Music is one of the biggest entertainment industries, and it's also incredibly influential. Music genres, artists, and bands we listen to define our outlook and style. With the development of technology, music became available more than ever before.
Digitalization was the first step
You can now have all published songs in your streaming app for a small fee. Before most music got digitalized, you had to buy each album from artists separately. However, some industries like music and iGaming jumped on the digital bandwagon early.
You can find thousands of games on one platform in iGaming. Games from physical casinos are transferred to the web interface. If you visit sites like casino NetBet, you can access an incredible variety of games, much more than you could in one brick's mortar house. Similarly, you can find millions of songs on services like Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, Tidal, etc. It's something you couldn't have before digitalization.
How do artists now embrace VR?
Digital music changed the whole industry, from revenue models to availability. Before that, music videos shifted the boundaries for visual expression and special effects. With the emergence of VR, the music industry found a way to create new formats and use virtual reality to enhance the experience.
Virtual reality is a 3D virtual world created similarly to video games. If you wear a VR headset, you can immerse yourself in this environment. When you move your head, you can see the space around you, and this concept is popular in gaming, sport, and lately in music.
Virtual concert
One of the first use cases for VR in music was virtual concerts. So if your favorite artists won't perform near you, you could visit the virtual show and experience a live performance from the front row.
Oculus hosted Billie Eilish, one of the prominent VR brands, who performed using the Oculus Venues app on the Oculus Quest VR headset. The band Imagine Dragons also had a similar VR show.
Fortnite is among the most popular games with an enormous community, and among other events, the game hosted several virtual concerts. For example, more than 27 million players watched Travis Scott's performance. Other notable artists performing virtually for Fortnite players included Deadmau 5 and Dillon Francis.
VR videos
British band Gorillaz were pioneers who created a VR video for the song Saturnz Barz using YouTube's 360-degree video feature. However, such events created a separate niche for companies that want to provide virtual music experiences like Wave and MelodyVR.
Another similarly popular video is the 360-degree VR video from The Weekend. His The Hills remix featuring Eminem is a VR experience, and so is Marshmello X Crankdat's video Falling to pieces.
Looking at the faraway concerts or VR video on demand is the most popular integration of virtual reality and music. You can use technology for musical cooperation when artists are in distant places. For example, they could all meet in a virtual studio with avatars and perform together.
The gaming industry already has VR-ready music games. For example, you can play instruments in Rock Band using a VR headset, similar to the game Audioshield.
