It’s March 30th 2015. I’ve logged on to Tidal.com having signed up prior to the big announcement. Few details were known about what this new service was to offer and how it would differ from other streaming platforms. Championed by Jay-Z, Tidal started out as Aspiro a company that provides lossless streams for music,. The aim of Jay-Z’s new venture? To create a streaming service owned by artists, paying artists the royalties they deserve for their hard work.

Their Declaration?

Throughout history, every movement began with a few individuals banding together with a shared vision – a vision to change the status quo.”

So what do the fans get? As with Apple Music, Tidal offers exclusive access to music (more on this later), behind-the-scenes footage, concerts and more. On top of this, Tidal offers a service called HiFi (High Fidelity), providing high quality lossless audio, as the artists planned for their audience to hear their music.The line up supporting this venture is an extremely enticing one. During the press launch, Vania Schlogel introduced the owners of Tidal. And it was a star-studded line up. Jay-Z, Beyoncé, Alicia Keys, Kanye West, Rihanna, Usher, Chris Martin, Daft Punk, Madonna and deadmau5 to name but a few of the artists pioneering this new High Fidelity streaming service. With speculation rife about album releases from Kanye, Rihanna and Beyoncé, Tidal looked like the place where it was all going to happen.

To some extent, it was. Rihanna, Beyoncé and Kanye all dropped their albums (AnTi, Lemonade and The Life Of Pablo) on Tidal to begin with. As with exclusive albums on Apple Music, fans expected them to be exclusive for 1-2 weeks, like Coloring Book and Views, until they were released to other outlets. Unfortunately this wasn’t the case. Rihanna’s album was inadvertently launched on Tidal early, and was then given away for free by them whilst simultaneously being available to purchase or stream on Apple’s services. The tracklist for Lemonade was put up early, revealing the features before Beyoncé had premiered her Lemonade short film on HBO. And with Beyoncé being Jay’s other half, you would’ve assumed that she would stick by the service and keep it an exclusive for a while (ignoring the subject matter of Lemonade because I personally just think it was an extremely well thought out marketing ploy). But no, you’d be wrong. Hours after being available to stream and buy on Tidal, it was available on Apple Music.

There have been some successful exclusive releases. Pusha-T’s “Drug Dealers Anonymous” was only available to stream on Tidal for 2 weeks before being made available on other services. Kanye’s The Life Of Pablo was a Tidal exclusive for well over a month before being available on Apple Music, Spotify and SoundCloud Go. With every major “exclusive” on Tidal, they offer a free 3-month subscription. And a lot of the time people will get the free subscription and then quit after 3 months. Slowly but surely, that percentage of people who drop out falls, and more and more people have adopted the paid service. Pablo alone supposedly doubled the number of subscribers to the service up to 2.5 million.

Yes they may have messed up a few album launches, but the company was founded on good intentions – to provide consumers with high-quality music and behind the scenes footage, whilst also providing the artists with respectable royalties. This comes at a price to the consumer, and it’s more expensive than Apple Music and Spotify. Where you can get those services for £10, Tidal’s HiFi service racks up to £20 a month. And what extra features do you get? Slightly better quality music. I say slightly better because your average person wouldn’t notice the difference. If you don’t listen to Tidal using good quality speakers/headphones, the tiny changes would be unnoticeable. I notice the differences, not necessarily because I own amazing headphones or speakers (I don’t but I have moved on from the standard Apple Earphones) but because I’ve listened to 3 or 4 different masterings of the same song/album. It’s why I noticed the differences when Kanye updated The Life Of Pablo.

But considering that this improvement is probably noticed by very few people, what’s the attraction to subscribe to it over any other service? I agree exclusives play a part, but in this internet driven era, if you wanted an album that was exclusive to one service that you didn’t have, you could quite easily get your hands on it. For me, the royalties that I alluded to earlier are why I choose to continue my subscription with Tidal. Unfortunately I cannot afford to buy all the music that I consume. I’d go bankrupt pretty damn quickly I think. Which is why streaming services are great. I can consume as much music as I want, for a set fee, and the artists get royalties too. What attracted me to Tidal most was the promise of paying artists meaningful royalties.

A lot of artists have taken issues with streaming services (mainly Spotify) not providing suitable pay for the rights to hold artists music. Taylor Swift famously removed all of her music from Spotify due to poor royalties. Tidal however supposedly pays 75% royalty rate to all artists, produces and writers.

Tidal pays 75% royalty rate to ALL artists, writers and producers – not just the founding members on stage.

— Mr. Carter (@S_C_) April 26, 2015

.

Being such a big fan of music, I’m always more than willing to pay for music if I can. And the more that gets back to the creatives who produce albums and songs that I enjoy day-to-day, the better. Prince had a famous battle with his record label Warner Brother’s of the legal ownership of his masters. After he eventually won his case, he removed all of his music from other streaming services (Apple Music and Spotify) and they were exclusively avaible to stream on Tidal. In an interview with Ebony, Prince stated “Spotify wasn’t paying so you gotta shut it down”. Jay alluded to Prince’s allegiance to Tidal in his “All The Way Up” Remix.

Prince left his masters where they safe and sound
We never gonna let the elevator take him down
― Fat Joe and Remy Ma (Ft. French Montana, Infa-Red & Jay Z) – All the Way Up (Remix)

So where is the fall? As of yet, there hasn’t been one. Yes they have had a few stumbling blocks but that’s not unexpected. However in the past month, rumours began to circulate of Apple Music in talks with Jay-Z to acquire his new streaming service. Although Tidal executives outrightly denied that any discussions had taken place with Apple, it doesn’t rule out the potential move. Apple has 10 Million paying subscribers; Tidal only has 3 Million. So clearly Apple are not trying to increase their pool of subcribers. It would make more sense for them to try and takeover Spotify with 30 Million paying subscribers. So what do Apple want? Exclusives. Pure and simple. The links that Tidal has to popular music are phenomenaly strong; Just looking at their line up of owners would make most record labels drool with the thought of managing all of them. And it’s these connections that I think Apple are trying to take hold of. Yes they currently have deals with Drake, DJ Khaled, Taylor Swift, Chance The Rapper, Pharrell and others, but you can never have enough connections. With the increase in streaming and their reported move to a wholly streaming service in a few years, it is important for them to ensure that they can have as many streaming exclusives as possible.

Is it the right move for Jay-Z? It depends on how Apple were to handle the situation. Were Apple to acquire the company and absorb it’s ethics in terms of paying fair royalties to artists, then I’m all for it. Tidal doesn’t have as many subscribers and therefore cannot provide artists with the sort of streaming numbers that a Goliath like Apple can. But if they were to just buy the company and shut it down to eliminate any competition, I think it would be a huge shame. But I don’t think Jay-Z will sell. He and a lot of others have invested a lot of time and money in setting this up and marketing it as an artist-friendly service. And as he has said numerous times – “I’m not a businessman, I’m a business, man.”

I'm not a businessman; I'm a business, man!
― Kanye West (Ft. Jay Z) – Diamonds From Sierra Leone (Remix)

If it was purely about money then I would fully expect him to take up Apple’s supposed offer. But I think there’s more to it than that. He’s helped build a service that hopefully will be able to support the industry in the digital streaming era that we are now in. And I can’t see him letting go of that any time soon.

Like. Comment. Share. Subscribe (and subscribe to Tidal here.)

Enter Here

The cake is a lie.