A few weeks ago Jay-Z launched the Tidal app on Itunes. The app offers High Fidelity sound, High Definition music videos and Curated Editorial by music journalists and artist. The app offers no interruptions such as advertisements and unclear videos. It also has an audio search feature where one can instantly find out the name of a song playing. The app also comes with a $25 monthly subscription for HiFi and a $12 monthly premium subscription.
Lately this app has run into some issues. It dropped below Itune’s 700 and falling behind Spotify. Artist like Kanye West has been slowly backing out of promoting the app. Various tweets have been deleted and new tweets promoting the app have resurfaced. Deleted tweet by Kanye West, “Together, we can turn the tide and make music history. Start by turning your profile picture blue. #TIDALforALL.”
According to experts in the music business the problem with the app is not the streaming but the division of revenue for the artist. “Unless you fundamentally change the division of revenue and how that’s allocated, then you’re not going to have a real perceptible change in the economics for the vast middle category of creators”, explains Casey Rae, the CEO of the Future of Music Coalition. The problem is streaming cannot be a profitable entity unless it is reconfigured. Until then I guess we’ll continue to be preoccupied with Tidal till the next best thing in music happens. Maybe artist will be making their own apps providing streaming of their music in the future.
