Death Cab's Frontman Latest To Attack Jay-Z's Tidal

Death Cab For Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard has spoken out about the new streaming service on everyone's lips, Tidal, in an interview with The Daily Beast.

Making a strong point about the potential that the costlier streaming service, owned by the likes of Kanye West, Daft Punk and Arcade Fire, could have held for independent or underground artists, Gibbard says, "If I had been Jay Z, I would have brought out ten artists that were underground or independent and said, ‘These are the people who are struggling to make a living in today’s music industry. Whereas this competitor streaming site pays this person 15 cents for X amount of streams, that same amount of streams on my site, on Tidal, will pay that artist this much.'

“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. 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, and they didn't do it. That’s why this thing is going to fail miserably.”

Gibbard's comments on the streaming service comes hot on the heels of some scathing remarks from Mumford & Sons. 

The Washington rock band have just released their eighth studio album, Kintsugi, and will be here late July for Byron Bay's Splendour In The Grass. 

You can check out the Splendour line-up here and also read a feature we did with Death Cab's bassist, Nick Harmer, here.