It’s not to long ago that the idea of a virtual artist would be dismissed as a joke. However, in recent years, we went from the late Tupac “performing” at Coachella via a hologram to fictional artists dominating the charts such as Hatsune Miko and Miquela. K/DA is on another level fuelled creativley by the industries leading artists while tapping into the fandom of Kpop and engaged gamers worldwide. The virtual group is fronted by four themed versions of League of legends characters, and the concept was concieved by Riot Games, The group was unveiled in 2018 with augmented reality live performance at the League of Legends World Championship, and now K/DA are back with a brand new EP titled ‘All Out’.
The EP contains 5 new songs, including talents such as Bea Miller, G(IDLE), Lexie Liu, TWICE, Aluna, Anikka Wells, Bekuh Boon and more. Of the tracks on ‘All Out’ one of our favourites is ‘Villain’ featuring Madison Beer, and Kim Petras. It’s got bad boy/girl inspired lyrics and speaks to the the loss of touch of human feelings in many of us..
The spirit of YOLO is strong on this one, while also stating the self-confidence needed to make an impact on people’s life. It talks about the Legacy we wanted to give to the world, with a character. Even if you’re not a hardcore gamer, this song is enjoyable but for the players this surely hits differently with the emotion brought by the virtual characters.
As for the production side, this Trap beat and vocal FX decision used in this is what I consider today’s Pop music. While I believe the vocal production on this song is intentional in purpose to capture the nuance of the virtual character singing. The arrangement is a straight-up Pop, with a beat change in the short interlude leading to the bridge which consists of vocal chops and sound fx.
