At a “special announcement” event in New York on Monday, some of the biggest names in music announced they had become co-owners of music subscription service Tidal, which they are billing as the first artist-owned platform for music and video.
Kanye West, Jack White’s Third Man Records, Alicia Keys, Rihanna, Jason Aldean, Madonna, Calvin Harris, Arcade Fire, Coldplay, Daft Punk, deadmau5, Nicki Minaj and, unsurprisingly, Beyoncé are among those who have aligned themselves with Tidal, Jay Z’s fledgling Spotify rival service. The service launched last October, but was recently bought by Jay Z.
The rapper-cum-business mogul’s “special announcement” in New York was streamed live on the Tidal site, which champions itself as “the first music streaming service that combines the best high fidelity sound quality, high definition music videos and expertly curated editorial.”
With streaming revenues passing CD sales and chipping away at digital downloads, Tidal enters a suddenly congested market that will soon also feature the rebooted service from Beats Music and Apple. However, like Neil Young’s Pono, Jay Z is hoping that an emerging taste for high-quality audio – spurred by the sales of boutique headphones like Beats by Dre – will give Tidal an advantage in a streaming war where every service can essentially offer the same music, albeit at different quality. In addition, many artists are beginning to grow disenchanted with streaming king Spotify for their meager pay-per-stream payout.
Beyoncé, West and White’s involvement suggests that the rapper might have another advantage in addition to superior-sounding streams: Exclusive content directly from major artists available only for Tidal users. Taylor Swift’s 1989, which the singer pulled from Spotify, is already available on Jay Z’s service.
Singer Alicia Keys spoke on behalf of the artists as they all lined up on stage at Skylight at Moynihan Station in Manhattan. Describing the event as a “graduation”, she said the artists hoped Tidal would alter musical evolution.
“So we come together before you on this day, March 30th, 2015, with one voice in unity in the hopes that today will be another one of those moments in time, a moment that will forever change the course of music history.”
Their mission, she said, goes beyond commerce and technology.
“Our intent is to preserve music’s importance in our lives,” she said.
Tidal offers two price tiers: For US$9.99 a month, Tidal Premium boasts standard quality sound along with high definition music videos. Tidal HiFi will cost US$19.99 a month and features the Lossless High Fidelity sound quality that its competitors can’t offer, as well as the HD music videos and curated editorial. New users can sign up for a free 30-day trial to test out the service.
