Although Coldplay, Jack White, Kanye West and more artists have jumped onto the TIDAL wave, one major rock act is responding to Jay Z's streaming service with a big chorus of fart noises. In a new interview, Mumford & Sons said they believed that art is art and they're not looking to align themselves with any singular streaming agency.
Dismissing the topic of TIDAL by blowing "fart noises" from their mouths in a new interview with The Daily Beast, the "Believe" band noted that the service (which was endorsed by the "musical one percent" including Rihanna, Beyoncé and Calvin Harris) felt like it was run by "plutocrats" and that it didn't address the needs of smaller bands.
"We wouldn't have joined it anyway, even if they had asked. We don't want to be tribal," frontman Marcus Mumford said. "I think smaller bands should get paid more for [streaming], 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."
As far as streaming and commercialism, Mumford & Sons dismissed both those notions as valid ways to make money, instead insisting that artists "diversify" what they do.
"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 said.
And guitarist Winston Marshall agreed.
"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 stand-alone pieces of art, and also as adverts for our live shows," he said.
Mumford & Sons' new album Wilder Mind will be released on May 4.
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