Jay-Z

Jay Z's Music Streaming Service Tidal Set to Relaunch

Streaming service hopes to offer "new direction for the music industry"

Watch out, Spotify – there’s a new streaming service in town.

Music streaming service Tidal is set to officially relaunch Monday under new ownership by rapper Jay Z. The company will hold a press conference at 5 p.m. ET where its new owner “will announce a commitment to a new direction for the music industry from both a creative and business perspective.”

Tidal boasts 25 million tracks with “high fidelity sound quality, high definition music videos and expertly curated editorial" features. It could give competitors such as Spotify and Beats a reason to be concerned. Its plan of attack also includes getting first releases of tracks by big-name artists before other digital streaming services, according to TechCrunch.

Unlike Spotify, Tidal does not offer a free streaming option. The music streaming service – which Jay Z reportedly acquired for $54 million – costs subscribers $19.99 per month for high quality streaming compared to Spotify’s premium, ad-free price of $9.99 per month.

Tidal subscribers also have the option of “standard definition service” matching Spotify’s premium price of $9.99.

Tidal currently has 35,000 subscribers – a smaller amount than Spotify’s 15 million paying subscribers as of January.

Spotify has run into controversy with big-name artists such as Taylor Swift and Jason Aldean taking their entire catalogs off the service after claiming its failure to fairly compensate musicians. TechCrunch reports that Tidal is offering musicians “payouts of twice as much as its rivals.”

The Jay Z-owned streaming service has already garnered support from big-name musicians including Madonna, Kanye West, Rihanna and Nicki Minaj.

West and Rihanna were just two of the musicians using social media to support Tidal by using the hashtag #TIDALforALL and changing their Twitter profile pictures to the same shade of cyan.

A teaser video featuring musicians supporting the service was released March 30 to coincide with the relaunch.

Tidal currently offers a 30-day free trial for new users.

Contact Us