Tidal has faced a bit of a backlash since its launch for being elitist and over-confident – not least because the 16 artists who hold equity in the company are some of the biggest names on the planet.
One of those names, Jack White, has leapt to Tidal’s defence in a new Q&A with fans, tackling criticisms of the HD, paid-for streaming service head on.
When asked if smaller artists would be treated more fairly by Tidal than Spotify, White said: “Damn straight. I’m aiming to get unknown artists paid so that they can make more music.”
He added that Tidal will “help out” artists like “the punk band that has 50k hits on Youtube and doesn’t see a dime”.
Particular anger was reserved for YouTube, which he said had “started the model of making a website that gets paid by big advertisers and does not pay that money to the artists GENERATING the interest… makes no sense to an artist trying to survive”.
When one questioner suggested that White’s proclamations of supporting independent artists were rich coming from the ‘elitist’ Tidal owners, he replied: “What is elitist about it? Who’s speaking for the little guy?”
Two more fiery questions followed later: ‘What a joke. I refuse to support The vault and TIDAL. if you claim music is so special and sacred then why charge a premium for people to enjoy it?’
White replied: “How much did you pay for that last movie you saw at the theatre? And how much did that movie cost to make? Don’t devalue musicians man, support them.
“Making records is expensive, believe us, I don’t see people saying we should go to the movies for free, or Netflix should be free. that state of music is in flux, be on the side of supporting creativity, not taking from it. this gives you that chance.”
And then: Sorry Jack, but I have 0 interest in making JayZ more money, and I don’t understand how Jack could be involved in this awful business model. Totally screws the fans, I thought he was a bit above that. How much money does he need?
“There’s a lot of misinformation about music in the last decade,” said White. “People know that it costs a lot of money to make a super hero movie, but they don’t know that it costs millions to make a country album too.”
He added: “A streaming service owned by artists is the first step, it’s not about the rich getting richer. it takes artists that can get peoples attention to be able to make a scenario possible for those artists that don’t have a voice to get in a position where they aren’t struggling, and believe me third man records is full of artists the mainstream’s never heard of and have no voice or power in the system. have you heard of Rachelle Garnier? what about the Smoke Fairies? Drakar Sauna? Pujol? The Gories?
“Those are just some of the up and coming artists on third man that try to make a living in music. And if you stream their songs… they get paid for it. And they get to LIVE and not take second jobs….and make MORE music! I support keeping musicians you love in business. We want a full third man roster page on tidal that you can stream hundreds of records on, and each time that artist gets something. that’s a beautiful thing.
“And also… do we tell Steven Spielberg we don’t need to pay him anymore to watch his movies? He’s made enough off of us right? He should show his new films for free right? haha.”
Read the full Q&A on Third Man Records site through here.Music Business Worldwide
