With the music industry on the rise, so are the numbers of music streaming companies that offer the newest hits, and the finest quality of music. As a product of the 90s, LimeWire was one of the first popular ways of downloading your favorite artists then.
Over time, popular hosts like YouTube, Pandora, and Spotify have allowed online music and video streaming to customers for little to no cost.
Today, the music industry loses out on thousands of dollars due to free downloads. The artists are upset and have set new boundaries to save their craft.
With this wave of futuristic music, comes futuristic innovators behind it all. Music pioneer Jay Z launched a music streaming service with the slogan “TIDAL for ALL” accompanied by “ The Tides They Are A-Changing”.
Jay had a star-studded group behind him the day of the release in support of this new movement. Artists such as Madonna, Alicia Keys, Beyoncé, Deadmau5, and Rihanna all signed a declaration promising that each artist would work relentlessly to improve the pay system within the industry.
Artists are taking a stand against free streaming that is removing more than half of their album sales. The problem is, are you willing to pay for this? With free listening apps such as SoundCloud, Rhapsody, and Jango, how will Jay Z manage to get people to sign up for ten to twenty bucks?
According to an interview conducted by TheMuse.com, Jay Z reiterates that his product is not for everyone, yet for those who have a love and respect for music. Jay Z stated at New York University, “Aloe Blacc had a song that was streamed 168 million times and he got paid $4,000.
For us, its not us standing here saying we’re poor musicians. If you provide a service, you should be compensated for it”.
Many music services offer free streaming, or a premium plan that will usually cost the consumer $9.99 per month. For Jay Z’s company Tidal, offers a HiFi plan priced at $9.99 per month, and a premium plan set at $19.99 a month.
There is no free plan available on TIDAL. The backlash within this campaign comes from consumers believing the rich only get richer in this scenario. However, Tidal is making it a point to evenly spread the money earned to the artists fairly.
This way there is a “for us, by us” type of circulation. This might be a hard promotion to sell.
As college students and faculty of Saint Xavier University, would you be willing to pay $20 monthly to support musicians for their hard work? Or are you personally not compelled to saving the musical efforts?
For now, Spotify and other free outlets will continue to supply free stations and gain more revenue, due to the rejection of a $20 TIDAL plan that ALL cant afford. Is this a sink or swim situation?
We’ll have to stay tuned to the rising tide of TIDAL.
Nicole Gordon
Features Correspondent
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