The Ting Tings sadly seem to be following this Beyonce trend

Everyone in the water, it appears, when it comes to a pop artist delving into country music. Beyoncé recently released her new album, Cowboy Carter, and decided to reach back to her Texas roots, eschew her normal R&B style, and go country. Hopefully, the album is a one-off because most of the world did not fall in love with Beyoncé the country star but the pop diva.

UK indie pop duo the Ting Tings are seemingly following Beyoncé down the path to a musical idiom that is limited in scope and less open in welcoming musical artists who don't speak with a twang and don't play their music too loudly or allow much individual instrumentation. If you want to be a guitar god, country music is not the way one goes, for instance.

Of course, the Ting Tings are not exactly Led Zeppelin, but the makers of "That's Not My Name" have also not previously released music that would be anywhere close to country. That is changing, however, with the new single they teased on their Instagram page. The song is called "Dance on the Wire" and it sounds like a duo that has run out of ideas.

The Ting Tings seemingly choose the wrong path

From fun pop, they have devolved into minimalism and a slow dirge of musical death. That is a safe place to be in a musical genre that doesn't truly allow much diverse expression, but pop and rock (and especially jazz) do. Maybe the Ting Tings' new track is just them exploring what they can do well and what they cannot.

There is nothing wrong, of course, with a musical artist not always sounding the same way they are expected to. Challenging one's self and one's fans is part of the art, but why follow the trend set by Beyoncé? At least Queen Bey grew up in an area full of country music. The Ting Tings did not.

The duo has implied they will be releasing a new album soon. Maybe "Dance on the Wire" is not indicative of how the entire record will be. Let's hope not anyway.

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