
Jay Z Reveals Plans for Tidal, a Streaming Music Service - ValG
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/31/business/media/jay-z-reveals-plans-for-tidal-a-streaming-music-service.html?_r=0
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DIVx0
I'd pay $20/month or more for a service that:

* had high quality streams

* had gigantic library

* _biggest of all_ cracked the 'discovery' nut.

I listen to music all day, I don't like to listen to the same tracks more than
a few times so I have a hard time keeping my queue full.

I'm a Spotify subscriber so I'll find an artist I think is interesting, play
their whole discography and then start digging into 'related artists' to find
new stuff.

This is a bit of a drag and is hit or miss. I don't necessarily want to find
related music, but music that I might like. Spotify's radio feature is just
about useless. Voting one way or the other will skew it to play pretty much
_only_ the thumbs up'ed artist or avoid a genre entirely if you thumbs down a
particular track.

I still think there is a killer music service waiting to be born. I don't
think Tidal will be it.

~~~
freehunter
I like Spotify's discovery. I subscribe to a lot of playlists that are
constantly updated where I can get a lot of new artists from. Never used the
radio, I just go to their playlists and find Americana or Alternative or
whatever I'm looking for.

~~~
DIVx0
I've tried many of their playlists. I've found some that are very good and was
thrilled to find them, however the content was easy to exhaust and I ended up
picking apart those playlists for new artists. Back to square 1 if you will.

I know it sounds like whining, but I really think the 'killer app' of music
will be something that can effortlessly pick out the unknown gems from the
ocean of new music. I'm continually surprised about the quality of new music
but I don't like to have to dig around for it my self.

~~~
encoderer
I can't help but feel that you're doing it wrong?

Spotify playlists are beautiful because you _subscribe_ to it. The playlists
are updated and curated continuously. This is true of the Spotify-published
playlists and those of musicians, celebrities, etc.

~~~
DIVx0
Sure, i know what you're saying. The playlists I do subscribe to are indeed
updated continuously. However updates are relatively minor. A few songs from
artists already on the list, maybe one or two totally new-to-me artists every
other week. I'm not saying it's nothing but I want more.

Spotify boasts a gigantic library, I cant imagine I've heard everything good
(objectively) already. There has to be thousands of hours of material that I
simply can't find that I'd otherwise love to hear.

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freehunter
Here's the problem: I don't want another music service. I want all my favorite
artists on _one_ music service. There is literally no reason for them to not
be other than various forms of greed.

Garth Brooks created his own music streaming service because the people behind
the album don't get enough attention. Taylor Swift doesn't put her music on
Spotify because she can make more money on iTunes. Jay Z creates a streaming
service to put out higher quality music files at a higher price. The result? I
don't listen to their music even though I really want to (I know Jay Z is
still on Spotify).

Hey Taylor, this isn't 2005, where I would buy a bunch of MP3s from anywhere
and put them on my iPod. I don't store music locally, hardly anyone does.
Apple doesn't even make a large-disk iPod anymore. Likewise, how many people
are going to be willing to subscribe to multiple music sources like they do
Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon?

You have a problem with Spotify? Work with them. Let's ask Sony how they fared
coming up with Crackle instead of using Netflix.

~~~
nothrabannosir
Competition = good, one music service to rule them all = bad. Good on Tailor
Swift for keeping Spotify on their toes. Good on you for choosing Spotify and
not Tidal.

Let a thousand musical flowers bloom, and may they forever compete for
attention of the bees, giving us more colors and extravagance as time
progresses.

Please keep making alternative music services and please keep giving us more
choice, better quality and lower prices.

~~~
Retra
More choice doesn't mean better quality. It means you are far more likely to
make the wrong choice, and that you have to invest more energy into doing so.

And that can really eliminate the convenience such a service aims to provide
in the first place.

Choice is good when the options are differentiated. Like choosing between a
CD, an MP3, or a streaming service. It's not nearly so good when you are
choosing between Stream A, Stream B, or Stream C.

~~~
Steko
The same argument could be made for cars or airlines or hamburgers. Too much
choice, I might chose wrong oh noes you could get locked into the wrong $10
service for a month.

