Jack White Defends Tidal: "What Is Elitist About It? Who’s Speaking for the Little Guy?"

Jack White Defends Tidal: "What Is Elitist About It? Who's Speaking for the Little Guy?"

Jack White is one of the artists involved with Tidal, the artist-owned streaming service launched earlier this year by Jay Z. Today on the Third Man website, White answered questions ostensibly submitted by fans about Tidal. He addressed Tidal’s more controversial aspects, such as the higher price point ($19.99 a month for lossless streaming vs. $9.99 for Spotify) and the perception that it mostly exists to help rich artists get richer. “What is elitist about it?” he wrote. “Who’s speaking for the little guy?” Check out the full Q&A here, and find some excerpts below.

On Third Man’s catalogue being available through Tidal:

I want to get all of tmr’s music on TIDAL, so those songwriters and musicians can get their songs to a bigger audience (remember most of those artists don’t get radio airplay) and I want them to get paid royalties for their songs too so they can live.

On whether he and the other artists got along while designing Tidal:

Yes we did. We spent all last night talking and discussing ways to make it very cool. Here’s the shocker: musicians want you to hear their music in the best ways possible. We mix on very nice speakers and systems only to have 90% of it be heard on tiny components that cut out half the information

On why Tidal is more expensive than Spotify:

How much did you pay for that last movie you saw at the theater? 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.

On the belief that Jay Z has enough money:

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 it all here

Read “Tidal and the Elusive Promise of Streaming Music” on the Pitch.

Correction: A previous version of this story asserted that Tidal charges $19.99 per month for high quality streaming. Their high quality streaming subscription is $9.99 per month—the same as Spotify.

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