I always thought Alvin & The Chipmunks were kinda stale. The idea's not necessarily a bad one, just that it could be better if the people who made the cartoons and albums put a lot more effort into what they did, wrote some better jokes, and put more effort into the musical side of things.

For those of you who wouldn't know from all the fake Chipmunk tracks on YouTube, there actually is a real Chipmunk recording of "Ice Ice Baby".  It came out in 1991 on the album The Chipmunks Rock The House. And it sucks. Obviously, a few of the original rhymes are changed for kiddie audiences (like "killing your brain like a poisonous mushroom"), but if you're going to change the lyrics anyway, why not put some good jokes in there? The Chipmunks' take on Vanilla Ice is stupid, not funny. Oh, and the chorus is "Vanilla Ice, Ice, Alvin." Yeah, that doesn't work.

A good example of the virtual band concept done better would be the Gorillaz, a creation of pop musician Damon Albarn and Tank Girl co-creator Jamie Hewlett. Gorillaz' takes on hip hop music are also significantly better than the Chipmunks' raps, because Albarn works with real hip hop musicians, like Del The Funky Homosapien, De La Soul and Snoop Dogg, whereas the Chipmunks' albums are clearly recorded by squares.