Since Kanye West released his ‘The Life Of Pablo’ album exclusive on Tidal, the number of Tidal subscribers has surged. For the first time ever, the high-quality streaming platform ranked number 1 on the iOS App Store.
Tidal has yet to announce anything, though it appears that Kanye has had a very, very big impact on Jay Z’s pet project. According to early bits from TMZ, Kanye’s ‘The Life of Pablo’ has already been streamed millions of times, with the number of ‘subscribers “more than doubled from around 1 million to 2.5 million”.
Plenty of information remains unknown, including the number of actual paying (versus trial) subscribers. But this is still a big leap for Tidal. Though still far behind Spotify’s estimated 27 million and Apple’s 11 million, the growth spurt solidly moves Tidal from fringe to threat. Indeed, Kanye’s move to exclusively release his album via Tidal has undeniably had a positive impact on the service, though it remains unclear if Kanye himself has benefited from the deal.
Part of the problem for Kanye is that exclusives can be very limiting to artists. Just yesterday, it emerged that ‘Pablo’ didn’t even make the charts, thanks to Tidal’s refusal to release data to tracking authority Nielsen Music. More importantly, ‘The Life of Pablo’ has been illegally downloaded more than half-a-million times, according to an estimate by Torrent Freak, thanks partly to unavailability on Spotify and Apple.
Kanye may have received upfront cash consideration for the exclusive, though depending on that amount, Kanye may have done Jay Z a massive favor.
But how big of a favor? How many trial subscribers are going to stick around after the 30-day free trial ends? At least Tidal now has the opportunity to convert users with high quality audio or other exclusives, video content, and the value of being on an ‘artist-endorsed’ platform.
Image from Pixabay, licensed under Creative Commons.
“Tidal may win them over with their high quality audio, or users may divert back to competing services like Spotify and Apple.”
LOL yeah, the kids with their $15 earbuds are going to pay $20/month for something that (to them) sounds like their existing $10/month service.
At least Tidal is showing some originality in their service offerings.
Just think where Apple Music could be if they decided to invest $500m a year into producing original content that they made exclusive to Apple Music and iTunes.
One big reason music is dying is from a lack of marketing of any kind; outside social media. Why isn’t there a record store day type promo for Christmas and Valentines Day? Dead flowers or music that’ll be around for a long time.
Think about it? CocaCola. The most known brand in the world, advertises constantly, why not a forgotten brand like Music?
Exclusivity with a major artist album isn’t “originality” in and of itself. It’s a big “f-you” to everybody else who uses a variety of other, cheaper, better competitor services.
Lack of marketing in music? You’re nuts. Your big ideas are Christmas and Valentines Day promotions?
I will never listen to TLOP. Only Kanye super-fans will opt into Tidal to listen to it (or pirate it, which most fans have already done). The exclusivity model will not work for lesser-known or upcoming artists.
Well then f-you too. Do you pay for music or just support the establishment?
You realize it’s $9.99 for their standard service aka the same cost as Spotify and Apple Music? And I’m tired of people acting like those companies aren’t run by selfish billionaires squeezing profits out of consumers for less value while on the other side giving a big middle finger to the artists who spend their lives trying to give us good music. Any other wonder why Prince sent his entire catalog to ONLY Tidal? It’s because the cost of creating good art isn’t being appreciated and Tidal is the only company that seems to recognize it. People buy 6 dollar waters, but can’t afford 10 bucks for ALL the music they’ll ever need? Gtfoh
You do realize that Spotify and the like are the new establishment screwing artists.
Impressive growth, for sure. There’s just one x-factor: TIDAL’s 30 Day trial.
Let me know when you convert those subscribers…
Now that the album’s readily available via torrents, what’s the stop people from canceling their subscription after 30 days and just downloading it illegally?
Exclusivity is fine, but it encourages pirating. Now, if Kanye West begins to utilize TIDAL as a means for releasing exclusive content regularly (e.g. GOOD Friday / uploading new songs every Friday), at least you have a strategy for retaining subscribers.
Content + Convenience = King
It’s no lie that piracy and legalized free streaming have rendered music almost valueless in today’s world. Whether it’s a failure in marketing or simply easier to get tens of millions of free subscribers for a shot at an IPO, it appears listeners aren’t really interested in paying for streaming music.
While we will never eradicate piracy entirely, we can contain it by taking down the big dogs. Having laws that actually make it a crime to operate large scale websites whose sole purpose is to monetize infringing content needs to happen. Laws that work would be a start. http://voxindie.org/will-safe-harbor-finally-get-fixed/
Thank you FarePlay, some people just don’t understand. Once the major illegal sites are taken down and people start getting charged, they’ll see that Tidal is ahead of the game. Also, it makes me mad when people keep saying only Jay Z is profiting. There are a ton of artists with a 3% stake in the company, Jay is just the one who actually put over 50 million of his own dollars in the company to make it a viable competitor. People want to get mad at him while he’s the one trying to make listening to music a better experience for those who care about the way it actually sounds, and he’s trying to make it more profitable for the actual artists. If you notice, even Taylor Swift put some of her music on there after she pulled ALL of it from Spotify.
There are music videos, concerts, and all kinds of other exclusive content you only see once you subscribe. Maybe if people did a little research instead of just being mindless Spotify diehards for no reason you’d see that Spotify is the one that’s really screwing the artists AND the consumers on content.
@FarePlay,
“Well then f-you too. Do you pay for music or just support the establishment?”
Huh? I’m not into music to make petulant statements or stick it to “the establishment.” Since you asked, yes, I do pay for music. I pay retail price for full albums, multiple times per month and have been doing so for decades in a variety of format. I’m the best kind of consumer Kanye should be catering to – and he’s lost me, big time. Not touching Tidal.
So you don’t pay for streaming services, but you pay full price for albums anyway? Why are you hating on Kanye then, you can still walk to Target and buy the album so what are you complaining about? Also, if you buy more than one album a month you’re losing money on music so why would anyone take your opinion seriously? Kanye is better at math than you.
hi all