About three hours after the conclusion of yesterday’s titanic Tidal announcement, Billboard posted a story called “8 Things We Found on Jay Z’s Tidal Streaming Service.” Those eight things were:
- Rihanna’s “Bitch Better Have My Money”
- The White Stripes’ Exclusive First TV Appearance
- Daft Punk’s Electroma Film
- Behind The Scenes Footage of Alicia Keys’ Set The World On Fire Tour At Madison Square Garden
- Coldplay’s “Songs That Formed The Band” Playlist
- Playlists by Beyoncé, Jack White, Jay Z, Jason Aldean, and deadmau5
- Videos (33 in all)
- Taylor Swift (all Swift’s albums except her most recent, 1989)
Whether one is compelled by any or all of that content depends on the individual, but there are certain inclusions (and absences) that speak volumes. For instance: It’s telling that Rihanna dropped “Bitch Better Have My Money” on March 26, four days prior to the launch of Tidal, even though she is a co-owner of Tidal and could have waited to use her new song as leverage for the new service, enticement for potential subscribers. It’s telling, too, that none of Tidal’s co-owners used the launch as an opportunity to share new music, even though at least two of those artists — Rihanna and Kanye West — have albums ready to drop right now.
It’s telling that most of the content “found” by Billboard is old and feels a bit dusted-off: The White Stripes’ first TV appearance originally aired in 2000. Daft Punk’s Electroma film came out in 2006. The behind-the-scenes footage of Alicia Keys’ Set The World On Fire Tour dates back to 2013. It’s not exactly a documentary; it’s three minutes of video. At the time that footage was shot, Keys was touring behind Girl On Fire, the worst-selling album of her career to date. At the time, too, Keys was the “Global Creative Director” for BlackBerry. That arrangement ended in 2014, which is just as well: Tidal’s corporate “partner” (“parent”?) is Sprint, and right now, Sprint offers a service plan for only one BlackBerry device: the Q10 — you have to scroll all the way down the page to find it, past nine Samsung devices. (Coincidentally, you might recall, Tidal co-owner Jay Z’s last album, 2013’s Magna Carta Holy Grail, was initially released exclusively to Samsung Galaxy owners.)
Then there are the playlists. Coldplay’s “Songs That Formed The Band” playlist includes the Verve’s “Bitter Sweet Symphony,” Radiohead’s “Paranoid Android,” and R.E.M.’s “Nightswimming.” Beyoncé’s list is her “festival favorites”; Aldean’s is his favorite party songs. Some combination of hubris and laziness has led these artists to believe this content is even remotely engaging, much less something that might help to justify a monthly subscription fee.
It’s telling, too, that the most valuable and substantial bit of content mentioned here is Swift’s pre-1989 catalog, while Swift herself was notably absent from that stage yesterday afternoon. Presumably Swift’s countless corporate sponsorships and partnerships preclude her from taking the stage as a representative of Sprint. Presumably Swift also knows, though, that her brand is better served by this:
Than this:
It’s equally telling that Swift did not include 1989 among her Tidal offerings. Swift’s newest album is still selling enough that the royalty rate paid to her by Tidal would presumably represent a net loss. But don’t mistake Swift’s limited involvement for a vote of confidence: Even when Swift pulled her music from Spotify, her pre-1989 albums were still available in the paid tiers of Rdio and Rhapsody. Spotify doesn’t allow for such stratification: All music offered on the service is available to all subscribers.
In an interview with Billboard, conducted before the Tidal announcement but published at the moment of its conclusion, Jay Z talked a bit about the service. There’s a lot there, and I encourage you to read the whole thing, but I’ve pulled out a few of the sections that jumped out at me:
Each first-tier person [i.e., the co-owners named yesterday] has equity in the company?
Yes.
Is it the same equity across the board?
Yes. We’re super-transparent, and I think that’s part of it. We want to be transparent, we want to give people their data; they can see it. If somebody streams your record in Iowa, you see it. No more shell games. Just transparency.
So the founding members all got the same equity, and now we have a second round and everyone gets the same in that one as well, but it’s not as large as the first tier. We want to keep it going. We want to make this thing successful and then create another round and another round. That’s the dream, that’s the utopia. Everyone is sharing in it; everyone is some kind of owner in it in some kind of way.
I’ll come back to the concept of transparency, but a quick response to his claim regarding utopian equity (not to be confused with “equality”): As I read it, Tidal’s founding mothers and fathers get the highest number of shares in the company. The next round of “members” get a smaller number of shares. The third round gets a smaller number still. Read this again: “We want to keep it going. We want to make this thing successful and then create another round and another round.” So at a certain point, new members will get a microfraction of the equity held by the founding members — even though many (if not all) of those founding members are ALREADY EVEN TODAY past their respective commercial peaks, while the new lower-equity members would be delivering vital music.
