Arcade Fire's Win Butler Blames Major Labels for "Ruining" Tidal's Business

Arcade Fire's Win Butler, and his wife and co-band leader Régine Chassagne, took part in the highly criticized celebrity launch of Jay Z's Tidal music streaming service, and while he's still a supporter, the indie artist admitted in an interview with The Independent that the launch event was botched and the major labels are largely to blame for the faltering business model.

The Independent caught him at the Toronto International Film Festival for the premier of The Reflektor Tapes, a documentary about the making of Arcade Fire's fourth album. The issue of Tidal's laughable launch came up, in which the public mocked the service for portraying a stage of millionaires and billionaires as the victims in the music streaming war, calling on music fans to pay the much higher price tag of $20/month for Tidal's HiFi streaming.

"None of the artists knew anything about the PR," he said. "It was a poorly managed launch, but conceptually the thing that we liked about Tidal was that it's HD streaming quality."

He still believes in supporting that quality streaming experience but said the major labels are ultimately holding back any innovation.

"(The major labels) dictated that Tidal has to cost $20," he said. "The major label music industry has completely ruined every aspect of (Tidal's) business. At every step of the way they've had the tools offered to them to create an industry that works, and they've completely blown it. That's why we never had any interest in signing a contract with one of these companies because they're clearly completely clueless."

This is a sentiment certainly shared by Daniel Ek, CEO of Spotify, who has also struggled with the labels to push forward his initiatives. Of course, the two companies approaches to the problem are very different, with Spotify pursuing a freemium model and Tidal working exclusively on a paid tier. But, it's interesting that the source of the problem seems to be the same -- the major labels.

Watch the official trailer for The Reflektor Tapes below.