Y’all know how I feel about Jack White. He’s so delightfully bitchy and complains about the tiniest things, but I still adore him. He’s like a grumpy vampire, and it’s not a holiday without a little Jack White.
I was surprised to see how Jack was one of Jay-Z’s rich friends who signed onto Tidal. Did you expect Jack to be like Mumford & Sons and call Tidal a bunch of “new school f***ing plurocrats“? You’re not alone. Every bit of Jack’s image rails against an uber-corporate, digital subscription service. Each year on Record Store Day, Jack leads the charge for the forgotten little guy. But Jack is very much a Tidal artist. When the service started to falter, Jack joined Jay-Z to personally call Tidal subscribers and thank them for their dollars. He also hosted a Q&A to talk about how Tidal will help every musician. The problem was that Jack talked around the questions and never gave direct responses. Now he’s written a poem called “Music is Sacred,” which he swears isn’t about Tidal but totally is:
those of you who stand for the sanctity of music
so that its soul can breathe
and be heard
so that it blooms in graveyards
echoes in hotel hallways
awakens neighbors in the night
and fills peoples minds with fire
shout it out loud with whatever microphone you have
or these stones will shout for you.
jump in front of demons,
and stand over cowards and those who would intend
to rip out your lungs and dampen your desire
tell the living and the dead
what you know in your heart to be true
and what you know your ears
will forever hear
that the melody of the human race
is a song that never ends.
music is sacred.
[From Jack White – Third Man Records]
Jack once received the James Joyce award by University College Dublin (see picture below), but he’s not much of a poet here. In the Q&A mentioned above, Jack stressed that people don’t value music enough to pay for it. That’s a valid point, but I don’t see how Tidal will help the situation. The subscription costs twice as much as Netflix, and the service is reportedly buggy with bad sound quality. The involved artists are pretty defensive about any criticism. Nicki Minaj blocked a bunch of fans on Twitter for questioning Tidal-only music videos. What I get from Jack’s poem is that “the sanctity of music” = “getting paid.” Yes, artists should be paid when people enjoy their work. But I never expected Jack White to try and make that point by signing onto Tidal.
Photos courtesy of WENN
Jack is my man….his musicianship never fails to blow my mind….but he has pissed me off taking his stuff off Spotify, and no way am i going to Tidal….cannot be arsed to pay or change…. plus I hate Jay Z, so there’s that
Same, I really can’t believe he joined but I guess money is money in the end. Maybe that was his game all along — pretending to be part of the people.
Still like his music but … am not a super fan like I was. i hope Tidal fails massively so these artists see the light.
I was disappointed when he joined Tidal and worried he might take his stuff off Spotify but he didn’t – I’m listening to Blundebuss on Spotify right now and Lazaretto is there too, along with both albums by the Raconteurs and the entire White Stripes collection. The Dead Weather is probably there too but I dislike Alison Mosshart too much to care about this band.
Why do you dislike her?
Yeah, what’s not to like about Alison Mossheart? I’m genuinely curious. I know nothing about her personally, but am a massive fan of her voice and performances in all contexts (thus far).
The most important thing – I dislike her voice. I can’t explain why because it’s not like she is the worst singer ever, but her voice annoys me. I like some of their songs but she ruins them for me. I tried to give her a pass out of sympathy for other band members so I watched many concerts and interviews, but I couldn’t stand her rock’n’roll rebel persona. She comes out as rude, unprofessional drunk mess. It’s not the 70’s anymore. I’ve seen her mumble, forget the lyrics, jug wine/vodka straight out of a bottle or even fall drunk during several of those concerts. There was one show where Jack had to physically carry her out of the stage because she was too drunk to walk. He tried to play it out as fun but she later said that he got angry and shouted at her and that they fight all the time because he is disappointed with her behavior. Duh. Jack always repeats in interviews that he rejects the rock star life because he is frightened of wasting his life and talent like many musicians did before (he has nightmares and such). I’m sure he loves his whiskey but he never looks drunk on stage or during interviews. And I watched a ton of them, I’m a huge fan. He’s is too self-conscious and obsessed with what people think about him. He knows what she should know – that these days, when a musician is a drunk or drugged mess, people can find 100 others who are as good but more professional and worth paying to see. That’s why they seem like an odd pairing. She gives their band a very bad name. At least for me – I would be pissed if I paid to see her mumble and fall during concert.