Back to transparency. Here’s another choice exchange:
Twelve months from now, what would be your definition of success with Tidal? It doesn’t sound like it’s a financial benchmark.
If everyone says, “Wow, so many things have changed. This has gotten better. I like what’s happening.” If Aloe Blacc and his writers, the guys he wrote with, are not seeing a $4,000 check from 168 million streams.
Jay is using an example offered by Blacc himself, via a 2014 op-ed in Wired. Wrote Blacc:
Consider the fact that it takes roughly one million spins on Pandora for a songwriter to earn just $90. Avicii’s release “Wake Me Up!” that I co-wrote and sing, for example, was the most streamed song in Spotify history and the 13th most played song on Pandora since its release in 2013, with more than 168 million streams in the US. And yet, that yielded only $12,359 in Pandora domestic royalties — which were then split among three songwriters and our publishers. In return for co-writing a major hit song, I’ve earned less than $4,000 domestically from the largest digital music service.
Both Jay and Blacc are being a little disingenuous: The 168 million streams of “Wake Me Up!” via Pandora generated $12,359, which was split three ways. Of course, Pandora functions more like a radio station than a streaming service — Tidal is not competing with Pandora; it’s competing with Spotify and (soon) Beats Music. Blacc never disclosed what he was paid for the 200 million-plus streams of “Wake Me Up!” on Spotify (the song was indeed the service’s most-played as of February 2014 — although it has since been surpassed). We can speculate, though.
For some context, consider this 2014 article in TIME. Spotify disclosed that it pays between $0.006 and $0.0084 per stream. Based on those numbers, “Wake Me Up!” should have generated between $1,200,000 and $1,680,000 in royalties. And based on those numbers, would Jay not consider Spotify a successful model?
Maybe not. No doubt artists would like to be paid more for their work. But Tidal is no more transparent than Spotify — in fact, it’s considerably less transparent at this point. Spotify is open about its payouts. Tidal is barely even open about its ambitions.
As for the soon-to-relaunch Beats Music, Jay was even less committal:
You have a long-standing relationship with [Beats Music’s] Jimmy Iovine. Have you been in contact with him since the news has started trickling out?
Yeah, of course. My thing with Jimmy is, “Listen, Jimmy; you’re Jimmy Iovine, and you’re Apple, and truthfully, you’re great. You guys are going to do great things with Beats, but … you know, I don’t have to lose in order for you guys to win, and let’s just remember that.” Again, I’m not angry. I actually told him, “Yo, you should be helping me. This is for the artist. These are people that you supported your whole life. You know, this is good.”
This is almost 100% false. In fact, the timing of the Tidal launch suggests that Jay is scrambling to acquire market share before Beats can claim theirs; it would appear that Tidal was rushed to market for the sole purpose of getting there before the Beats relaunch, which is expected to come next month, along with iOS 8.4. Consider this: Jay bought the Swedish service Aspiro, Tidal’s parent company, less than a month ago.
Beats gestated for quite a while longer than that. I sat in two meetings with representatives from Beats Music (this was before the service was launched at all, long before it was obtained for relaunch by Apple) and in those meetings, the Beats reps basically said that their goal for the service was to be as big as Netflix: Everyone and their mom had to be a paid subscriber. (They actually said, almost verbatim, “We need your mom to subscribe to this. This has to be a service your mom would use.”) To give you an idea what that means: Netflix has 57 million paid subscribers. By comparison, Spotify has 15 million. For a service such as this to be viable, it has to be just about ubiquitous, if not quite a monopoly. Tidal does have to lose in order for Beats to win, because for Beats to win, it needs to obtain a market share that would render Tidal extremely marginal and erase Spotify altogether.
Speaking of Spotify…
Can you say definitively that [artists] are going to make more money from Tidal than Spotify?
It’s not me against Spotify, but for us, you know, just the idea of the way we came into it, with everyone having equity, will open the dialogue — whether it be with the labels, the publishers or whoever … Will artists make more money? Even if it means less profit for our bottom line, absolutely. That’s easy for us. We can do that. Less profit for our bottom line, more money for the artist; fantastic. Let’s do that today.
That’s not an answer. The real answer is “no” — he cannot say definitively that artists will make more money from Tidal than Spotify. If he were being honest, he would say, “It is extremely unlikely.” Instead, he’s just babbling. In fairness, it’s not out of the realm of possibility — it is extremely unlikely but not impossible — but it would require Tidal to achieve Beats’ goal of becoming as big as Netflix AND for Tidal to pay out higher percentages to artists than Spotify does (note too that Spotify is still not a profitable enterprise, and that the majority of its revenue goes to artists and labels for royalty payments). As of today, though, Tidal isn’t sharing the details of their payout system. And unless you consider old videos and thrown-together playlists to be “something,” you might say they’re sharing nothing at all.
