After all the mysterious hype from all kinds of big names in music that I really like and respect, (check it here) I'm seriously underwhelmed by the music this band put out. There's elements of it that I like or appreciate (the song "Kin" is pretty good), but overall it gets a big ol "meh" from me.
I think the whole "mysterious let's not tell anyone anything but somehow still manage to play a sold out album release show and sell out pre orders for an album" thing rubbed me the wrong way.
On one hand I find it incredibly impressive that they managed to gain as big of a following and create the kind of hype that they did without divulging any information whatsoever about what it was (we now know it's a musical project (for now at least..)) who was involved the project, what the project was about, why they're doing whatever it is they were going to do, and if there was even actually going to be anything released... You get the picture. On the other, I find it incredibly frustrating and frankly, cocky, of them to pursue a marketing scheme like this one. I guess it's just not my thing.
What started out with random posts on twitter with the link to a website with nothing but a video playing an image with occasional blurts of unconnected sentences backed by creepy soundscapes, along with a link to sign up for the mailing list, quickly grew into a ton of hype and speculation on forums and blogs (as evidenced in the link above).
I'll admit, after a couple of visits to the site I joined the mailing list, mostly out of curiosity. Considering the bands that were posting about it, I figured it had to be a project involving someone I liked, but mostly I hoped that more information would be divulged via email. Maybe they were going for a more "grass roots" approach where they wanted to try and get "fans" (I use the term loosely because how can anyone be a fan if they dont even know what they're a fan of, let alone have anything to BE a fan of) to spread the word themselves instead of making official announcements. But no, the mystery continued.
The only announcement via email was that the album (Ah hah! It IS a musical project) was available for preorder on their webstore, along with the record label that was releasing it. That's it. No extra info about the who, the what, etc. After reading the absolutepunk post above, I found out that other little hints were being dropped around the internet for people to find. But again, nothing substantial enough to make any connections.
With the recent announcement of an album release show in the coming week in NYC (which is inexplicably already sold out) the speculation and buzz surrounding the band has skyrocketed. Even now that the album is out digitally there are still more questions than answers as to what this is all about.
All in all, I'm not entirely sure what to make of this. Either this was some great marketing experiment, an incredibly well thought out plan to take advantage of everything that the internet has to offer, or some devious plot to take advantage of us dumb, spongy, sheep. Whatever it is, it's working.
Regardless of how I feel about the way they've gone about this whole thing, there's no denying that its been incredibly effective. They planted the tiniest of seeds all over the internet without fertilizing them with any information and let them grow just about as organically as you can possibly let things grow. Albeit they definitely had a leg up by having big and popular names back them and jump start the growth (no doubt at least some of them are involved in some way), but even then it's still incredible what they've accomplished in 3 short months, while still remaining a mystery.
There are definitely marketing/social lessons to be learned here.
