Tidal- the Jay-Z owned music service claims to be the first streaming platform owned by an artist. It was recently re launched and the event was attended by the likes of Kanye West, Nicki Minaj, Jack White, Madonna and of course, Queen Bey. Here are eight things you need to know about it.
Number Eight: It was launched in 2014
Tidal was the brainchild of Aspiro AB- a Swedish media tech company. It provided high definition and lossless music to subscribers in US, UK and Canada in the October of 2014. It was then acquired by Jay-Z’s company Project Panther Ltd, who re launched it.
Number Seven: It will feature exclusives temporarily
Tidal will provide exclusive access to new releases for a short period of time. The first is Kanye West’s next album.
Number Six: The Subscription
If you go for the ‘HiFi’ or ‘Premium’ subscriptions, you can access Tidal from a single device in ‘online’ mode, and three devices in ‘offline’. Currently, the HiFi playback can be accessed only via Google Chrome or the app itself.
Number Five: Tidal Will Cost You
Tidal will not have the ‘free’ subscription model. Users can choose to either pay a $9.99 monthly for a‘standard’ audio option, or a $19.99-a-month for high fidelity audio.
Number Four: It Will Make the Rich, Richer
Jay-Z said that he will like artists to make more money even though it will result in less profit for their bottom line. He also said that he would want struggling artists to get a better grip in the music industry and the service will help bring their less popular albums to the masses. But since he launched the service with some of the wealthiest musicians of the world, he is clearly saying that the successful artists are not too happy with the take-home of the current distribution system. They’d rather make more dough than make new fans or share their music with a wider audience.
Number Three: Talk About Volume!
Tidal service currently has over 25 million tracks. Then there are the 85,000 music videos. That’s pretty neat for a paid service.
Number Two: It Has Pretty Good Connects
Tidal has distribution agreements with all three major labels. Many indies too got in on it.
Number One: There Is a Big Fan-base already
As of March 2015, Tidal has had 580,000 paying users which was after being integrated with WiMP, its sister service. Then there are 17,000 that use the high-fidelity service. These numbers come from 31 countries in which Tidal is currently being offered.