The current is shifting against Jay Z’s new music streaming service. After members of Mumford & Sons spoke bluntly about the problem with Tidal’s “new school fucking plutocrats”, Death Cab For Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard has taken a swing at the digital platform, claiming it is going to “fail miserably”.
In a new interview with The Daily Beast, the singer has criticised the expensive yet supposedly superior quality music streaming site for favouring musicians who are already successful.
“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,” he said, referring to the the site’s recent and ridiculously star-studded launch event.
Gibbard also stated that, if he were Jay Z, he would have featured underpaid independent musicians, instead of those who are already rolling in the proverbial benjamins, to highlight how Tidal would benefit all artists, and not just the likes of Beyonce, Madonna, Kanye, Rihanna and Nicki Minaj.
“There was a wonderful opportunity squandered to highlight what this service would mean for artists who are struggling and to make a plea to people’s hearts and pocketbooks to pay a little more for this service that was going to pay these artists a more reasonable streaming rate,” he continued. “And they didn’t do it. That’s why this thing is going to fail miserably.”
His comments echo similar sentiments expressed recently by the fellas at Mumford & Sons, who criticised the platform’s reliance on publicity and multimillionaire names, and said that “smaller bands should get paid more for it”.
Death Cab for Cutie’s newest album, Kintsugi, is out now. Aussie fans will be able to catch them at Splendour In The Grass 2015 this July.
Watch: Death cab For Cutie – Black Sun
