Musicians Unite for Jay Z’s TIDAL Streaming Service

Musicians across the twitter-verse have come together to support today’s 5pm Eastern/4pm Central launch of Jay Z’s recently acquired TIDAL Streaming Service.

TIDAL is a high definition, subscription-only streaming service that offers Lossless Hi Fidelity sound quality for its upper tier subscribers. The basic service will include standard sound quality, HD music videos and “expertly curated editorials” for $9.99 with the Lossless Hi Fidelity added to the those previous listed for $19.99.

Musicians on twitter with close affiliations with Jigga have turned their profile pictures blue to support the launch, including his wife, Beyoncé, his protege, Kanye West, fellow Roc Nation artist, Rihanna, Madonna, Coldplay, and even Nicki Minaj.

Spotify currently has the throne when it comes to music streaming, which it took from Pandora, but will the consignment of these popular artist be enough to compete? Apple will soon be re-launching it’s acquired Beats Music service and thus create a strong competition in the market. One serious edge that TIDAL will have is Taylor Swift’s catalogue of music which was infamously pulled from Spotify last year. People love Taylor Swift… but people also love FREE in which Spotify is offered to all desktop users. It could take more than just a twitter campaign and T Swift’s music to change the “tide” of the music streaming landscape.

As an avid user of Spotify Premium (I don’t go a day without using it) I will be curious if TIDAL can offer the same breadth of an extensive and diverse music library and a sleek, user friendly interface that Spotify has made itself the front runner with.

Check back with BackstageOL for updates and a comprehensive comparison with Spotify.

TIDAL launches today at 5pm Eastern/4pm Central.

Update 5:20pm:

Although the launch event was brief it was attended by large representation of popular music industry. Artists including Jay Z, Alicia Keys, Chris Martin, Deadmau5, Calvin Harris, Arcade Fire, Jack White, Beyonce, Rihanna, Madonna, Kanye West, J. Cole, Usher, Daft Punk, and even Jason Aldean joined together on stage and signed a new declaration for how they wanted their music to be heard. TIDAL is now live and is offering a 30 day trial of it’s normally $19.99 package that includes access to Lossless Hi Fidelity streaming.