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There is a place where you can watch Alice Cooper perform with Rob Zombie and Slash,
catch the Pink "Party Starter" tour, and see all four Ramones, alive. Where Chamillionaire
does meet-and-greets and Duran Duran has their own island. Second Life.
Launched in 2003, Second Life allows users to create an avatar and then just live online.
That's sort of it. Its big media moment came a few years ago, when it was heralded as a
potentially world-altering big thing.
It wasn't, but Second Life maintains a dedicated user base to this day. And they want to rock.
During the heyday of Second Life growth, companies like American Apparel and Adidas set up shop
inside the game. And so did record labels. It started with meet-and-greets, where artists
like Chamillionaire and Hinder and some guy named Lance Rembrant found a way to turn an
everyday promotional activity into a potential headline.
There were listening parties -- Regina Spektor debuted her 2006 record, Begin to Hope, inside
her Second Life loft. You can still visit it. It looks nice. You should.
Second Life's audio streaming capabilities -- the way Sire Records was able to play Spektor's
record -- led Suzanne Vega to stage the first in-game live performance in 2006. And so Second
Life developed its own music scene, starting with a user named Astrin Few.
Von Johin became the first Second Life musician to sign a record deal based on his following
in Second Life. Johin plays several times a week in game at one of the many venues that
have been built by other residents. He did this so well, a record label signed him.
Redzone was the first band to tour Second Life, spending a week playing in places like
Mystery Megacorp in the Sprawler region and the Black Sun in Nexus Prime in the Gibson
region. Later, they hosted a day-long festival in the Wastelands.
Not every musician in Second Life is simply streaming from their bedroom -- the much more
experimental Avatar Orchestra Metaverse makes all their sounds inside the game itself. With
spheres and bodies and more spheres.
These artists developed alongside Second Life theatre troupes, art galleries, and ballet
companies. All very serious.
While real life musicians like Few, Johin, and Redzone have taken advantage of Second
Life's unique landscape to find a new audience, a threat has emerged. Tribute bands.
For 4000 Linden dollars, the in-game currency that converts to about $16 Canadian, promotion
companies inside Second Life will stage a Muse concert --
Or an ACDC show --
It's pretty simple -- they dress up some avatars to look like the band, program some lights,
and stream a pre-existing live recording. Naturally, this irks some purists. I mean,
this is not actually Beyonce.
These days, there are fewer big name artists actually dropping in themselves -- although
a Duran Duran island announced in 2006 was finally unveiled in 2011. And it looks pretty
great. Take me there.
What do you think? Is Second Life a legitimate space to develop as an artist? Let us know
in the comments, and check out the description for links to all the videos we used here.
Subscribe for new episode of This Exists every week. See you in the Sprawler region.