~~~
Retra
Yes, it could. And I suppose you're going to argue that user experience means
nothing? That, as a company, getting "locked into the wrong $10 service for a
month" is a perfectly ideal way to treat your customers?

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sehr
_The plan was unveiled on Monday at a brief but highly choreographed news
conference in Manhattan, where Jay Z stood alongside more than a dozen
musicians identified as Tidal’s owners. They included Rihanna, Kanye West,
Madonna, Nicki Minaj, Jack White, Alicia Keys, the country singer Jason
Aldean, the French dance duo Daft Punk (in signature robot costumes), members
of Arcade Fire, and Beyoncé, Jay Z’s wife._

That's a lot of cooks!

~~~
ValG
I think what's interesting is that this in intended to give artists buy-in to
the streaming service. If they can get enough exclusive material and artists,
I could see it take off. A few months ago I remember reading a post by an
artist that said this is the only way for artists to get their fair share, but
no one was big enough to tackle it, maybe Jay Z is the guy to do it?

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deeviant
“This is a platform that’s owned by artists,” - Jay Z

I think he meant, "This is a platform owned by established, rich, and ageing
artists, whose resolve to assist up-and-comers should rightfully be
questioned."

Not to say this can be any worse then something like Spotify, which already
trounces over the independents, but I hardly think this is a likely group to
bring democracy and creativity back to the musical scene.

~~~
goatandsheep
Actually, you can only publish if you're registered with one of four record
labels: [https://tidalsupport.zendesk.com/hc/en-
us/articles/201167132...](https://tidalsupport.zendesk.com/hc/en-
us/articles/201167132-How-can-I-publish-my-music-in-TIDAL-)

~~~
stolio
That says _unsigned_ artists must register with one of those four _services_.
From their web page, the first one listed
([https://www.recordunion.com/](https://www.recordunion.com/)) is a digital
distribution company that charges under $15/year to interface with an online
store on the artist's behalf.

If an artist is signed to a label then it's on the label to have a working
relationship with the online stores and streaming services.

~~~
simplexion
So... they have to pay $15 a year for someone else to upload their music?

~~~
mkr-hn
This is normal. I think Pandora and Grooveshark are the only services that
don't require a distributor for unsigned artists.

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some1else
“The challenge is to get everyone to respect music again, to recognize its
value,” said Jay Z, whose real name is Shawn Carter. “Water is free. Music is
$6 but no one wants to pay for music. You should drink free water from the tap
— it’s a beautiful thing. And if you want to hear the most beautiful song,
then support the artist.”

\---

Water is metered here in Slovenia, more like on-demand streaming.

~~~
bobbles
This metaphor is all over the place. Water sure as shit isnt free, taxpayer
support yes, free no. Should we not support all the people behind getting the
water to your end of the pipe?

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guelo
They might have a chance if these big name artists, and their record
companies, agree to pull their music from all the other services.

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lqdc13
Why not just let people download the songs? I would hate to stream FLACs... Or
stream anything for that matter.