What they will share remains to be seen. I don’t think we’ll ever see financials, because I don’t think the service will survive long enough for that to become an issue, but I am curious to see how much its co-owners commit to the service. For instance: Will Kanye’s new album be streamed exclusively on Tidal? And will that lead to millions of new Tidal subscriptions?
I doubt it. I would go so far as to bet against it. That would only underscore how little Kanye’s music contributes to Kanye’s public profile. Yeezus was certified platinum even though it actually sold only 630,000 copies. But people — present company absolutely included — talked about that thing like it was Thriller. And people listened to that thing like it was Thriller! If Kanye were to limit his new album’s reach to Tidal users, fewer people would talk about it; fewer people would listen.
He won’t do that. What he will do with Tidal in the future, though, and what he’s doing with Tidal now? I have no idea. No one does — maybe not even the owners themselves.
[Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for Roc Nation.]
An earlier version of this story incorrectly suggested that Spotify’s royalty payments went directly to the songwriters behind “Wake Me Up!” In fact, those payments were made to the record label and publisher to whom the song was assigned by its writers.
Tidal blue has taken over the front page — Justin Bieber, Father John Misty, iLoveMakonnen mixtape. Coincidence or are we all being indoctrinated into the cult?
Funny, this sounds like it was written up by a Swede.
The claim of Spotify not being profitable can be misleading, though.
I haven’t examined their financial statements, but if they’re investing money back into the company in order to grow it, they could still be generating more than enough revenue to make a profit, so it may be by choice that they’re not profitable right now.
For example, Amazon has enormous revenues, but are investing such an enormous amount into expanding their business into new areas that they actually weren’t profitable last year. They still made tons of money, but chose to reinvest it rather than keep it as profit. So profit isn’t always a great indicator of how successful an enterprise is.
Ironic that you mention Amazon…take the Kindle as an example which makes zero money for the company as an item of sale, but what does?
All together people….”the content you put into it.”
So, I began a trial version of this yesterday, and literally the first two things I looked for were unavailable (1989 and Grimes – Visions). The idea of including videos could be a nice plus, but they were very limited and of poor quality from what I saw. Definitely a downgrade from Youtube. I also did not see any sort of social networking element on Tidal, but I could have just missed it. I think even Spotify is missing the boat on this one; how cool would it be to literally “listen along” with anyone you are following? I’m not just talking the ability to see and click on whatever someone is playing, but actually listen as another user changes songs, curates, and even narrates in real time?
You can listen along
whoops, should have finished reading your post
i would totally pay to do that too — as long as people are allowed to turn the function off when they don’t want you following along haha.
I think Rdio allows you to do this. I remember they announced it a while ago.
I understand Beyonce ( a wife) and Roc Nation artists being there (they’re basically obligated), but what the hell were Jack and Win thinking when they signed this mess?
Well that depends. I’m assuming that, in exchange for lending their indie cred, they’re not paying that much for their part in this. If that’s true it would be a fairly risk free engagement. if it works it will make them a lot of money, if it doesn’t work.. that doesn’t really hurt them either. As far as I can tell all JW/AF fans have done so far is frown a little and don’t pay it a lot of thought so it won’t hurt their credibility that much either…
I don’t know about that. I guess this depends on how much cred is “worth”, but on that count, Win and Regine have more to lose than any of these people. This is a huge sell-out move and it looks REALLY bad for these guys.
He sure isn’t a businessman.
Seriously. Let people who have business degrees and acumen run businesses. It’s outrageous to think of Jay-Z successfully running a Hamburger Stand the way he’s talking in this. He sounded more like a high presentation zero policy Politician than an businessman in this.
It’s kind of crazy, when you think about, how much terror money breeds in this world. Rappers, athletes get money, own businesses that cultivate worst fucking things a human could imagine or experience, then we don’t have to imagine them cus we’re nonstop experiencing them.
Anyways, off to Wingstop! (horrible wings dece fries)
Jay Z built a record company, clothing company, sold millions of records, was the CEO of Def Jam for a bit, is worth over half a billion dollars, has pretty much been about nothing but business since he was selling crack in the 80s and 90s, but yeah dude… he totally has no idea what he is doing and is completely ill-equiped to establish or run a business. Not saying that Tidal will be successful, but Jay has been pretty much nothing but successful.
I think Jay is both a business, man, and a businessman, but here he’s leaning on the former to distract people from the latter. I’m sure he’s got a prospectus for Tidal, but he’s not sharing those details. He’s just offering empty platitudes that sound progressive but don’t stand up to scrutiny.