He completely sold out. We need to scare up that 7 Nation Army to hold him down. Jack. tsk. tsk.
Everyone, no matter how cool and anti establishment, has a price.
ouch! The truth hurts.
Pretentious. Now with a side of out of touch.
Imagine how much fun he would be to hang out with. *massive eye roll*
Guess he took Noel Gallagher’s advice on Tidal to heart then..
As long as Jay-Z and his minions don’t acknowledge that Tidal isn’t any different than other streaming services as it’s the recording companies that profit the most, then I’m not going to be here for any of their weak defense tactics. People are not dumb so stop treating us like we are. We know Jay Z doesn’t have the power to challenge the companies and really champion for the artist and their work, that would be truly revolutionary. But no, he just blames the middle man. Dumb.
It’s almost like they forget that a record label once took a chance on them when they were nobody, with no guarantee of ever recouping their costs. Labels HAVE to squeeze their successful acts dry to cover the losses or there will simply be no new music.
Or do we think that Jay-Z, Jack, Nicky, etc… would be working three jobs to pay back every cent to their label on principle had their first albums tanked?
For the record the James Joyce award is just a thing UCD made up to get random celebrities to come speak at their campus (not being flip, that’s literally why it exists!) Just so you guys don’t think Ireland is doing out awards for terrible poetry ;P
If you go to his Third Man Records website, you’ll see that he’s a keen businessman selling all sorts of stuff. He’s been doing this for a few years, so the Tidal thing is not *really* surprising. What is surprising is that Tidal isn’t making the changes it needs to give it a better chance. The price could be slashed so that people would equate it with something they already enjoy and shell out for (like Netflix, as Bedhead suggested). That at least would be a good start. Then rebrand their image somehow, so it looks like a whole pack of dispirited celebrities left and a bunch of unknowns swooped in and turned it around (whether that’s the truth or not). Maybe due to obligations, Tidal can’t do any changes and perhaps it’s now cheaper to see the whole thing tank than to try and save it.
Whether something like Tidal is a solution to the artists getting paid, I don’t know. I DO agree that as effing cheap as people are, they should at least cough up some money for something they love and enjoy so much. To give no hope of supporting yourself to new or struggling musicians who are still considering a career in music means we’re going to lose a lot of great talent to other career fields that can pay. You want or need to save money so badly, give up your Starbucks or fast food fix first, it’s doing you no favours.
Amen.
Many people simply aren’t interested, period, in any of these services.
I’m a massive Jack fan. Not a fan of the premise of Tidal, mostly tho……I hate the vast majority of the artists involved. I don’t begrudge musicians wanting to be paid for their work. I just refuse to pay to listen to artists that I have zero interest in…..and who will benefit the most from my $$$. I’m old school, I’ll buy the CDs, lol.
I found his last album. Lazaretto, meh. I liked it at first but lost interest. I don’t know why, but I did. I wish he and Meg White would reunite and The White Stripes would come back. But that’s never going to happen.
Man, Jack White is doing the most.
I think if ANY of them had come out and admitted they messed up the roll out of this venture beyond all reason and gave a more heartfelt explanation of what they were attempting to accomplish instead of behaving like a bunch of whiny, reactionary, butthurt, out of touch a**hats, I might have listened. But unfortunately, to a person, they have all acted exactly as you would expect multi-millionaires who are surrounded by yes men to act-outraged that anyone would dare to question their motives. Insulting people and blocking them on Twitter is not the way to get people on your side.
Fine with me, Lazaretto is an awful song anyway.
don’t care about this Tidal stuff, but I happen to love Lazaretto. Saw him live a few months back and can honestly say it’s about the best rock show I’ve ever seen (and FWIW, I’ve seen literally thousands).
He looks so different in that first picture.
And much better IMO!
That unnatural pasty pancake white/grey make up makes him look older than his age and it doesn’t suit him. He looks so much better in his natural skintone.
Jay Z & Co. pitched it pretty hard as being “for the artists” and paying more fairly. I could see why Jack White wanted to participate in that, but I’ve yet to see any info whether that’s happening or not.
Even if they do pay more, their subscriber base is a fraction of the other companies. If they can’t get their numbers up, the smaller bands and artists that should benefit from it won’t.
He reminds me of Jennifer Aniston’s boyfriend / fiance. I can’t think of his name! Too lazy to google.