TIDAL for All...New Music Streaming Service

[MadVillainy]

Well I guess not new. It's a relaunch where Jay Z plays a big part

Jay Z enlists millionaire musicians to promote relaunch of Tidal music service
By James Vincent

When you're trying to get some attention for a new product, it helps to have friends in high places. Jay Z apparently knows this, and has recruited an all-star team of musicians-turned-PR-flacks to promote the relaunch of his recently-purchased music streaming service Tidal.

Madonna, Kanye West, Deadmau5, and Beyoncé are among the well-known names tweeting promotional messages for Tidal, with the artists all using the same #TIDALforALL hashtag and changing their profile pictures to display the streaming service's signature color: a striking shade of cyan. The words "turn the tide," "music history," and "together," also feature in most of the promotional tweets.


Although users can currently sign up to Tidal for either $9.99 or $19.99 a month, the official relaunch of the Spotify-competitor is scheduled for 5pm EST today, with Jay Z set to announce details of the service at a press conference in New York. Tidal's homepage currently features a countdown clock for the event, but it's not clear what new features — if any — will be unveiled.

The service was originally built by Scandinavian company Aspiro and when it launched in the US last year, its main selling point was the ability to stream high-quality, 16-bit FLAC audio files. It currently offers some 25 million tracks and 75,000 music videos, as well as fledgling editorial section for curated playlists and interviews with artists. Unlike Spotify, Tidal doesn't have a free tier, with its standard-quality subscription available for the same price ($9.99) as Spotify Premium. Tidal is currently available in 31 countries on desktop and mobile, and is planning to launch in another six.

However, today's marketing blitz shows that Jay Z isn't planning on Tidal to succeed based on it its feature list alone — he's also counting on the support of the right people to help outmaneuver rival services. In February, the Blueprint rapper reportedly organized a one-day convention in Los Angeles, inviting some of the music world's biggest names to discuss how Tidal could benefit them. One report compared it to the formation of United Artists — a Hollywood film studio created by stars such as Charlie Chaplin with the aim of better representing artists' interests.

The flurry of tweets this morning suggests that Jay Z has certainly convinced his fellow musicians. Last week, it was also announced that Taylor Swift would be making her back catalogue of albums available on Tidal but not Spotify as a protest against the latter's free tier. This sounds promising for Jay Z, but so far, his streaming service has only around 17,000 paid subscribers compared to Spotify's 15 million. For the moment, Tidal is only a ripple.

I already use/pay for Google Play Music which I love (backs up to 20,000 songs for free and still can stream a bunch of music)

But this is interesting to me:
1) Does this mean Jay Z will take his music off other streaming services? Big Jay Z fan, own a lot of his stuff but I would hate to lose his music on Google Play
2) The Twitter discussion/backlash is really funny https://***********/hashtag/TIDALforALL?src=tren


I dont think this will over take Spotify unless most of the artists take their music off it. SPotify is free, so is Pandora and watching music videos on Youtube. Free is always going to be paid subscription in this case if youre getting basically the same thing. I mean I hear TIDAL will have better quality music but Im sure the average consumer wont be able to tell the difference.

 

[Evelisse]

heh

 

[ComicChick]

sorry, but i'm still not going to pay for any streaming music service. i don't have a need for it

 

[ThePhantasm]

Look, I get that companies need one-word buzznames for their products, like

Apple
Twitter
Google
Windows
Feedly
etc.

But all of those words have positive associations. "Tidal" makes me think of drowning in a huge surge of saltwater while sharks tear me apart and sand gets in my beach shorts.

So, marketing fail. I reject your stupid product.

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

This is dumb as hell and just designed to get rich a**holes even richer. This isn't for up and comers or the struggling artist. I support the underground and local artist all the time. Seriously, f*** these guys

 

[MadVillainy]

I do think people should check out Google Play Music. It's actually awesome and better than Spotify or Pandora even the free version

 

[ComicChick]

if i were to stream music, i would go back to using Songza, but i have 3-4k songs on my phone now, that's plenty to listen to

 

[jmc]

This is dumb as hell and just designed to get rich a**holes even richer. This isn't for up and comers or the struggling artist. I support the underground and local artist all the time. Seriously, f*** these guys

I don't think it's totally fair to be laying it on them just because they are all wealthy, at they end of they day they feel they're not being paid what they are worth and what that worth is is different from artist to artist. That said, the issue here is it's not inclusive. Their problem is they are trying to lay blame for their lack of earnings on something other than the records companies themselves. Taylor Swift made a big brew-haha about leaving Spotify because she wasn't earning much out of it. The truth is her label got a substantial pay day from Spotify but she got a sliver of that amount because the record labels have always paid the artists measly royalties. If Tidal was about this coalition of artists breaking free of the record label mould and launching a music service that all musicians could use as a way to distribute their music directly to their audience and set whatever prices they wanted that would be an absolute game changer and would effectively be a declaration of war against the record labels. To have the likes of Daft Punk, Jay-Z, Beyonce, Kanye West, Madonna etc, walk away from a 60 year old model that's seen artists handcuffed from their true earnings and launch a platform to sell direct to their audiences would have been mind blowing. But they didn't do that because no-one, not even these wealthy artists, want to take the risk of doing it all themselves. I think their intentions are right here, but the execution is way off. This needed to be inclusive of every artists not the top 16.

 

[MadVillainy]

Songza is cool.

It's actually integrated into Google PLay Music now.

I dont stream that much either. The only time I stream is to listen to new albums to see if Im going to buy them. And then I also use it if I forget my iPod and I want to listen to my music on my phone. But that's why I like Google Music so much I can listen to MY music that i have saved on my iTunes, not just a collection of songs on the streaming service. All the mixtape tracks, remixes, unofficial covers.

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

I want a service that lets me upload all 400 of so gbs of music I have and then I can set it to random and never here a repeated track for decades

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Gawker review of Tidal that say it sucks and not to waste your money on it

http://gawker.com/tidal-atry-my-tortuous-trial-with-jay-zs-overpriced-sp-1697023467/+ericlimer