I can think of a hundred examples but here’s one. The base rate for a lossless subscription is $20 per month while the base rate for a standard MP3 (320 kbps) subscription is $10 per month. That’s a substantial difference (and I’m not sure how it’s justified in terms of overhead but that’s another story). Does the artist get paid twice as much for a lossless stream as a standard stream? Of course not, because behavior varies so greatly from user to user.
Let’s break this down with extremely abstract (and admittedly simplistic and unrealistic) figures. Let’s say Tidal had only two users: User A (a lossless subscriber) and User B (a standard subscriber). Tidal would then have $30 revenue. And let’s say Tidal paid out 2 cents per lossless stream versus 1 cent per standard stream. If User A listened to 5,000 songs a month while User B listened to 500 songs a month, Tidal would have to pay out $100 royalties for User A’s behavior, and $5 for User B’s behavior. That’s obviously unsustainable. So royalties have to be paid out at a percentage. Assuming royalties were Tidal’s only overhead cost, in order for the service to be profitable, it would have to pay a flat rate per stream — irrespective of audio quality — of approximately half-a-cent per song, which would result in a total payout of $27.50, and a net profit of $2.50.
Of course these numbers are wildly abstract, and I’m using them just to make a point. There’s no transparency because the details of the prospectus are probably equally confusing and frustrating (if not depressing). Tidal’s business model is really complicated, and this doesn’t even begin to take into account the involvement of Softbank/Sprint, the Japanese telecommunications company (which is literally worth like $92 billion) that appears to be bankrolling the service.
http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/30/tidal-confirms-partnership-with-sprint-owner-softbank-for-its-artist-co-owned-music-service/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Def_Jam_Recordings#Def_Jam_in_the_2000s
“Under Jay-Z’s leadership, Def Jam launched the successful careers of contemporary R&B singers Rihanna and Ne-Yo. At the end of 2007, Jay-Z decided not to renew his contract.”
Wow, he’s a real fucking Henry Ford.
I’m so confused by your vitriol toward Jay Z. All I’m saying is dude has been rather successful. I guess you’re right though, you can either be as revolutionary as Henry Ford or an absolute failure.
I’m so confused by you jumping into into the ring only to express support for a vacuous Bernie Madoff.
The dude has released nothing but garbage since the black album, attached his name to and then stole from the Occupy movement, and now he’s promoting what sounds like the worst possible platform in an already suffocated market. Also, I think his last album only came on Samsung devices only accessible to people with luxury vehicles.
He’s not about music. His businesses promote exclusivity and are marketed toward…rich people who like terrible music? This one, as Nelson points out, is a literal pyramid scheme that would barely benefit any new musicians naive enough to participate.
He’s an out of touch, overrated, 1percenter dumbass. Are you still confused?
Sorry, didn’t realize u were the original commenter. New layout got me all f*cked up.
You need to relax dude. I don’t even know what you’re arguing about. Why are you so mad?
I can’t spell it out for you any more than I have. Enjoy Jay’s new offerings on Tidal, maybe have a private listening sesh for yourself is a Q room?
“You need to relax” = the ultimate pussy way to back out of an argument
I don’t give a shit about Tidal and don’t know what a Q room is. I don’t even care that much about Jay Z but I felt a need to point out how stupid it is that you somehow think that he is a bad business man. This is what I am so confused about. How can someone with so many successes and a ridiculous net worth be considered a bad business man? This is the only part of the argument I was involved in. What you said about Bernie Madoff, the quality of Jay Z’s music, his relevance to music, etc. etc. has nothing to do at all with the statement I was arguing against. You are correct in assuming that I was trying to back out of this argument because this shit is pointless as fuck and I just don’t share the same passion for arguing about harmless celebrities doing shit I don’t care about.
Hm, guess you didn’t want to back out that bad. I made several points about how he’s a bad businessman, though I can sympathize they’d be hard to parse for a Jay sycophant.
The one remotely notable thing he’s done business-wise was head Def Jam. Even that’s dubious. Sure, he got NeYo and Rihanna, but does that really mean anything? Wasn’t Mac Maine CEO of Young Money when they signed Nicki and Drake?
He got rich off drugs, then music, and because of his name a lot of people have handed him things in the business world. He has a lot of money. That doesn’t make him a good businessman. Good businessmen fill societal needs and tap untouched markets. This Tidal thing is the ultimate proof of his business idiocy. He’s flooding a burgeoning market without a sustainable plan for his questionable service. He thinks because he’s got money and read one Wired article he’s the next Steve Jobs.
