An Open Letter to JAY Z - Tidal is Good But You're Fucking it Up
Hov,
Love your work. Big fan. But you’re fucking it up, man. Tidal is the laughingstock of the music scene. Here’s why and what you can do to fix it -
Let’s talk pricing. You may be able to sell water to a well but, there’s no fucking way I’m spending $240/year on music. I don’t care if Kanye himself came to my house and interrupted my dinner to declare his panini to be the best sandwich of all time (Which would be awesome). If you can’t give me MBDTF for ten bucks a month, I’ll stick with Spotify.
But here’s the thing. Tidal does have a $10/month standard option, doesn’t it? Your problem is that no one seems to know that. Cut the shit, Jigga. Let’s start promoting the option that 99.9% of your target audience will be interested in and stop trying to sell a luxury item that no one can show off to their friends. You’re not Beats, after all. How about instead of #TidalForAll we do #TidalFor10?
Which leads me to our next hurdle. That fucking hashtag is more cringe-worthy than an uncle commenting about his niece’s boobs on her Facebook wall. Tidal is not a revolution. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a revolution. Tidal is a struggling music app that may or may not be paying their artists more money than Spotify and Apple.
Simply put, #TidalForAll is painfully tone deaf.
What if, instead of putting all your music industry friends on stage to sign what I can only assume was the fucking Declaration of Independence, you gathered up some talented, under-valued artists. Pandora is paying these guys like 10 cents for every hundred thousand plays, or some shit like that. Talk about that. Put Kanye and Madonna in the audience. Show them clapping in support of these artists. Show them hugging theses artists. Show them doing a fucking hand-stand if you want but, for Christ’s sake never show them even hinting at the fact that they themselves are not making enough money. No. One. Gives. A. Fuck.
On to the next one - Why should I switch to Tidal? Yea, I know, Bae isn’t getting enough money for her iTunes singles. That’s not motivating me to jump over to your service, though. In fact, I kind of don’t want to sign up just to stick it to her. Not literally of course. I mean… I definitely would. If you were into that. Please don’t kill me.
Seriously, though. You’ve failed to show how Tidal is better. The crazy thing is, in at least one regard, Tidal is better than Spotify and Beats - hi-def videos! What I wouldn’t give to create a playlist of videos for my next house party. Can’t do that on Spotify yet we can fit all the people that know about that fact into the next sports car you buy.
Now, you’re taking about exclusive content, which is good. Keep that message going. Though, I suspect you’ll have your ass handed to you when Apple comes out with its streaming service that just so happens to being using exclusive content as it’s differentiator. You can’t keep giving artists a piece of the company for ever. You’ll need a new strategy.
Which brings me back to the $20 HiFi option. What if you cut that to $12.99. And let’s say you use that $2.99 premium, that now seems a lot more reasonable, to pay the artists more than any other streaming service. You could pay artists double what Spotify is paying for any stream from a HiFi subscription.
People want to hear that their favorite artists are doing well. Heck, I bet you’ll get a decent amount of folks who will pay the extra three bucks knowing they’re supporting their favorite indie band. But not you Jay. Not Usher. Because, fuck you guys. You’re not anti-establishment. You are the establishment. Now act like it and make Tidal something people care about.
Sincerely, a fan.