MUSIC: A new streaming service refreshes the debate over the price of music.
By Joey Vangsness, Staff Writer
If you have a Twitter account, chances are you saw your favorite musicians post something about “Tidal” or change their profile picture to a solid teal color. Artists like Madonna, Kanye West and Jack White tweeted cryptic messages like: “The power of music can change everything” and “#TIDALforall.” The hashtag quickly became a trend, with most of the public completely clueless as to what Tidal was.
Marketed as an artist-owned, premium-sound-quality experience, Tidal is a new music streaming service owned by rapper and entertainment mogul JAY Z. Its launch was marked by a star-studded video with appearances from artists like Daft Punk, Nicki Minaj, Coldplay’s Chris Martin and Arcade Fire’s Win Butler. In the video, these millionaire artists promise a new future for music and to “take a stand.” Still confused as to what exactly is ground-breaking about Tidal? Yeah, me too.
But after some research, you can learn that, unlike Spotify and Pandora’s free versions of streaming music with commercials, Tidal only offers a $10/month subscription and a $20/month “HiFi” subscription, with neither having commercials. Beats Music, recently purchased by Apple, offers a similar offer but with a lower sound quality than that of what Tidal advertises. Tidal’s “HiFi” promises “lossless” audio, which is supposedly how artists “intend” their music to sound. And you have to believe them because JAY Z said it, and JAY Z is an artist, right?
Yet the most interesting aspect of all streaming services is the amount of money artists with their music on these platforms make per stream. This includes how much, if at all, consumers should pay to listen to music online. Because Tidal is “artist-owned,” it promises to pay artists and their respective studios more money than its competitors.While exactly how much Tidal will pay its artists has not been released, Spotify is reported to pay artists only $0.006 to $0.0084 per stream. Regardless, many music listeners will balk at Tidal’s required subscription and continue to put up with listening to ads on Spotify’s free version.
It is no secret that musicians are consistently underpaid by these streaming services. Whether or not Tidal will pay the artists a fair rate is something to be discovered as more people begin to subscribe and pay for Tidal’s reportedly superior listening experience. I’ve always been partial to buying music directly from artists at the merchandise table at live shows. This ensures that they get all profits rather than a portion through a third party like iTunes or a streaming service. But sadly, that is not too realistic for a majority of music listeners, and they are stuck streaming their music for free and listening to the same frustrating commercials every couple of songs. So whether or not listeners want artists to earn a living wage through their art is up to the individual and his or her preferred way of enjoying that art.