What is Tidal, Jay Z, who does not have Spotify? – The Trade

The relaunch of service Tidal streaming music, acquired by rapper Jay Z, could not count on a stellar cast.

Madonna, Kanye West, Rihanna, Chris Martin (Coldplay), Alicia Keys, Beyoncé and Daft Punk were just some of the famous names who joined Monday in New York presenting an initiative to compete directly with Spotify.

All these artists have a stake in the company and is the precisely one of the main points of promoting the service that promises, among other things, higher audio quality than its rivals and exclusive material.

“This is the first global music and entertainment platform where owners are artists, “Keys said.

Certainly is a symbolic step in an industry where musicians often have little control over the distribution and consumption of their own material.

However, it remains to be seen whether he can really compete with Spotify, a campaign launched in 2006 platform currently has a total of 60 million users, with 15 million paying for the service.

Pay hear

Unlike other streaming services like Spotify offer free services payments and notices -with backed publicitarios- Tidal strategy is based only on the monthly subscription.

Originally launched in October last year by the Norwegian firm Aspiro, had so far only a pay of US $ 19.99 per month for unlimited use of his subjects with high definition sound to 1,411 kilobytes per second, well above the 320 that Spotify offers its premium users.

Now Jay Z, who bought the company this month for US $ 56 million, he added a subscription of $ 9.99 for standard quality .

According to Billboard, approximately 500,000 people currently pay for Tidal.

Given the avalanche of publicity and support of many famous names, we expect that number to increase quickly.

However, the task of competing with Spotify looks very tough and that, without the next market share of Apple, which bought the streaming music service Music Beats last year US $ 3.2 million.

Exclusive

That’s why only material presenting artists will be another incentive to attract Tidal new users.

Jay Z said that artists seek to reach agreements with record labels to offer advances of his new material solely in the service.

Similarly, the proposal includes other materials themselves as study sessions, rare versions and interaction with followers.

“We did not like the direction that music was and thought maybe we could come and give an honest shot,” said Jay Z to Billboard.

“Will they make more money artists? Absolutely, even if it will mean less profit in our accounts, “he said.

” That’s easy for us. We can do it. Less profit, more money for the artist. Fantastic, “said hip hop mogul.

Certainly the possibility that artists can manage their own business, and you have more income for musicians in general, generated support with the tag # Tidal4Al that returned a trend on Twitter.

However, in parallel, there has also been much criticism on social networks serving some consider is a tool that will make richer the likes of Jay Z already in itself have much money.