Lyrical genius

Japan – The Lyric Speaker is designed to help music lovers build deeper connections with their favourite songs.

• The audio-visual device generates the lyrics to songs on its liquid-crystal screen in real time
• The text and graphics are shaped by the tempo, notes and mood of each track

The connected speaker, designed by Japanese studio Six Inc, enables users to see their favourite songs in motion. Before playing a song, it tracks down the correct lyrics from an online database and uses technology from Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology to analyse the track and determine its mood and structure.

‘I found that listeners could not catch all of the emotion in the lyrics,’ creator Jin Saito told Dezeen. ‘If they read about the lyrics on the internet, they get the information, but they are not moved.’