Live Music Review: Mike00 Carnell @ Italia Vera: Milano Vera

Second Life Live Music Review
Written by Enniv Zarf (RL: Paul Kwo)
Metaverse Music
Mike00 Carnell
Italia Vera: Milano Vera
2.5 stars out of 5 stars

I knew it was only a matter of time that I would actually review a performer at the Italia Vera sims. I have performed quite a few times at these sims and they are just crowded. These sims almost always have near 50 people whenever anyone performs, and sometimes they reach up to 99 in one single sim. That is just pure insanity. So if you have never checked out these lag fest, it's just great to go for even once to see how having 99 people in one sim feels like.

Italia Vera of course is geared towards the European audience so all their concerts are before 2pmSLT. Mike00 Carnell was no exception. He is from Germany, Hamburg to be precise according to his Sixty-One. Even though he pretty much conducted the entire concert in English and sang a few English tunes, he has a pretty thick accent in his singing.

He does a lot of covers, and pretty much sounds like an amateur hobbyist who can sing in tune. But that's about it. There's nothing really special about that since there really are some great original musicians in here as well as a few who does mostly covers who are fantastic. And if you have read the comments to my recent From the Editor's Desk post you will know that my ultimate goal here is to really focus in on original music because unless if you have an American Idol quality singing, there's no chance to really break out in the world of singing without amazing originals. But still I want to finish my first round of reviews around Second Life to survey the entire scene first to give myself a good solid base of posts to refer back to.

With Mike00, he sang some contemporary rock hits along with...

...some holiday tunes. His electric guitar playing is pretty good but nothing fancy. His singing though is really just rather unimpressive. But hey at least he can sing in tune so I will give him that. I know I am getting tougher and tougher on cover artists but that is where I am heading. There's nothing wrong with singing for your friends at your private parties if you are descent and I encourage that. But if you are out in the public view in Second Life, I am here to comment and I encourage everyone to comment. My goal is for the gems to shine, to get the public audience they deserve, and to give them the support they need to hopefully help them a bit in the uber tough and competitive real world of music.

Mike00 really doesn't fit that bill of a great musical artist and he really would be more of someone maybe a suburban midsize office may hire to play at their office party to do a few cover tunes descently in the back while they go about their business. I just hope Second Life doesn't end up being only just that and we move upwards in the great venues. I know the Second Life Art scene is moving in that direction.

So if you are a friend of Mike00, by all means enjoy his music and have fun. Encourage him and party with him. But if you are looking for really good music and very talented musician, Mike00 is someone I can pass over. There really are much better choices in Second Life for music in Second Life. And I also never understood why anyone would want to hear a mediocre performance of a hit single when it's so easy to get the actual song and listen to that. Shouldn't we be exploring new music here with new artists instead of hearing the top hit singles being butchered and ruined by some of the people here? But I know familiarity is safe and comforting, but hey those songs were once new to you too. So why not fall in love with new songs and pieces by Second Life's original artists? Well even if you still want these great covers played, at least go to someone who's actually awesome, and they do in fact exists in Second Life contrary to popular believes.

I know I'm getting really tough on amateur musicians, but again, I am not saying not to play and sing. I am only encouraging that as a community we need to support the ones who are really serious about music and needs all our support so that maybe they can get a little more real life attention and let them share their music not only to us in Second Life, but perhaps to everyone else in Real Life. It's a tough challenge, so let's give them every bit of support we can muster!