When Kanye West launched his latest album, the focus was on his protective approach to distribution. The strategy was controversial at best, especially given the immediate wave of piracy the title faced. But in the weeks following the official release, West has been less obviously changing how his fans perceive the very idea of an album in the streaming age. Continue Reading
Headphone maker Sennheiser released an app called CapTune for optimizing sound in mobile listening. The first streaming partner for this new app is the oft-beleaguered Tidal. Continue Reading
Tidal owner Jay-Z is adding to the number of exclusives on his streaming property. The hip-hop master has taken several of his popular albums off of all rival services: Reasonable Doubt and his Blueprint trilogy have all been removed from just about everywhere except Tidal. Continue Reading
Never a dull moment with music service Tidal, and companies associated with it. Rumors are afloat that tech giant Samsung might acquire the Jay Z-owned music service. The rumors are loud enough to draw a denial from Samsung. At the same time, new rumors say that Samsung-owned Milk Music might be discontinued, leaving a hole in Samsung’s consumer ecosystem. Continue Reading
More details have emerged about the royalty lawsuit filed against Tidal. First the streaming platform issued a statement about the legal action, and noted that it has removed all music from the plaintiffs. Second, Tidal confirmed that it has fired two of its C-suite leaders. Continue Reading
Tidal has been hit with a class-action lawsuit over royalty issues. In an ironic twist for the artist-owned company, plaintiffs claim that they did not receive correct notices of intent from the streaming platform and did not get accurate royalty payments for their music that was played on Tidal. Continue Reading
Tidal’s rising and falling fortunes have been the subject of much attention in the music media. The latest adventure for the often-conflicted company could be new ownership. Sources have told The New York Post that Samsung has allegedly reopened talks to acquire Tidal. Continue Reading
Shortly after the launch of Rihanna’s Anti spiked Tidal membership, another of the platform’s artist/owners is experimenting with using it for exclusive access. Kanye West released his new album, The Life of Pablo, on Tidal, but it has had vastly more complicated results. Continue Reading
Considering the rhetoric at Tidal is all about artist control and empowerment, the platform has done a highly questionable job of living up to that hype when it comes to distribution. Rihanna is again the subject of Tidal’s poor management with her new album, but she still has some innovative ideas about what a contemporary album release can be. Continue Reading
The overarching narrative we saw last year with Tidal, the boutique streaming service focused on artist empowerment and audio quality, was wonky PR. Unfortunately, the company has kicked off 2016 with another peculiar problem: Tidal appears to have accidentally billed some of its former customers. Continue Reading
After cycling through two top execs (Peter Tonstad and Andy Chen) in less than one year, Tidal has named its newest CEO. Jeff Toig has taken the helm of the oft-beleaguered streaming service. Understandably, there’s some curiosity as to why an experienced music pro would join up what many have predicted to be a sinking ship. Continue Reading
Vania Schlogel has left her position as chief investment officer for Tidal. Schlogel, one of the top front-facing execs at the boutique streaming service, told The New York Times that she actually departed over the summer. Continue Reading