It must be nice to not “give a shit about Tidal” while defending Jay’s honor as a businessman. Reminds me of when I would tell people I didn’t give a shit about The Rebirth but also acted flabbergasted when anyone said he wasn’t still the best rapper alive. You are a fucking idiot, my friend.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay-Z#Business_career
“He has also invested in a real estate development venture called J Hotels which recently acquired a $66 million mid-block parcel in Chelsea, New York.”
So he’s down to turn Manhattan 2035 into The Oligarch’s Playground too, huh?
From Jay : “Let’s stick up the world and split it 50/50, uh-huh.
Let’s take the dough and stay real jiggy, uh-huh”
Sounds about right but for the last four words or so.
Sounds about
Of course not. He’s a business, man!
As an Rdio subscriber, the constant railing against Spotify seems like noise to me. Yes, they’re the dominant provider of content. Yes, other models work better, as demonstrated tacitly by the presence of the Taylor Swift catalog, etc. I understand that artists are more prone to complain for free than they are to endorse something better without getting paid, but that’s where a media outlet like Stereogum could be helpful, were they inclined to proactively report on the subject.
What do you mean exactly, I’m a bit confused by this post. Do you mean that Stereogum should do more to promote Rdio? Also, how does the decision by Ms. Swift ‘prove’ that Rdio is the better platform? This is not a slight btw, just an honest question
……So the founding members all got the same equity, and now we have a second round and everyone gets the same in that one as well, but it’s not as large as the first tier. We want to keep it going. We want to make this thing successful and then create another round and another round. That’s the dream, that’s the utopia”
That’s the most half assed description of a “Pyramid Scheme” I have ever fucking heard.
Haha yes, immediately after reading that I CTRL + F-ed “Pyramid” on this page to see if anyone else mentioned that
So if this round of investments is called the #TIDAL wave, will the next round be called #SLIPstream?
Jack White did have that slightly dissapointed look of being promised a free lunch after the presentation but knowing deep down that there never really was a free lunch.
“Hey Jack, sorry for not having your guacamole, but I got these Chicago Cubs tickets to make it up to ya!”
“I was told there would be punch and pie.”
Cancel Wednesday through Sunday because you made my week RJ.
*slow clap*
So this is how liberty dies… with thunderous applause.
Does wanting Tidal to completely fail make me a bad person…?
If not, there’s plenty of other things I’m SURE definitely make me a bad person. But I’m just curious about this one for now.
Quite the contrary. Wishing failure about this egomanically driven piece of shit probably makes you a decent person.
Dear Jack: I’ve supported you and your dumb shit through everything. You wanted to make some half assed country BS…fine. I bought that shit. You wanted to distance yourself from simple badassery on your guitar and become a piano fetishist…cool. I bought that shit. But this is donesies for you and me, pal. You (of all people) being involved in this kind of pyramid scheme bullshit is simply too much to bear. Enjoy your money and your fame. I guarantee you the people that have bought your shit from the git go feel exactly as I do. You are a traitor to the cause.
I got carried away again, didn’t I?
No, keep going!
The participation of members of Arcade Fire is what brought on my dilemma. I wish nothing but the best for them, they’ve provided a lot of beautiful music, they deserve good stuff, but in this case… Sorry guys, gonna have to root against ya!
Yeah, but Jack seems to love Jay. So when he calls how is Jack going to say “you know I love occasionally putting out your records, but I’m not going to show up to your birthday party.”
Seriously, though, how is this a good idea?
Madge (barf) is starting to look like she is having her wardrobes designed by a cut rate dominatrix and then finished in the Stevie Nicks studio.
Not good.
All this bullshit makes me just want to spin some vinyl.
“Magna Carta Holy Grail” will be available on vinyl via Third Man Records soon!
I will say one plus about releasing “Magna Carta…” on EIGHT 7″ vinyls is that it will make damn sure I never listen to that garbage album again.
“You know what would make this album EVEN BETTER?! If listeners had to get up and flip a vinyl after EVERY. SINGLE. SONG!”
If I got that vinyl version as a gift I’d take the 7″ with Frank Ocean’s song “Oceans” (lol, still cracks me up) and throw the rest in the garbage.
I get kind of annoyed when albums that really should be on just one LP are on two LPs (I know it improves the quality…whatever, sometimes I just don’t want to get off the couch). But that terrible album on 8 7″s?? That’s the dumbest thing ever.
Putting that shit album in that worthless format is pretty much the zenith of Jack White’s object fetishism wankfest. Maybe dude can sit back and bask in the glow of a job well done, finally stop manufacturing novelty items and just make, you know… records.
Tidal is the creation of Swedish company Aspiro, not Jay-Z. It’s been around since Q4 2014 and Jay bought it in January. Most people will not be able to discern between lossless (320kbps and up) and (good quality 128kbps) audio, period, especially those older than 25 or so. Another reason you won’t hear the difference is because your crappy Bose/Beats equipment hasn’t the detail to reproduce lossless audio. Sure if you have a $5K+ system (yes, on the low end, I know) or $1000+ headphones, you just might talk yourself into believing you can hear the difference.
