Tidal's a disaster; Jay Z slammed for defensive tweets + more

[Pure Adrenaline 1,518]

Jay Z’s Tidal Is A Disaster

Jay Z is on the defensive.

Marlow Stern
Entertainment Editor, New York
@MarlowNYC

The man formerly known as Sean Carter fired off a series of tweets to try and dispel perceived myths floating about concerning Tidal:

"Tidal is doing just fine. We have over 770,000 subs. We have been in business less than one month. There are many big companies that are spending millions on a smear campaign. We made Tidal for fans. We have more than just music. We have video, exclusive concerts, tickets for events early, live sports! My cousin just moved to Nigeria to discover new talent."

Let’s dispel some of Jay Z’s myths here, first. Tidal is not one month old—it was launched by the Swedish/Norwegian company Aspiro in October 2014. Jay Z’s company Project Panther Ltd. later acquired it in March 2015. On March 23, the now Jay Z-owned Tidal integrated WiMP, its sister service (also acquired from Aspiro), which had 597,000 total subscribers as of July 17, 2014, according to Aspiro’s Q2 company presentation.

Now let’s talk about those subscriber numbers. Jay Z touted Tidal’s 770,000 subscribers, but 597,000 of those came from WiMP. That means less than 200,000 people have subscribed to Tidal in the close to a month since that disastrous March 30 presentation. Tidal also dropped out of iTunes’ top 700 most-downloaded apps chart this past week.

Furthermore, the “exclusive” content Tidal has been rolling out mainly consists of content that would be free to fans otherwise, e.g. streaming singles like Rihanna’s “Bitch Better Have My Money," music videos, and the ability to livestream concerts, all of which people could’ve just caught on YouTube, without paying a high monthly premium.

Now to the supposed “smear campaign” being orchestrated against Tidal.

The idea that a “smear campaign” has been launched against Tidal seems incredibly paranoid at best, and disingenuous at worst. Tidal’s outrageous press conference—and the backlash it provoked—had nothing to do with any campaign, nor did the many musical acts who’ve spoken out against the streaming music service.

Mumford & Sons called the owners of Tidal “new school f***ing plutocrats” and went on to say they wanted no part of the self-serving spectacle. And Death Cab for Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard slammed Tidal’s much-ballyhooed presser for being out of touch. There’s also the bizarre situation with Tidal presentation attendee/Jay Z protégé Kanye West and his precarious position within the company.

Last week, following the news that Tidal had dropped out of iTunes’ Top 700 iPhone apps chart after debuting in the top 20, West mysteriously scrubbed his Twitter timeline of all mentions of Tidal with no explanation.

None of these artist slams or the pretentious presentation or the West Twitter incident seems indicative of any elaborate “smear campaign” against Tidal, but rather the byproduct of a dreadful PR campaign. 

read full story here

 

I mean ... the drag.....the expose ..... the weaves fallen off .... it's just too much

 

[Dangerous Man 9,245]

Rihanna's career is endanger. Rih better stay away from that tidal wave disaster.

 

"Is your fave invited to #Tidal event?"

"Poor your fave wasn't invited to #Tidal"

"So much power in one room!"

"Poor Spotify"

 

[Katharine Hepburn 4,607]

So glad gaga didnt take part in this mess 

[Lassex 1,169]

This gif is my fave

I knew it would become a hit! Gonna read the text now

[Rat Boy 43,283]

Happy Gaga didn't get involved in this embarrassment. Jay Z better grab a life jacket before the second #TIDAL wave of flop comes his way.

[Stef 61,589]

Someones been lurking ATRL 

[Dangerous Man 9,245]

Someone's exposing someone.

 

[Pure Adrenaline 1,518]

Someones been lurking ATRL 

​always for dem hit thread 

[Stef 61,589]

​always for dem hit thread 

​nah but forealz I'm kinda happy this flopped. They went into this with expectations way too high and even beyond their power. Were they seriously delusional enough to believe they could conquer multi million platforms like Spotify and YouTube with 200k subscribers?  

[Andreyw 4,285]

It seems like Jay-Z loves to bring attention to himself... now people and the media will come even more often for Tidal now

[Popo 3,781]

​always for dem hit thread 

​GGD members are always thirsty for hit threads and guys with abs  

[Stef 61,589]

The problem is for a service for all, which is what it's being marketed as, is it needs to appeal to all, and pop/r&b/rap music is a piece of the pie but it's stars have little influence on country, latin, indie, folk or rock fans, which make up the rest of the music listening world, at-least in North America. Making this so focused on Jay and his friends was a bad decision from the start, that's like a new sports team or a brand having 25 different logos, 25 different mascots or 25 different spokes people at once.

Jay may have influence on rap fans, but the list ends there. All of the people at the conference embarrassingly over-estimated their actual value to society. The pop stars who passed this up are probably thanking themselves right now. 


HOWEVER:

My question is: Will there be further removals from youtube, twisting the publics arm more and more? Or will they not even really notice Madonna, Rih or Nicki's catalogs being removed? As most people have their favorite music downloaded already...

 

 

^^ A comment from ATRL which is pretty relevant here tbh

[1986 629]

soon Tidal will be the thing.

you;'ll see soon  

[Pure Adrenaline 1,518]

​GGD members are always thirsty for hit threads and guys with abs  

​only for the first one  at least me  

 

 

[RAMROD 108,232]

This will never ends.

But it is only natural for Jay to defend his company, he owns it.