I like the Tin Tings. I mean, as a pop band they do have a few cool tunes one can whistle, they do have a few catchy chorus and no doubt they can make a crowd having fun.
Their latest marketing idea seems exciting from a distance but do raise quite a few questions as how far a band can link with a company to generate interest and funds and make the public nothing more than a trapped cow to milk. Take this: Tin Tings associated with a french telephone company to stage up a concert where the crowd had to "share" , "like", "tweet" and "foursquare", all this with an hashtag named after the event's sponsor.
The results were showed in realtime on multiples screens and every 100 shares or tweets, a curtain would fall and a new element would be shown to the happy crowd. 100 shares would give you a dancer with a chinese dragon mask, 100 more would give you dancers disguised as angels, etc...All this to a climax with the people not even interested in the songs but in how their manic smartphone habit would actually change how "riche" the band's performance would be and how the ending of a concert will turn out to be.
This might look fun but again it totally diverts from the idea of music as itself. When the decorum gets more important than the song (and the song behind the video is rather bland, and they know it...) it should be enough of a menace altho not everyone wants to write songs that have meanings and existential values: this is where the world of pop claims its total uninterest in wanting anything else but 3 mins of assumed siliness where some musicians considering themselves more like artists will want to leave something..."more".
The link with a phone company directly earning money because people are smartphoning live is already dubious and can let to concerts being nothing but a crowd acting like a master pupeteer by ordering the band what they want. What's next ? The band not performing at the top of their habilities cos the shares aren't up to what was expected ? No minor chords cos the crowd hasn't tweet enought #onemorechord ?A special guest that stays backstage cos the crowd is moody tonight and do not feel like hashtagging ?
Songs. It's all about songs and how good they are, not about how fast these little fingers can tap on a smartphone...
The opinions expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Kollector.
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