Also, Spotify already streams at 320 kbps for premium subsribers.
The Hi-Fi subscription of Tidal can stream in FLAC (1411kbps), which is a signifcant upgrade over Spotify’s 320kbps. People are going to be able to tell the difference, the question is whether they care.
I honestly wonder if they will be able to tell, though. Most people are probably streaming Spotify over their laptops while studying, off their phone into their earbuds, using their offline playlists on the subway, listening with one earbud in while at work, etc etc. In most of those cases, are people streaming stuff through headphones and speakers that are going to make that audio quality readily discernible?
I guess it’s less of a question about will they tell and more so _can_ the large audience Tidal needs to succeed tell the difference due to the listening habits and hardware being used.
Well, I think even on bad equipment most people are going to be able to tell the difference. I agree that the difference is a lot smaller on laptop speakers, earbuds, etc. though and the HiFi experience probably isn’t worth the extra $10 a month if you aren’t going to capitalize on it with some halfway decent equipment. For those that do care about sound quality, though, the difference is quite significant.
If your standard medium for listening to music — especially hip hop — is on laptop speakers, why are you spending any money on it at all? Listening to music obviously just isn’t really your thing.
FLAC is a lot bigger than 320 kbps mp3s, but I don’t know if it’s actually all that better. A professor of mine once showed our class a program that plays back the difference between lossless files and their mp3 counterparts so you can hear what you’re actually losing, and when he did it with the 320s the loss was pretty much negligible. Mp3s suck, but they’ve always sucked less than they should given how much smaller they are than lossless.
Also, while I’m not a hugely knowledgeable audiophile, I do pay pretty close attention to sound quality, and I generally don’t hear a difference between ALAC files ripped from CDs and 320kbps mp3s. But people who have better ears or listening setups might disagree.
If anyone’s able to tell the difference between flac and high end mp3s they possess superhuman hearing and should be studied as the medical marvels they are.
I can’t believe we’re still at a point where people actually believe there’s any perceivable difference. This is not controversial in the least – it has been thoroughly debunked.
I agree with this, but I won’t argue with anyone who prefers FLAC just as a general rule: The human ear may not be able to detect a difference in sound, but in purely technical terms, FLAC is “higher-quality” audio, and if someone wants to pay for “higher-quality” audio just because it’s available and they can afford it, then more power to ‘em. But the Tidal price points are so fucked. There’s no way the respective server/bandwidth costs (for 320 kbps vs. FLAC) are commensurate with that variance. They’re just using a combination of vanity, flattery, piety, ignorance, and guilt to gouge the end user. The fact that they even offer a 320 kbps option (at HALF the cost) is evidence of their hypocrisy. “If you pay $20 a month, you can hear the music as the artists intended it be heard, which as an artist-owned business, is our mission. HAVING SAID THAT: You can pay $10 a month and hear it the other way, instead.” I mean, come on.
Your argument that Tidal has to lose for Beats to win is pretty ridiculous given the fact that both Netflix and Hulu Plus are prospering, not to mention Amazon Prime Video. This piece seems pretty agenda-driven more so than objective. Even your “objective” points are filled with semi-snark which was likely brought about by the presentation. Though you did a good job of pointing out how artists will be paid more on Tidal. But what is most annoying is the fact that people are sitting here pointing out the salaries of these artists when populism seldom is integrated into the discussion of technology. If I had the time that would be the op-ed I would write. The “misguided and disingenuous” populism involved in critiquing Tidal. We’re sitting here while Apple and others convinced people they need a tablet, an apple watch and a bunch of other overpriced stuff that they really do not and Beats was making shitty headphones and selling it for 300 and there was next to NO public outcry then. An entire industry was created based on the omission of those facts and NOW people want to go into the details and the money-making ambitions behind a product. It’s pretty comical to me as a pretty progressive-minded dude. Go fight other fights, the Tidal backlash and attention it is receiving is beyond stupid.
Netflix, Hulu Plus, and Amazon Prime offer different services. My guess is that most people who have Hulu and/or Amazon Prime also have Netflix. But Tidal, Beats, and Spotify are effectively the same thing. You don’t need more than one. Maybe Tidal will pull all of its artists’ music from other services and become a boutique like HBO. But that seems like a bad bet to me — it will only lead to reduced exposure for the artists, not to mention smaller royalties checks. Why would Kanye West make his music available only to a very small group of subscribers, when he could make it available to the whole world?
