Ben Gibbard, Mumford and Sons Criticize Tidal's Launch

If you felt a little uneasy about all the celebrity back-patting at Tidal's launch event a couple weeks back, you aren't the only one.

Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie, as well as the members of Mumford and Sons, both commented to The Daily Beast criticizing the service's glitzy launch, which featured equity holders like Jack White, Arcade Fire, Daft Punk, Madonna and Rihanna lining up on stage for the announcement.

Gibbard says the new streaming service, which lauds itself as artist-friendly and was purchased by Jay Z earlier this year, should have featured everyday indie artists instead of megastars.

“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,” Gibbard told The Daily Beast. “And they didn’t do it. That’s why this thing is going to fail miserably.”

As Complete Music Update pointed out this morning, the members of Mumford and Sons called out Tidal in an interview with The Daily Beast a day later. Like Gibbard, the band thought the launch event, and all of Tidal's claims about being artist owned, rang a little hollow. “We wouldn’t have joined [the event] anyway, even if they had asked.,” frontman Marcus Mumford said.

“I think smaller bands should get paid more for [being on the streaming service], too," Mumford continued. "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.”