Tuesday, October 17, 2006

The dark future of "world music?"

This press release was sent to us today.
It is offered with no additional comments: feel free to make your own!
cliff

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Dear Editor:

Imagine hearing Jay-Z, on his upcoming world tour rapping in each country's native dialect! Voxonic, Inc. a New York based technology firm has developed proprietary software, which allows our voices to be seamlessly converted into foreign languages.

Through the use of a 10-minute sample of our voice, Voxonic's technology can replicate a specific voice in any language. Voxonic breaks our voices into "phonemes" that compose our voice, and hires an actor who is fluent in the desired language to record a lyric or speech (the actor does not have to mimic the original speaker in order for a successful conversion). The Voxonic technology aligns the two voice patterns, resulting in a 99 percent level of accuracy in the original speaker's voice.

Voxonic offers tremendous benefits to the entertainment industry. Imagine how much easier it will be for American entertainers to have the opportunity to reach out to their foreign demographic. With the record industries sales at an all-time low, the diminishment of language barriers makes marketing and entertainment opportunities endless. Some of those various opportunities include the following:

* Radio promotional opportunities for entertainers to make voice-drops in any language.
* Music artists being able to create concert introductions in any dialect.
* Record labels having the opportunity to make limited-edition albums and singles in a wide-range of languages.

Voxonic, Inc., which has additional involvement from world respected music industry pioneers such as entertainment executive Andre Harrell, and accomplished music producer Eddie F., is redefining music culture. "This technology will allow record companies to expand their artist's marketability globally," said Arie Deutsch, President of Entertainment for Voxonic Inc. "Think of how powerful it would be for Russian teens to hear Eminem rap in their native language".


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Like I said: no comment from me is needed, I think.
Please offer your own, though!
cliff

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

And with the new Voxonic Photoshop Plug-in, you can input several colors from your home's color scheme, and Voxonic can provide you with "Original" oil paintings by Marc Chagall, Vermeer, Georgia O'Keefe, Jackson Pollack, Grandma Moses and more — all perfectly matched to your couch in your living room in your townhouse apartment in your suburb!

Anonymous said...

This could be a lot of fun to subvert, though.

Frankly, I don't find it any more of a threat to world music than the Rolling Stones. Sure, they can bring about globalized blandness, but they can also spark something interesting, in spite of the banality of the source (and, yes, I am calling the stones banal).