Following weeks of anticipation, rapper Jay Z and several other artists have launched their own Spotify competitor called Tidal featuring high fidelity music streaming and big name artists co-owning the service.
Tidal — owned by artists including Beyoncé, Rihanna, Alicia Keys, Kanye West, Coldplay, and many others — launched on Monday afternoon and offers two subscription tiers. The first — priced at $9.99/month like other streaming services — includes “standard sound quality,” while the second tier costs $19.99/month and offers lossless high fidelity sound quality. Both tiers also feature “high definition music videos” and “expertly curated editorial.” Free 30-day trials are available for both, and unlike Spotify, no free tier is available.
Notably, all of Taylor Swift’s albums save for the recently-released 1989 are included on Tidal. The singer infamously left Spotify last year, citing low payouts to artists. Tidal is reportedly paying artists around double what Spotify and other streaming services offer.
Tidal’s killer feature? The new streaming service is expected to give customers early access to music from big name artists, including Rihanna and Beyoncé, ahead of their release elsewhere. As co-owners of the service, it’d behoove them to give Tidal an advantage. Oddly, no announcement about exclusive music was made today.
High profile artists, including Alicia Keys, Beyoncé, Daft Punk, Madonna, Jack White, Chris Martin, Nicki Minaj, Rihanna, Usher, and Kanye West, were on hand for today’s announcement event, but the stars only took the stage to stand there and quickly sign a contract. Alicia Keys did all of the speaking.
Prior to the event, Jay Z asked many celebrities to support the streaming service by promoting it on Twitter and acting like it’s the coming of a new music overlord. These tweets were all posted Sunday night, with each of the artists changing their profile picture for added emphasis:
It's time to turn the tide and make music history. Show you are part of the movement by turning your profile pic blue. #TIDALforALL
— Usher Raymond IV (@Usher) March 30, 2015
Together, we can turn the tide and make music history. Start by turning your profile picture blue. #TIDALforALL
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) March 30, 2015
NAVY, turn the tide…#MakeMusicHistory #TurnitBlue #TIDALforALL
— Rihanna (@rihanna) March 30, 2015
Music makes the people come together. Join Madonna and turn your profile picture blue. Do it for the music. #TIDALforALL
— Madonna (@Madonna) March 30, 2015
"The Tides They Are-A Changing" #TIDALforALL
— Mr. Carter (@S_C_) March 30, 2015
Jay Z’s Tidal comes as Apple preps a Spotify competitor of their own, which is expected to launch later this year.
The amount of hype surrounding Tidal has certainly piqued our interest, but as of today there’s no huge reason to switch to the streaming service unless you’re the world’s biggest Taylor Swift fan.