Musicians react to Tidal’s fact-free, populist nonsense

When Jay-Z announced the relaunch of music streaming service Tidal, it seemed like every single famous musician in the world joined him onstage.

In the weeks since that announcement, though, a handful of recognizable names have come out with their own critiques of Jay Z’s $56 million plagiarized vanity project.

In an interview with the Daily Beast, Marcus Mumford and his band of cloned mannequins in suspenders said that they were not asked to join the star-studded lineup at Tidal’s announcement event. But the lead Mumford said they “wouldn’t have joined it anyway, even if they had asked. We don’t want to be tribal.”

Mumford explained that he believed wealthier, bigger acts would see the most benefit from Tidal. He also suggested that the service isn’t keeping pace with the music industry’s constant flux. “Music is changing. It’s fucking 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 standalone pieces of art and also as adverts for our live shows.

“We just want to play music, and 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”

He makes a great point here. I didn’t hear the audio of the quote but, knowing the band, I imagine he delivered it quietly at first — growing ever louder — then repeated himself 12 times.

Elsewhere on the Internet, Lily Allen reemerged from the iPod you owned in 2007 to offer her own critique. Among many tweets in her rant:

i LOVE Jay z so much, but TIDAL is soon expensive compared to other perfectly good streaming services, he's taken the biggest Artists

— Lily Allen (@lilyallen) March 30, 2015

made them exclusive to TIDAL (am i right in thinking this ?), people are going to swarm back to Pirate sites in droves

— Lily Allen (@lilyallen) March 30, 2015

sending traffic to torrent sites. up and coming (not yet millionaires) artists are going to suffer as a result.

— Lily Allen (@lilyallen) March 31, 2015

also, unless TIDAL start sending everyone good quality headphones, the resolution thing is kinda redundant.

— Lily Allen (@lilyallen) March 31, 2015

WE COULD JUST STRIKE TILL THE LABELS GIVE US OUR FAIR SHARE OF STREAMING REVENUE,NOT TAKE ADVANCES, NOT DELIVER MUSIC, FOR THE FUTURE ARTIST

— Lily Allen (@lilyallen) March 31, 2015

A REAL REVOLUTION YEAH………..GUYS…………GUYS………….USHER?……….MADGE……. DAFT PUNKS ?? GUYS ???????? *WAVES AT YACHT*

— Lily Allen (@lilyallen) March 31, 2015

protecting an art form is when you release music written by other people and take the majority of the publishing because your name is on it

— Lily Allen (@lilyallen) April 1, 2015

You get the picture.

In an interview with the Daily Beast (unrelated to the Mumford interview), Death Cab for Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard said the streaming service was doomed.

“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.”

He concluded, “That’s why this thing is going to fail miserably.”

That’s exactly why #TIDALforALL is bunk. You don’t put 17 of the worlds most blindingly famous musicians onstage to fight for the little guy with hazy aspirations and no hard numbers. You use them to bring attention to a fledgling app that desperately needs it. Micah Singleton over at The Verge noted something those musicians had in common (besides hundreds of millions of dollars):

Though its name has been nowhere around the proceedings of Tidal, Live Nation could be involved. Jay Z has deep ties within the company (Live Nation signed Jay Z to a $152 million contract and funded Roc Nation back in 2008), and he’s not the only one. Nearly every artist that owns equity in Tidal has a working relationship with Live Nation (the exception is Daft Punk, who rarely tour). Madonna signed a 10-year, $120 million contract with the company in 2007; Arcade Fire, Beyoncé, Rihanna, and Usher’s last tours were promoted by the company; Nicki Minaj and Jason Aldean’s current tours are as well.

Ah, Occam’s Razor. Live Nation is a frequent contender for Consumerist’s Worst Company in America and unequivocally not in the interest of the little guy. That’s why you won’t find anyone speaking up for it.

Meanwhile, Apple is reportedly making big offers to acts like Taylor Swift and Florence & the Machine for access to exclusive content meant to churn excitement for Beats and pry open the wallets of the reluctant.