Once upon a time, in the linked-kingdoms of the music industry, the self-crowned King of New-York and his overly powerful wife, the Queen B, have decided to overtake the other kingdoms by forcing the inhabitants to pay a high tax to enjoy their stay. All the monarchs, but one, decided to sign a contract to unsure the peace in their own kingdoms. The contract, seen as revolutionary, originated a war between the self-crowned King of New York and the King Spotify-Deezer of fair-music land; it was later known as TIDAL.
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The new version of TIDAL, the new music platform bought by the American Jay-Z, has been introduced during a press conference on 30th March 2015. Helped by a strong mass marketing campaign during which various artists changed their profile pictures on social media by a cyan blue square and « #TIDALforAll », the relaunching was followed by a lot of artists, media and fans of music.
During the press conference, influential artists from the pop music such as Beyonce, Rihanna, Chris Martin (lead singer of Coldplay), Madonna, Daft Punk, Kanye West and many others, were introduced as « the owners of TIDAL » along with Jay-Z.
Announced to be better and more fair for the artists, TIDAL appears to be the new unfair competitor of the big music applications Deezer and Spotify. Unfair regarding the price of the membership, TIDAL offers a lossless audio combined to a high quality music video service for $20/£20 per month. Many artists already non-officially announced that they would take their songs off of the other platforms for the benefits of TIDAL with which they earn more per click.
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« #TIDALforNOONE », parody of « #TIDALforAll », has appeared on social media after the end of the press conference; it was a way for normal people to express their apprehensions regarding the membership terms and prices.
To covert as many users as possible, the Jay-Z crew offers a service that is more affordable: shitty quality (what they consider .mp3 audio to be) for the same price as premium Spotify and Deezer membership ($9.99/£9.99 per month).
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To be honest, I apply the « wait-and-see » system with this app. While I am not sure people will be ready to pay £20/month, I am not sure that people will be ready to get bad version of their playlists when they can get them for free elsewhere. On the other hand, if artists decide to delete their albums from Spotify and Deezer, I will listen to the ones who decided to stay. What people call oldies and what I call great tunes are the ones I will listen and enjoy way more than the ones from Kanye and Beyonce. Between videos featuring flares and the ones that are the cheap version of an erotic movie with KimK on a motorbike, I choose the 70s.
To me, TIDAL is the kind of app that I dislike as it tries to force you to take a decision and to choose to become poor to listen to music. I think that artists who sign up with Jay-Z's app (whether they were forced or not) will sooner or later find out that many other talents are out there, and they allow people to listen to their songs for free on streaming apps as Spotify and Deezer.
As a final point, since iTunes exists, I have always told myself that I will not buy the entire album of an artists anymore unless I like each and every song of it. I used to buy album just for one song, which was a waste of money. TIDAL tries to make you come back to this pre-iTunes-decision time, which is completely pointless.
As a final point, since iTunes exists, I have always told myself that I will not buy the entire album of an artists anymore unless I like each and every song of it. I used to buy album just for one song, which was a waste of money. TIDAL tries to make you come back to this pre-iTunes-decision time, which is completely pointless.
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So ask yourself this question: Do you really think you have to ruin yourself every month just for artists to become richer and richer?
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Now you can do whatever you want, but just remember that if we were not there, artists would not have anyone to sing for.
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Now you can do whatever you want, but just remember that if we were not there, artists would not have anyone to sing for.
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Have a good day,
xx
