Death Cab For Cutie’s Ben Gibbard joins in TIDAL debate: “I think they totally blew it”

Death Cab For Cutie’s Ben Gibbard is the latest in a long list of musicians criticising Jay Z’s new streaming service TIDAL, which re-launched last month in a bid to rival Spotify.

In a new interview with The Daily Beast, Gibbard digs into the service’s elaborate re-launch, which saw millionaire co-owners including Rihanna and Arcade Fire signing the dotted line on a blank piece of paper. The frontman says TIDAL favours the musicians who already have it all.

“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, suggesting the independent musicians should be given more importance in the fight against low-paying streaming services.

“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 said. “And they didn’t do it. That’s why this thing is going to fail miserably.”

Gibbard joins Mumford & Sons in criticising the service - the band’s guitarist Winston Marshall said TIDAL was run by “new school fucking plutocrats” earlier this week.

Death Cab For Cutie’s ‘Kintsugi’ album is out now - read our recent DIY interview here.