Why would a studio license its animation rights just to Netflix when it could make it available to a wider group of subscribers? It probably performed the cost-benefit analysis. Kanye West’s albums will still be available for purchase–they just will only be streamed on Tidal going forward (most likely). Obviously, he finds that whatever he may lose from streaming on Spotify is worth it (i.e. he has a 3% in Tidal). Netflix and Amazon Prime video are basically the same service with exclusive shows separating them. Amazon Prime is obviously connected to a larger service, but Amazon is expending an awful lot of money to acquire licensing rights and to develop original shows. HBOnow exists even though Amazon Prime secured the rights to much of HBO’s most popular shows. The point is, they are all offering exclusive content and that is the only thing separating any of them. To condemn Tidal or Beats, while these various other services demonstrate that the consumers are willing to flock different versions of nearly identical services just because they have the rights to the content they prefer is short-sighted. You relinquished that point to me and did not realize. Those artists on stage are one of the “unique” parts of Tidal. J. Cole offering a free private concert for those who listen to his music the most is unique about Tidal, etc. Mumford and Sons, did not say a single intelligent thing about streaming services from a business perspective. They just merely commented on the optics of Tidal and how it may turn people off. People stream music and movies for convenience–not because it is not possible to find that content free elsewhere. People were on Twitter complaining about Tidal not being offered in South America so they could not watch Rihanna’s video. That is what Apple is banking on and that is what Tidal is banking on-exclusivity. The question should whether what worked for movies and television can work for music. Netflix convinced people to pay for what I can find in about 15 minutes while searching online. It’s time writers get back to discussing whether or not Tidal, Beats, Spotify, etc. are useful services and how they can approve instead of having long-winded temper tantrums because they did not like the Tidal roll out.
I’m on the Tidal 14-day trial took the Tidal “can you tell what’s HD” test using my Klipsh Palladiums. I got 3 out of 5 correct. Sorry Jay-Z, I’m sticking with Spotify. After all, I’ll need that extra $15/mo. to help me pay off these $8,000 speakers!
I’m a bit confused about this bit:
“In fairness, it’s not out of the realm of possibility — it is extremely unlikely but not impossible — but it would require Tidal to achieve Beats’ goal of becoming as big as Netflix AND for Tidal to pay out higher percentages to artists than Spotify does”
Why would Tidal need to reach Netflix’s 57 million subsribers and pay higher percentages than Spotify in order to pay artists more than Spotify does? Wouldn’t they just need to have more than Spotify’s 15 million and/or pay higher percentages? (Assuming Tidal’s payout system ends up being similar to Spotify’s)
Because Spotify has something like 50 million unpaid subscribers who generate ad revenue, and a percentage of that is paid to the artists, too. So Tidal’s subscriber base would have to generate more revenue than all of Spotify’s revenue streams combined. What Spotify pays per song is almost irrelevant, because the numbers are skewed so significantly by unpaid subscribers. In 2013, Spotify subscriptions generated $678M, while advertising generated $68M — they could eliminate the non-paying subscribers and lose only a fraction of the bottom line but that would mean a much less vital service as well as less actual money (and a GREAT DEAL less exposure) for artists. There are too many variables to actually build out an equation but realistically, for Tidal to write bigger checks to artists based on songs played, it would need a near-monopoly on streaming music. Maybe not 60M subscribers, but at least, say 25M or 30M, which would constitute a Netflix-esque ubiquity IMO.
Sorry, those are euros, not dollars — you can see Spotify’s 2013 P&L here: http://recode.net/2014/11/25/spotify-is-a-booming-billion-dollar-business/
I can’t break it down as much as I’d like because they list “royalty, distribution, and other costs” as a single line item. But you can at least get an idea of how their finances look, and how Tidal’s finances would differ without the unpaid subscribers.
Got it. Thanks!
>Spotify doesn’t allow for such stratification: All music offered on the service is available to all subscribers.
This isn’t quite true. There is content on Spotify that’s only available to premium subscribers, but there’s very little of it. So little that you’re unlikely to notice.
I’m so glad you wrote this article. When they announced Tidal yesterday the first thing that went through my mind was that Jay Z was just doing this to beat the Beats launch. This all feels forced.
This article doesn’t make one mention of FLAC, which is the reason I am giving Tidal a shot (30-day free trial for now). The sound is significantly better.
