Music-y News: Jay-Z's TIDAL Music Streaming Service

#TIDALforALL

     I'm sure some of you, if you have any affiliation with musicians over social media, were aware of this hashtag or even participated in it over the past couple of days. This hashtag was also paired with a cyan color blue. Various notable artists, including Kanye West, deadmau5, and Coldplay, completely "cyaned" out their profiles by substituting their profile pictures and page headers with this color. So, what does this all mean?

     

#TIDALforALL presented on the cyan color.

     Evidentally, Jay Z is behind this. Essentially, what Tidal is, is a music streaming service, but, as you can see by all of this artist support, it's not just any music streaming service, is it? Of

Jay Z looking fly.

course we all know of Spotify, Pandora, and in some cases Google Play as popular means of streaming music. What is up with the hype behind Tidal? What sets it apart from these examples previously listed?

     Tidal is definately making a notable attempt to set itself apart. But what in specific sets it apart? Well, first of all, Tidal is said to be streaming high-fidelity lossless audio. What this means, essentially, is it is a higher quality than that of the typical mp3 format available on the internet. That artists behind Tidal said they want to strive for an streamable audio quality comparable to that of a CD, but is a CD really a medium in which its quality should be pursued? Why aren't people making an attempt to reach the audio quality of vinyl records or original analog recordings of music straight out of the studio? 

     As I've stated previously, there are many big-name artists backing this service up with, what seems to be, the fullest support of sorts. I mean, if sacrificing your great #musicrockbandselfieprofilepicture for a cyan square for a day represents full support, then by all means they fully support it.

an add for this service

But, with further analysis, it seems that maybe these popular artists could be dropping exclusive media and music on this streaming service. But, even with that being said, what will prevent possibly exclusive tracks on this service from being leaked onto YouTube or other services?

     There has also been a notable backlash towards this service. They have named a somewhat unreasonable price for this "high-fidelity lossless audio" music. As it stands right now, the price for this service MONTHLY is:

a solid $20/mo. 

Are you kidding me?

    Personally, I find this extremely unreasonable. I care a lot about music, and in turn I care a lot about audio quality. However, I can pay $5/mo for Spotify as a college student and get neato burrito features (such as being able to switch from mobile to pc speakers by the click of a button) AND decent audio quality. So, why should I pay an extra $15 a month for improved audio that may not even be that noticable, especially since I'm using these uni laptop speakers anyway?

    I'm not sure how this service will compete effectively with Spotify. In my opinion, all it has going for it is all of this artist support and #hashtag publicity. I don't see this service going beyond what other services in place, such as Spotify, have already accomplished.

          So... what do you think? Are you excited for Tidal? Is it really forALL? Will you be purchasing a membership? Let me know any opinions you have in the comments below. 

    oh yeah and if you want to see if you can spot the different between audio qualities, check out this link.

Thanks for reading.