A massively star-studded cast of musical talents took center stage March 31 to announce the new direction for Tidal music streaming service\u2014under the management of Jay-Z.
\nAlicia Keys was among the first to take the podium during the press conference. Keys expressed her sentiment that with all the entertainment stars on the stage, it felt like a \u201cgraduation\u201d for the artists. It was \u201cthe beginning to a whole new era\u201d in the music industry, Keys said. \u201cToday we announce Tidal, the first ever artist-owned global music platform\u201d
\n
\nAs it turned out, everyone appearing on the stage was part owner of the platform. Music industry headliners like country music star Jason Aldean, the iconic Madonna, massively popular DJs Calvin Harris and Deadmau5, Win Butler and Regine Chassagne from Arcade Fire and many more would sign the \u201cdeclaration\u201d on the podium during the conference.
\nTidal promises to create a fan-tailored experience for subscribers, as well as additional content, but moreover will hope to serve as a means to preserve a healthy and robust music industry.
\nTidal will offer no free services, but instead two levels of subscription; $19.99\/month for lossless audio quality and $9.99 for compressed audio. Tidal is offering a 30-day free trial to users now.
\nTidal enters a music market saturated with streaming services like Spotify and Pandora\u2014both of which offer free alternatives to paid subscribership.
\nThe piracy of music as reported by the Institute of Policy Innovation estimates projected losses of $12.5 billion annually to the economy of the United States alone.
\nReuters reports Jay-Z\u2019s purchase of Aspiro, a Swedish tech company, cost $56 million. The Financial Times reports that free streaming sites brought labels in the United States only $295 million, compared to the $800 million created by paid subscription services.
\nCriticism and doubt are rampant on social media in response to the launch of Tidal. The $20-a-month price tag leaves many potential consumers unconvinced. Tidal\u2019s business model is hard to differentiate from Spotify, meanwhile it is substantially more expensive.
\nSimilarly, music lovers have voiced their concerns that for $20, the technology gap for the average user will make the \u201cluxury\u201d of the lossless audio a moot point\u2014only high quality listening devices will be able to provide the experience that Tidal has chosen to make focal.
\nTo be successful, Tidal may need to be as revolutionary and impactful as the icons that have invested into it to convince listeners to sign up and cough up to plug in.<\/p>\n
Barton Kleen A massively star-studded cast of musical talents took center stage March 31 to announce the new direction for Tidal music streaming service\u2014under the management of Jay-Z. Alicia Keys was among the first to take the podium during the press conference. Keys expressed her sentiment that with all the entertainment stars on the stage, it felt […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5723,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[1999],"class_list":["post-11517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tartan-news","tag-barton-kleen"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-2ZL","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5723"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11517"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11517\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11518,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11517\/revisions\/11518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nSocial Media Editor<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"