Man, I’m getting sick of these artists complaining about not getting paid for their work. They’re no better than prima donna athletes holding out for an extra million $ added to their contract. I’m saddened that Arcade Fire and Jack White would submit themselves to this egomaniacal summit and buy into Jay Z’s bullshit. These people are no better than wealthy politicians at this point, claiming they want to help the lowly get paid without doing anything to fix the system! Michael, I like your point about most (if not, all) of these artists being past their respective primes, and that Tidal will only help them and not the new generation of bands/artists currently making more vital music. These Tidal artists don’t care about you. They don’t care about the Father John Misty’s of the music world. They only care about the extra money that will be going into their pockets through this new business venture, and they know that people will be dumb enough to believe they need this “exclusive material”. They know that people will be dumb enough to think that Tidal is important just because all of those big names in pop music are up on stage together selling it to you. Fuck them, and fuck Tidal. Honestly, the only way things might change as far as newer artists getting the money they deserve is if every streaming site makes paid membership mandatory. But even then, YouTube still exists. YouTube is great for many reasons, but it’s a problem when it comes to the music streaming discussion.
There’s no denying the half-assedness of this project, but people always fundamentally misunderstand the complaints of musicians, athletes, etc. There is a world of difference between saying “I don’t make enough money” and saying “Untalented middlemen are claiming my profits for themselves.”
These huge artists who complain about Spotify aren’t crying poor (although there are a lot of poor artists who are *also* being ripped off by Spotify). Nor are professional athletes (although it bears mentioning that the majority of them are not millionaires and have to retire before 30). In both cases, the complaint is that there is an ever-growing number of no-talent suits skimming a percentage of the entertainers’ hard-won profits. It’s not a tragedy on the scale of world hunger or genocide, but it is a viable complaint.
Your politician analogy is kinda lost on me. I just don’t see the analogue there. Artists are not elected public servants.
Can we please talk about this quote? Not sure if I missed it in a previous post:
“People really feel like music is free, but will pay $6 for water. You can drink water free out of the tap and it’s good water. But they’re okay paying for it. It’s just the mindset right now.”
One of Jay’s problems is apparently not his utility bills…
Did he really say that? I don’t think there’s one correct thing said in that statement. $6 for water? I’ve never. Just got a 28-pack of Poland Spring bottles for like $4 bucks. And as good as music is and how people say they’d “die” without it, you literally WOULD die without water, so…
And drinking tap water? It’s “good”…? Huh OK. Mine’s cloudy, not drinkin’ it.
To be fair on the tap water point, NYC’s tap is pretty good, so maybe he’s just spoiled.
Yuuppp: http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/6509498/jay-z-tidal-launch-artist-stakeholders
Plus…
Who the fuck is paying 6 fucking dollars for water and why aren’t they just giving me their money?
The worst part about this whole thing is I kind of don’t 100% disagree with what Jay is saying but HE THINKS PEOPLE PAY $6 FOR WATER AND THAT TAP WATER IS FREE. How can anyone want to believe in this mission of his when he’s so fucking disillusioned?
“What do you mean bottled water doesn’t HAVE to come in a crystal bottle?”
I said the exact same thing about Kanye and his diatribe against $500 sweaters. It earned me a million downvotes from the Yeezus stans.
“I mean it’s a bottle of water, Michael, what could it cost? 10 dollars?” -JayZ Bluth.
“Say goodbye to your streaming service, Jay. And say goodbye to *these*”
Kitty Consumer
They’re crooked!
The guy who made The Blueprint is currently getting compared to the Bluths, which is just about the most damning summary of Tidal I’ve seen yet.
I hear tell Jay is doing a collaboration with Tobias Funke……..
“The Blue’d Print”
Pop-Pop gets a Maybach?
“Wait a minute…..Jay’s in Tidal? Jack’s in Tidal? You know what this means?
Jay is in Jack!” (that one is a stretch and ridiculously paraphrased)
Because you’re not selling water.
Have any NON-Tidal-shareholder musicians (or close buds with Jay-Z or connected to him in some way or whatever) chimed in with praise for Tidal yet? Or positive or even hopeful comments at all? Maybe I missed it but there’s been lots of posts, and the only artists quoted are the shareholders. And the shareholders are huge names in music. If someone can point out what some “smaller” musicians have said about Tidal I’d like to see it.
“I think Tidal is one of the most important things to come along in years”
Fiona Apple, 1996
(not entirely sure this is related to what you were talking about, BSB)
That’s exactly what I thought.
Now did she really say that…? Sometimes I question the facts and quotes you post, blochead…. But then I realize you would never mislead us :-)
I just wanna hang with Haim at the beach.
Then you’ll absolutely LOVE my new religion! That’s what happens to us when we die!
Perfect. what percentage of my income do you need? What do I sacrifice now?
100% by the wire transfer should do it. But, hey, you shouldn’t mind the fact that days are gone when you’re about to spend forever with Haim on a beach!
Did you know that you can view the curated playlists without signing up? So if this curated content is supposed to be some of the perceived value for subscribers, they’ve failed at that. I took a look at Jay-Z’s playlist, and I already had all those songs on my itunes except for one, which I then downloaded. Sorry Jay-Z!