Yesterday, I talked about rapper and music mogul Shawn ‘Jay Z’ Carter’s acquisition of the streaming service Tidal. They had their press conference yesterday. Remember when I asked which celebs would take part? Even I was surprised at the outcome.
At the conference, not only did we learn major A-List musicians support Tidal, they own pieces of this streaming service. Tidal co-owners include Beyonce, Madonna, Rihanna, Usher, Nicky Minaj, Alicia Keys, Calvin Harris, and groups Draft Punk and Coldplay. Together, they vowed to restore the value of music by launching a service owned by artists. Jay Z is still offering a million dollars and equity for other musicians to join him. The regular rates are $9.99 a month, which will pay standard royalties. But Tidal premium services will cost $19.99 a month, and that will pay artist the double royalties Jay Z promised.
But Tidal has a hard acre to plow. What is the customer supposed to get for $19.99 a month? We’re told higher quality audio files and new songs and albums before anybody else. I doubt that’s going to be enough to persuade customers. Customers are very cheap with their music today. In fact, music sales are half of what they were in 2000. Someone can easily go on You Tube‘s VEVO and watch the video for free at anytime. So I understand musicians’ frustration. But even teens and twenty somethings complain that music of the 2010s is plain awful. Do you know how many posts I’ve read from teens saying they prefer music from previous decades rather than today’s stuff? I think the artists should provide better music. Maybe then people will buy their product. Then there’s competition. Taylor Swift might have problems with Spotify, but customers don’t. They have 60 million subscribers. Tidal doesn’t even have 20,000. Apple and Beats are working hard to launch their own streaming service. All I heard from yesterday’s conference is how Tidal benefits the artists. All the artists I saw up there are multi-millionaires. How is this going to benefit consumers, many of whom are still struggling economically? Is Tidal going to be the next big thing in music? Or will it be the worse flop since Apple Newton?