BUMMING AROUND: Tidal and the Business of “Selling Out”
Jay-Z spent millions of dollars this week purchasing music streaming service Tidal. The world’s musical 1% is apparently over the measly earnings they receive from Spotify royalities. After all, they only receive hundreds of thousands of dollars for hit singles, which is, unknowing to those of us living paycheck to paycheck, a laughably small sum. Therefore, they want listeners like us to drop Spotify like a narcissistic boyfriend and pay twice as much for a subscription to a service “owned by artists”—artists whose net worth is millions and millions of dollars. And I’m having all sorts of feelings about it.
I decided to give it a go this week because this rather major music news coincided with my stumbling upon this Noisey article this morning, detailing the level of “punk outrage” thrown at pre-Internet era punk bands for signing to major labels. “Selling out,” as it were. I find this whole concept rather infantile, as Vice writer Dan Ozzi put it best: “Whether the band’s major label debut was a commercial success or a flop, a critical darling or panned piece of trash, many fans stuck a middle finger to the whole thing, as if to say ‘We support you, but not enough for you to be able to quit your job at Whole Foods!’” I always roll my eyes when people jeer at indie bands for going big, because isn’t that the whole point? To be able to support yourself doing what you love? Granted, if their sound and ethos totally changes in conjunction with the pay raise, then, rightfully, screw them. But it doesn’t, and can’t, always happen that way.
Why do these things, in my mind, go together? Because, if you pay close enough attention, something is missing from both of these conversations: the voice of the independent artist. Where were they on the stage of the star-studded, laughably out of touch press conference Jay-Z threw earlier this week? What is their defense when their fans come at them with tar and feathers because they want to earn a real living with the art they create?
We can’t really know how these concepts affect independent artists if we don’t even represent them, or ask them. I’m aware Spotify in a lot of ways shortchanges artists, once you factor in the other people who need to get paid from these royalties. But how is Tidal going to be any different? I didn’t see anyone but gazillionaires on stage telling us to buy it. I also wonder how many of these hypercritical fans (who likely steal the music through piracy anyway) truly know how difficult it must be to keep working, to keep producing, when you are tired from working at your shitty job because your music is too underground to pay the rent.
Bottom line: I love music, and therefore, I want to support the artists who create it because otherwise there wouldn’t be any for me to listen to. If Tidal will really help them, then so be it, I’ll jump on board. And if that means that they “sell out” by signing to a major label (sort of outdated in this era—perhaps a better analogy would be to go on a commercial tour), then I’ll support them there, too. You should, too.
There you have it. I’m done pontificating until next week.
