Vocaloid

Vocaloid music is popular music sung by software: producers compose and arrange songs whose lead vocals are performed by Yamaha's Vocaloid singing synthesizer and its licensed voicebanks, above all *Hatsune Miku*, released in 2007. Centred on Japan's Nico Nico Douga video culture, the style spans rock, electronic pop, balladry and experimental forms, unified by the synthetic voice and by a producer-led, illustrator-collaborating mode of production. Its defining albums — *livetune*'s "Re:Package" (2008) and *supercell*'s "Supercell" (2009) — carried a doujin practice into the national charts, and its producers, from *wowaka* to *Hachi*, reshaped 2010s J-pop.