I feel like I’m about to be called “old”. I have some Mumford & Sons on my iPod. What? I like them. Sometimes I’m in the mood for that folk-rock sound. They make cool music videos and Marcus Mumford (the frontman) is married to Carey Mulligan, and Carey Mulligan wouldn’t marry someone uncool, would she? No, she would not. Anyway, the Mumford & Sons sat down for an interview with The Daily Beast and they ended up throwing shade right and left. They hate the idea of Jay-Z’s music streaming company Tidal, and they don’t get Taylor Swift’s position either. Some highlights:

Marcus Mumford on Tidal: “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, 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.”

Guitarist Winston Marshall: Tidal is for “new school f–king 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. I don’t understand her argument, either. The focus is slightly missed. Music is changing. It’s f–king 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.”

Marcus on commercialization: “What I’m not into is the tribalistic aspect of it—people trying to corner bits of the market, and put their face on it. That’s just commercial bullsh-t. We hire people to do that for us rather than having to do that ourselves. 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.”

[From The Daily Beast]

I think they make some good points, especially that Tidal is for already-rich artists trying to squeeze more money out of their fans. And they’re also right about how the Tidal business model hurts smaller bands or artists just starting out.

For what it’s worth, everyone seems to hate Tidal. Gawker had a good write-up about that a few days ago – go here to read. People think it’s ugly and it doesn’t even work that well. The sound quality isn’t that much better either.

Photos courtesy of WENN.