Don’t expect to see the music from Mumford & Sons on Jay Z‘s Tidal service anytime soon!
“We wouldn’t have joined it anyway, even if they had asked. We don’t want to be tribal…I think smaller bands should get paid more for it. Bigger bands have other ways of making money, so I don’t think you can complain,” frontman Marcus Mumford told The Daily Beast. “When they say it’s artist-owned, it’s owned by those rich, wealthy artists…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.”
Wilson Marshall, banjoist in the band, likened the supporters of Tidal (which include Madonna, Rihanna, and Beyonce, among numerous others), to “new school f*cking plutocrats.”
“We don’t want to be part of some Tidal ‘streaming revolution’ nor do we want to be Taylor Swift and be anti-it,” Winston added. “I don’t understand her argument, either… 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.”
