As someone whose single biggest pet peeve in culture writing is smug hand-waving freakoutery about “the algorithms” by people who clearly have no idea what an algorithm is (baking is an algorithm! long division is an algorithm!), I wanted to like this on principle — especially since such freakoutery tends to mention Vocaloid toward the end of the thinkpiece, aculturally and gapingly, like an ominous sting chord. Unfortunately, besides one part that sounds like a CANYON.MID remix, one part that sounds like a pinball machine going into multiball mode, and a stepped-up peppiness throughout, this mostly sounds like the Chainsmokers.
[5]
Iain Mew: The song does nothing to sell me on Kizuna AI as concept or vocalist. I don’t mind too much, because it’s got synth drops that are like someone’s hit an accelerator and the world has blurred into fast-forward sparkle.
[6]
Joshua Minsoo Kim: “Hello, Morning” bursts with so much technicolor energy that it seems twice its length. The relative lack of dynamics, though, flattens everything it has going for it. Still, this type of frenetic, post-Soundcloud club music is always going to be enjoyable for being as fun as it is propulsive. In short: the rare song that’s endlessly listenable, but not necessarily better for being so.
[6]
Ian Mathers: I was sort of lukewarm for the first 25 seconds until those synths that wind up mostly dominating the track (the ones that sound to me on headphones like they’re giant hammers made of cotton candy that are slowly demolishing the track) meet up with the skittering little beat and although I remain pretty indifferent to the vocals (the voice actress is doing a good job, it’s just secondary to the music for me!) I am loving that production. As for the whole “virtual YouTuber” thing, it makes me feel old enough that I have to resort to quoting John Mulaney: “You know those days when you’re like ‘this might as well happen.’ Our adult life is already so goddamn weird.”
[7]
Katie Gill: It only makes sense that a virtual YouTuber will try and make a break into the music industry the way that flesh and blood YouTubers do. And this is exactly the sort of song that you’d expect! It’s bright, peppy, and the interesting backing and drop are doing a LOT of the work. The vocal line is simple as heck, which a: probably has something to do with software nonsense (fun fact! I’m a liberal arts major and don’t know shit about computers!) but provides a really wonderful contrast to the frantic, jittery, slightly glitch-like backing. The end result isn’t anything special: I suspect that any popularity will happen on the strength of Kizuna AI’s fanbase instead of the song itself. But it’s interesting enough that it sure as hell got my attention on the first listen.
[6]
Taylor Alatorre: When Kizuna AI was chosen to interview a Nobel-winning scientist on Japanese national television, her appearance sparked a heated debate over the gender implications of the moe archetype she embodies. Patrick Galbraith, borrowing from Deleuze, describes the moe character as a “body without organs” — a bundle of desired traits whose disconnect from real-world consequence allows for boundless fantastical (or “virtual”) potential. This narrative ambiguity allows the character to be both pure and sexual, an object of nurturing or lust, inaccessible yet endlessly exploitable. Viewed even more cynically, moe is the marketing to lonely young men of a retreat into idealized pre-adulthood; there’s a reason most “cute girl” anime series have post-midnight time slots. Lately, however, this perception seems to be shifting among Western audiences: A Place Further Than the Universe is on a New York Times “Best of 2018” list, Doki Doki Literature Club! is an indie game phenomenon, Zombie Land Saga is lauded for its trans representation, and K-On! director Naoko Yamada is increasingly recognized for her cinematic genius. And then there’s Kizuna AI, the culmination of decades of Japanese media trends, not least of which is the value of anonymity. While she’s not without her fanservice moments, the impromptu nature of her videos makes her more than a passive vessel for unfulfilled desire. Look beyond the sci-fi premise and it becomes clear that the person portraying Kizuna AI is an ordinary girl with ordinary interests who reacts in ordinary ways to, say, not getting the card she wanted in a mobile game. Still, the A.I. conceit is an important one, and “Hello, Morning” demonstrates her adeptness at playing that character in a way that deepens the connection between performer and audience. She begins by recalling the precise moment she was born, with “ohayou” as her “Hello World,” and ends with a determination to live out her “neverending story.” In between we hear the process of identity formation play out in real time, a speed-run of adolescence that aims to elicit fellow feeling rather than head-patting pity. Sparkly future bass serves as the backdrop to her existentialism, and for the most part it’s predictable enough to have been procedurally generated. But then those drums kick in, and it sounds like Ai-chan is trying to physically break down the barriers between worlds, or at least convince us she can pass the Turing test. Her voice is what ties all this together — uncertain yet hopeful, and at just the right pitch to pierce through the headrush. She alternates between enunciations of “hello” like she’s A/B testing, but sings “I love you world” with the zeal of the newly converted. In the end, Kizuna AI’s love for the outside world was a discovery she made for herself, not one that was made for her. An entire season of character development in under four minutes — how can a body with organs keep up with that?
[9]