Tidal – The new Spotify?

• 02 Apr, '15
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As Tidal was unveiled at the start of this week, we saw a launch event full of all the most iconic faces in the music industry, but does the new streaming service actually live up to it’s name?

One main thing that has changed in everyone’s lives dramatically over the past few years is the way in which we consume music. If you’re at university then you will have seen at first hand the change from CD to MP3, the rise of file sharing and the newest wave of streaming programmes. As Spotify has become so popular among both paid and free users, it has left it’s rivals clambering to catch up, with Apple rumoured to be currently working on a streaming project, the newest revelation appears to be Jay Z’s ‘Tidal’.

What is Tidal?

On the face of it, it appears to be strikingly similar to Spotify in both function and form, with the user interface looking almost identical to Spotify. The main claim Tidal makes is that users will be able to stream ultra high-quality lossless audio, which is essentially CD quality music. Unfortunately this comes at a cost, the premium service is £20 a month, which is double the price of Spotify premium. The other main feature highlighted was that Tidal will pay higher royalties to artists than Spotify currently does, and there will also be exclusive content from the likes of Rihanna, only available through the streaming service. But what is the price of giving the, already super rich artists, a larger slice of the pie? The money will ultimately come out of the user’s pocket, so it is difficult to see why anyone would choose to pay the extra costs that Tidal is suggesting.

Is it worth it?

Although the promise of exclusive content will be an attraction for many, Tidal still has many holes in it’s catalogue, not to mention the plethora of smaller artists missing, that Spotify now has. What’s more is that Tidal doesn’t seem to offer any real advantage to the smaller artists, while it focuses on the mainstream pop acts. The service’s commitment and concentration on high-definition audio is also discouraging, as more people stream content through their mobiles this could take a heavy toll on the user’s data.

When is it available?

Tidal has actually been running since October last year, however in it’s newest format it is available to download and subscribe from this week. Some current exclusives for Tidal users include Rihanna’s new single ‘Bitch Better Have My Money’, Daft Punk’s ‘Electroma’ and playlists curated by Beyonce, Jay Z and Coldplay.

For now, it seems too early to tell whether Tidal will be the landscape changing force in the music industry it has been set up to be. Either way it has a lot of powerful artists behind the wheel and only time will tell if Tidal or any other streaming service for that matter will challenge Spotify.