Jay-Z’s Tidal Suffers Another Blow: Is It Time For Madonna And Rihanna To Jump Ship?
Jay-Z’s Tidal service has often been called the biggest music industry disaster in recent memory. And now, things are getting worse. Gizmodo describes the latest event in Tidal’s sinking ship.
‘Tidal’s interim CEO Peter Tonstad stepped in after the company ditched former CEO Andy Chen in April, but he just left the company. Executives in Oslo and New York will run Tidal until a replacement is found. ‘The only thing I can confirm is that I have resigned,’ Tonstad told Norwegian news site Dagens Næringsliv.”
In April, Rolling Stone broke the news of Tidal losing its first CEO.
“Less than a month into Jay Z’s Tidal reign, the rapper is already effecting major changes. The streaming service has parted ways with Andy Chen, the CEO of Tidal’s parent company Aspiro that Jay Z purchased for $56 million.”
Jay-Z and his service had PR troubles since its launch. The fact that the service was marketed as one where artists would receive more money has been criticized a lot. The Daily Beast summarizes why many see Tidal as an epic failure.
“The idea behind Tidal is that these higher subscription fees will lead to greater royalties for the artists — so it’s pretty hard to understand how this endeavor is ‘for fans,’ as Jay Z claims. Tidal’s logic seems to be that fans’ money will now go directly into the pockets of the artists.”
The Daily Beast goes on to note that if the monthly premium is more than other services such as Spotify or Beats Music (soon to be Apple Music), it doesn’t really benefit the fans, who could care less about filling the pockets of artists who already have millions.
Recently, a petition was launched at Change.org aimed at Attorney General Loretta Lynch. The petition states that the failure of Tidal is due to racism and that the “white racist” media made sure the service was a failure before giving it a chance to take off. The petition asks the Department of Justice to investigate all of the media outlets that bashed Tidal. So far, there have only been 15 signatures.
Last week, Madonna launched her new video for “B***h I’m Madonna,” and Tidal failed to debut it properly since the end was cut off. Tidal apologized to Madonna fans, but it remains to be seen if Madonna will remain active on the service. The debut of her video certainly didn’t help the song. Recently, Rihanna’s “American Oxygen” debuted on Tidal, and some blame the service for making the song a flop.
Perhaps a new CEO can help save Tidal from the bad wave of publicity and lack of subscribers. However, any artist who remains on Tidal may be risking their reputation and career.
[Photo by Jamie McCarthy / Getty Images for Roc Nation]
