Thanks to big-name owners, such as Jay-Z, Kanye West, Daft Punk, Coldplay and Rihanna, the brand new music streaming service TIDAL is making waves across the internet, a joke you'll be sure to read more than once today.
Through TIDAL's two tier service—$9.99 for standard definition audio and $19.99 for high definition audio—these artists are looking to take a stand against free music streaming services, which many have claimed don't pay the artists well enough. Most recently, Taylor Swift pulled her entire discography from Spotify for this very same reason.
TIDAL is banking on several big features that other streaming services can't offer at the moment: lossless, 16-bit Flac files, HD music videos and exclusive content from artists such as Beyonce and Rihanna, all in one app.
After personally using TIDAL for a few hours, I can confidently say that the high quality in the audio is extremely noticeable, even for someone that's not a complete audiophile like myself. I even listened to the same song on both Spotify (which I pay for) and TIDAL, and the clear winner for quality is TIDAL.
So are you willing to pony up $20 a month for higher quality? Or are you satisfied with the handful of other free music streaming services, such as Spotify, Pandora, or iTunes Radio?
2 Responses
I'll be sticking with Google Music and their 30 million track library (Spotify has the same number). While FLAC is nice, unless you have unlimited data, are mostly on Wi-Fi, or using T-Mobile, you'll quickly hit your monthly allowance using this.
My fear though is that artists pull all their tracks from competitors, rather than a day or two of exclusivity, and that'll just lead to illegal file sharing.
TIDAL didn't just launch, they've been out since last October, and were bought out by Jay-Z earlier this month. They did, however, relaunch with Madonna and co. backing them. But I'll probably never join because a) I don't really listen to any of the new "backers" and b) I'm still stuck in the world of downloaded music—I like total control over what's playing, so I haven't gotten hooked on any streaming service yet. If TIDAL let me download high-quality songs too, I might give it a try.
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