Not everyone is on board with Jay Z's new music service.
The British folk/rock band Mumford & Sons is the latest group of musicians to slam the rapper's by-the-artist-for-the-artist streaming service, Tidal, which launched last month. The group's frontman Marcus Mumford told The Daily Beast that they had not been invited and "wouldn't have joined it anyway, even if they had asked," because they don't believe that the celebrity-packed streaming service truly benefits smaller and independent artists.
"We don't want to be tribal," Mumford said. "I think smaller bands should get paid more for it, too. Bigger bands have other ways of making money, so I don't think you can complain. "When they say it's artist-owned, it's owned by those rich, wealthy artists...I don't want to align myself with Spotify, Beats, Tidal, or whatever. We want people to listen to our music in their most comfortable way, and if they're not up for paying for it, I don't really care."
Mumford & Sons guitarist Winston Marshall also chimed in some harsh words for Tidal, calling the service's supporters - which include Kanye West, Madonna, Rihanna and Beyonce - the "new school f--king plutocrats."
"We don't want to be part of some Tidal 'streaming revolution' nor do we want to be Taylor Swift and be anti-it," Marshall said, referring to Swift's decision not to include her albums on the music platforms.
"I don't understand her argument, either. The focus is slightly missed. Music is changing. It's f--king changing. This is how people are going to listen to music now - streaming. So diversify as a band. It doesn't mean selling your songs to adverts. We look at our albums as stand-alone pieces of art, and also as adverts for our live shows."
Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie also told The Daily Beast that Jay-Z's new streaming system is ripping off artists.
"If I had been Jay-Z, I would have brought out 10 artists that were underground or independent and said, 'These are the people who are struggling to make a living in today's music industry. Whereas this competitor streaming site pays this person 15 cents for X amount of streams, that same amount of streams on my site, on Tidal, will pay that artist this much. I think they totally blew it by bringing out a bunch of millionaires and billionaires and propping them up onstage and then having them all complain about not being paid."
