Jay Z’s Music Streaming App ‘Tidal’ Is Doing So Badly It’s Making The Competition More Popular
"I've made a huge mistake."
The end of March heralded the launch of Tidal, Jay Z’s new music streaming app, along with a star-studded and very confusing marketing campaign featuring some of music’s biggest names calling their latest plaything “the beginning of a new world” and sitting around a conference table nodding at each other.
I could honestly do a standalone piece unpicking the most supremely awkward moments from that promo video. Is it at 0:15, when they toast the venture with Daft Punk, who must then work out how to insert liquid through the helmets they never take off? Is it Beyonce talking up a new music app like she’s in ‘Les Miserables’? Is it Nicki Minaj’s “why did I agree to this” face?
“can i go home please”
The overbearing and poorly-received marketing blitz did little to disguise the app’s very real problems, notably that it’s less a “revolution” in music streaming than a more expensive version of Spotify that does little to live up to its stated aim of giving power back to musicians. Smaller acts like Mumford and Sons and Death Cab for Cutie have criticised Tidal being owned by artists so wealthy they don’t really need more royalties — Mumford guitarist Winston Marshall described those involved as “new school fucking plutocrats,” and when Mumford and Sons are calling you out for seeming less-than-genuine, you know you’ve got a problem. You didn’t just wind up in that field with your excruciatingly twee instruments and your vests, Mumford and Sons! I’m onto you, you fuckers.
Less than a month on from Tidal’s launch the wheels are already falling off — Rihanna recently put a newly-released single that was supposed to be a Tidal exclusive on Vevo to help with the numbers and just whacked her latest song on her own website, and the CEO of Tidal’s parent company Aspiro departed earlier this week, along with 25 employees.
Most tellingly, it’s already bombed out of the chart measuring the top 700 most-downloaded iPhone apps in the US — not a great look for a so-called “revolution” in music streaming. Ironically, Tidal’s high-profile criticism of its competitors might have helped boost their fortunes — before Tidal’s big reveal, Spotify wasn’t even in the top 40 download chart. Now it and rival Pandora are sitting pretty in the top five. Not only has Jay Z failed to take over the music streaming business, he’s kind of helped his competition cement their lead. Who could have predicted that wealthy, hugely powerful megastars complaining about their problems wouldn’t engender the sympathy of the music-listening public? Who could have FORESEEN.
Tidal might not be dead in the water just yet — rumours that a new Jay Z/Beyonce joint album is being prepared for exclusive release on the platform have begun circulating, a move that will presumably see a huge spike in Tidal downloads until someone leaks the album on YouTube eight seconds later. Considering the start it’s had, it’s got nowhere to go but up.