On Monday, Jay Z, the rapper and entertainment mogul, announced his plans for Tidal, a subscription streaming service he recently bought for $56 million. Facing competition from Spotify, Google and other companies that will soon include Apple, Tidal will be fashioned as a home for high-fidelity audio and exclusive content.
Image Credit: consequenceofsound.net
But perhaps the most notable part of Jay Z’s strategy is that a majority of the company will be owned by artists. The move may bring financial benefits for those involved, but it is also powerfully symbolic in a business where musicians have seldom had direct control over how their work is consumed.
“This is a platform that’s owned by artists,” Jay Z said in an interview last week as he prepared for the news conference announcing the service. “We are treating these people that really care about the music with the utmost respect.”
The plan was unveiled on Monday at a brief but highly choreographed news conference in Manhattan, where Jay Z stood alongside more than a dozen musicians identified as Tidal’s owners. They included Rihanna, Kanye West, Madonna, Nicki Minaj, Jack White, Alicia Keys, the country singer Jason Aldean, the French dance duo Daft Punk (in signature robot costumes), members of Arcade Fire, and Beyoncé.
Early Monday, artists associated with Tidal began promoting the service on social media through the tag #TIDALforALL. That stirred excitement among fans, although some in the music business and the technology world remain skeptical about Tidal’s chances against players like Apple and Spotify.
The stars stood side-by-side and signed an unspecified “declaration.” Jay Z did not speak, but Ms. Keys read a statement expressing the musicians’ wish “to forever change the course of music history.”
Several artists have already thrown their support behind TIDAL, changing their Twitter icons to light blue and tweeting the hashtag #TIDALForAll. Among them, Kanye West, Jack White’s Third Man Records, and Arcade Fire:
There are two paid subscription options: $19.99 a month for high-fidelity audio, and $9.99 for standard quality audio. TIDAL can be streamed on the web, and downloaded for iOS and Android devices.
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