TIDAL - Rising or Falling?

Tidal brought us musicians united to bring on a revolution. To change the way we hear music and to fairly compensate hardworking independent musicians in ways Spotify, Pandora and so many others have failed. Now, just weeks after the launch of Tidal, musicians are speaking up and they aren't happy.

Some of the harshest comments come from the band Mumford and Sons, a band which was not invited to join TIDAL, but claims they would have declined had they been offered.

From their recent comments, it appears the band agrees with the idea that musicians should get paid more, but disagrees with Jay-Z's approach of an artist owned streaming site that is lead by Millionaires.

“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. A band of our size shouldn’t be complaining. And when they say it’s artist-owned, it’s owned by those rich, wealthy artists.” says frontman Marcus Mumford. Bassist Winston Marshall adds "Music is changing. It’s fucking changing. This is how people are going to listen to music now—streaming. So diversify as a band."

This all falls in line with comments made by others such as David Grohl months ago when the Taylor Swift/Spotify debate opened up (Swift went completely anti-streaming and removed her entire discography from Spotify) Grohl commented that it doesn't matter how people hear your music because of they like it, they'll come to your show. In fact, Marshall even said in a recent interview " We look at our albums as stand-alone pieces of art, and also as adverts for our live shows"

Death Cab For Cutie frontman Benjamin Gibbards also commented on the elitist idea that Tidal is creating. Jay-Z brought out millionaires rather than struggling artists. An issue that has been brought out many times in the press- millionaires complaining about their paychecks. 

In a recent interview with The Daily Beast his thoughts on what Jay-Z should have done.

“If I had been Jay Z, I would have brought out ten 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.”

It seems artists everywhere feel Jay-Z took the wrong approach.

"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 and they didn’t do it. That’s why this thing is going to fail miserably."

Few have gone as far as Gibbard to say it's going to fail, but it seems the majority sides with Mumford, Marshall and Gibbard. However, new information arrived this week as Jay-Z showed just how he planned to help struggling artists - TIDAL Rising.

In a new update, TIDAL added a feature that will directly help new musicians. The official press release stated, “The updated left hand menu features TIDAL Rising. TIDAL gives voice to tomorrow’s biggest names through TIDAL RISING, a program dedicated to promoting emerging and independent artists from around the world. Every week, nascent talent in any genre will emerge.”

Neither Gibbard nor Mumford and Sons has made any public statement at this time. 

-Alison Parker