Belting out your favorite song in your car with the windows down is time-honored catharsis, a solitary moment that helps release tension and express emotion. Medical studies have shown that singing has both physical and psychological health benefits. Now, a new virtual reality app encourages users to experience those benefits with a headset strapped on, immersed in a gorgeous setting while crooning their favorite Chappell Roan song or rapping their Kendrick Lamar track of choice.
Realize Music: Sing, which launched on Thursday (Feb. 20) exclusively on the Meta Quest in North America, is designed to promote relaxation through singing smash hits and unlocking achievements the more tunes they warble. The experience, from wellness-based entertainment venture Realize Music Inc., exists at the midsection between popular VR fitness apps like Beat Saber and Supernatural, and an uninhibited night at the karaoke bar with friends.
“This is very different than focusing on fitness, but similar in the way that this is something that you do by yourself, for yourself,” Mark Roemer, Realize Music co-founder and CEO, tells Billboard. “It’s not performative — this isn’t something that you’re doing to show off your skills in front of your friends at a party. It’s more singing just for you, and getting yourself into the zone with the music that you love.”
Roemer says that Realize Music: Sing, the company’s first title, began its development process during the pandemic, as the music and wellness industry veteran was joined by longtime video game producer and publisher Mike Wilson at the new company. “Everyone was feeling the same levels of anxiety and stress and isolation,” Roemer says. “We knew that we had something that could help get people into flow state through pattern breathing and vagus nerve stimulation. If we were to do it through some sort of meditation app, it would be a lot less likely to reach the masses than if we did something incorporating popular music, which is what we’ve done.”
To do so, Realize Music: Sing launches with blanket licensing deals with Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group, which Roemer says took about a year to secure. When users select a song to sing, they are “transported into gorgeous, otherworldly landscapes,” says Roemer, and the lyrics are projected into the sky. As they sing their favorite Lady Gaga, Linkin Park or Tom Petty song, their voice emits stars, and their tone affects how the spherical landscape appears, with points earned less on performance than on movement and timing.
“We all have that music that changes our state,” Roemer notes. “And we wanted to have the widest variety of music in this app so that people could choose that which is appropriate for them in the moment, because that also changes.”
Realize Music: Sing launches at an introductory subscription price of $9.99 per month, or $99.99 for an annual subscription. While future releases are in development for Apple, Samsung and Sony PSVR2, Roemer also points out that new music will be added to the app on a weekly basis, as well as new, customized artist packs, similar to those in fitness VR apps.
“We’ve got stuff that ranges generations,” says Roemer. “In a household, maybe a 12-year-old owns the headset — but there’s something in there for the parents, there’s something in there for the older siblings. There’s something in there for literally everybody.”
Roemer also notes that Realize Music: Sing was built with Unreal Engine, the same technology used to power the visuals of the Sphere in Las Vegas — and that the VR app could eventually extend in live events as well. “I envision ticketed group singalongs in that venue,” he says. “I am imagining genre-specific singalong parties, with thousands of others singing their hearts out! I could easily see ’80s, Disney, pop and oldies being wildly popular regular events — with the graphics providing a shared experience, and the seats providing a haptic element.”
