A couple weeks back, Jay-Z and friends introduced a new streaming service called Tidal. It was supposed to be a groundbreaking service. However, the service was widely criticized. Even Time wrote an article on how out of touch Jay-Z and his friends have become.
“Jokes aside, the celebrities at the Tidal launch press conference did a remarkably poor job of elucidating why the consumer accustomed to getting music for free should begin paying for it. In the age of Spotify, it is entirely legal to listen to music constantly and never spend money on it. Countering that fact with the moral claim that celebrities would prefer if you didn’t stream music for free only makes sense if you believe celebrities should get everything they want, one hundred percent of the time.”
Mumford & Sons recently told the Daily Beast that they are anything but fans of the new Tidal streaming service.
“We wouldn’t have joined it anyway, even if they had asked. We don’t want to be tribal. I think smaller bands should get paid more for it, too. Bigger bands have other ways of making money, so I don’t think you can complain. A band of our size shouldn’t be complaining. And when they say it’s artist-owned, it’s owned by those rich, wealthy artists.”
Now comes the bad news that the CEO has already left Tidal, even though the service was launched only a couple weeks ago. Rolling Stone explains Jay-Z and Tidal’s PR disaster .
“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. Former Aspiro CEO Peter Tonstad will replace Chen on an interim basis. Business Insider reports that the Chen departure was the most notable of about 25 employee layoffs Tidal made Friday.”
Jay-Z obviously thought that recruiting such big names as his wife, Beyoncé, Rihanna, Madonna, and Nicki Minaj would automatically make his new streaming service a hit. However, by presenting the service as one in which artists “deserved” to be paid more rather than portraying a quality streaming service, he made a huge mistake. Music listeners want to listen to music and don’t really care about millionaire artists claiming that they aren’t paid enough.
According to Pitchfork , Jay-Z has been so desperate that he is actually personally calling subscribers to “thank them” for joining the service. From the looks of things, Jay-Z and friends are set to lose millions from the new Tidal service.
[Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images]