Then again, Bandcamp already does it.

~~~
copsarebastards
Yeah, I'd rather download stuff too, but we're not the average user. I think
an ideal platform does both.

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DigitalSea
I don't know if the world is ready for this kind of thing. As an audiophile I
think it is great that we're going to get access to a trove of lossless music,
but I think the majority who is happy listening to music through their iPhone
earphones and tinny speakers in their smartphones won't care (especially not
enough to pay double the cost of a Spotify subscription).

Then there is the kind of internet speed required to stream lossless music.
For those who have FLAC's in their music collection know that an album is
hundreds of megabytes compared to a V0 rip which is only usually around the 75
to 100mb mark (depending on length and tracks). Now imagine streaming a track
that is upwards of 20mb+? Here in Australia we have poor internet, we're
ranked pretty low. I already struggle to stream 320kbps from Spotify Premium
on my connection. The story is the same in New Zealand and other parts of the
world. Then you have the bandwidth limitation, a lossless streaming platform
would chew through potentially gigabytes of data (in Australia we still have
bandwidth caps and we get speed limited or charged extra for going over them).

Then there is the subject of modern music production. Sad to say it, but most
modern music is so overproduced and compressed during the mixing stage that it
doesn't matter if you're listening to a 128kbps MP3 or lossless, it won't
sound any better. Most music is destroyed in the studio before it is even
released, therefore not worthy of listening to in any high bitrate format. If
you want to debate this, I implore you to read up on "the loudness wars" in
which it has been pretty documented that music is getting louder and the
louder it gets, the lower the quality is (as the dynamics and peaks are
stripped out).

I think Tidal is great, but I am very sceptical that it will address the
issues people currently have with Spotify, more specifically how it pays out
royalties. I do think there is a serious lack of strong music platforms that
encourage discovery. As great as Spotify is, it doesn't let me fluidly
discover new music. Rather I find myself clicking through related artists
which feels counter-intuitive considering how much music and music data there
is out there. Tidal very much comes across to me as a platform built by a rich
music industry hotshot, backed by equally big and established artists who have
sold millions.

I would love to see the idea of a VIP backstage feature incorporated into a
platform like this. You can pay a monthly subscription fee to subscribe to an
artist and in return get access to a members only area with exclusive early
release music, discount merchandise, pre-release concert tickets, a chat
feature/Q&A and other member only private features. I think something like
that could work really well for large groups like One Direction and artists
like Justin Bieber especially. Seems like a logic additional revenue stream
for large and small artists alike.

It is a really nice idea, coupled with the exclusives component as well, but I
just don't think the majority cares enough about music quality as a select few
do. Most people cannot probably even hear the difference between lossless and
a 320 MP3 (especially considering they're listening on prosumer equipment like
iPhones and MacBooks). I would definitely use this if it had some classic
artists on here, 60's/70's rock and blues that wasn't overproduced and would
sound great lossless (like Led Zeppelin's earlier material or The Beatles
especially).

Metallica's Death Magnetic album -
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Magnetic#Criticism_regard...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Magnetic#Criticism_regarding_production)
is definitely not going to sound any better if it finds its way onto the Tidal
platform, that is for sure.

~~~
thezilch
Even if FLAC was required for "high-fidelity" \-- it's not -- a 20mb track and
assuming the track is at a super short length of 60 seconds is going at
~341kbps. YouTube is already pumping bits faster than that at 360p [0], so
that really doesn't seem like a hard part of the equation, and surely the
market for this is not looking to capture an audience smaller than YouTube's.

[0]
[https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/1722171](https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/1722171)

~~~
DigitalSea
I was just using FLAC as a comparison for lossless considering when someone
thinks of lossless audio they will mostly think of FLAC. Of course it goes
deeper than that.

I think the hard part of the equation is still definitely dealing with
bandwidth and speed limitations though. I have issues streaming Youtube video
even more so than I do HQ Spotify tracks (and it is a problem more common in
Australia particularly than most think). Optimisations can only go so far
before you encounter hard limitations software cannot work around without a
reduction in quality.

Considering the platform will offer 320 and lossless, I guess they're not
limiting themselves to some small niche of the market. Most people will
happily pay the same price for Spotify like quality and a possibly larger
catalogue on Tidal, but I don't think the lossless aspect is going to be as
big as Jay Z thinks. It's a marketing gimick more than it is a selling point
for the general audio consumer.

~~~
0x0
1k/2k/4k video streaming seem to be coming along alright in many markets so I
don't think lossless audio streaming is over the top. Totally understand the
sucky situation in Australia though. Maybe an aussie cdn cache could help in
that particular market?

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adamnemecek
Not to sound like a naysayer but this is going to tank so hard it's not even
funny.

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anonbanker
I'll avoid the obligatory XKCD (927), but doesn't this move, and all other
fractionalizing of the music industry, merely serve to make Piracy the most
appealing option?

not that I mind; I haven't paid for music since 2007.

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ElectricFeel
HE. Jay Hova!

