Yesterday, alongside names like Madonna, Rihanna, Kanye West, Nicki Minaj, Calvin Harris, Jay Cole and Daft Punk, Jay Z launched his music streaming company, Tidal. At the launch, one of the members of Daft Punk commented that all of them together, were like the Avengers of Music. lol who knows..he might just be right. Details after the click.
From The Verge:
At a press conference in New York City this afternoon, Jay Z and a huge group of musical stars took the stage to officially relaunch TIDAL, the streaming music service he recently acquired as part of a $56 million deal. The rallying cry was a service that would “turn the tide” and restore the value to music by launching a service owned by artists. Coldplay, Rihanna, Daft Punk, Alicia Keys, Calvin Harris, Jack White, Madonna, Usher, Arcade Fire, Deadmau5, and Beyoncé joined Jay Z in the owners circle. He is reportedly offering millions of dollars and an equity stake to artists who join him.
So essentially, Jay and the other artists are cutting the middleman and creating their own distribution network, hoping to compete with the likes of Spotify, Google and soon to be, Apple. Tidal’s unique selling point banks on the idea that music listeners will pay for higher quality audio AND member/listener exclusives.
So far, the reactions fall into two camps – Camp A folks say this doesn’t change anything and they will continue to use free services like Spotify or Rdio; Camp B folks think, this might just work.
Personally, I’m curious to see how this is going to turn out. I think what people in Camp A fail to realize is that the artists involved in Tidal have C-RA-ZY fans. Fans that do things like tattoo their favorite artists names on their bodies and buy everything they see with their icon’s face on it. They pay hundreds of dollars for tickets and don’t blink to buy new music whenever it’s available on iTunes. Granted, the group might be small…but they are powerful and they likely have 10 dollars a month to spend on streaming music.
So we’ll see. The verdict is still out but I wouldn’t be surprised if Tidal really did move the needle for music distribution.
That said, catch the uber dramatic but still interesting announcement video played at the launching event plus photos from the unveiling, below:
