Tidal: 30 things you didn’t know about the service! (List)

1. Tidal (stylized as TIDAL, also known as TIDALHiFi) is a subscription-based music streaming service that combines lossless audio and high definition music videos with curated editorial.

2. The service has over 25 million tracks and 85,000 music videos.

3. Currently offering no free subscription plans, Tidal claims to pay the highest percentage of royalties to music artists and songwriters within the music streaming market.

4. Tidal offers two digital music streaming services: Tidal Premium (lossy quality) and Tidal HiFi (lossless CD quality – FLAC-based 16-Bit/44.1 kHz).

5. Tidal was launched in 2014 by Norwegian/Swedish public company Aspiro.

6. It has distribution agreements with all of the three major labels, in addition to many indies.

7. In the first quarter of 2015, the parent company Aspiro was acquired by Project Panther Ltd., which is owned by Shawn “Jay Z” Carter.

8. Following the acquisition of Aspiro by Jay Z in March 2015, a mass-marketing campaign was introduced to relaunch Tidal.

9. Multiple music artists changed their social media profiles design blue, and posted the phrase “#TIDALforAll” on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

10. A press conference took place on March 30, 2015, introducing sixteen music artists to the stage, including Jay Z, who were all co-owners and stakeholders in Tidal.

11. The service was promoted as being the first artist-owned streaming service.

12. Each artist publicly signed a declaration, which opened with: “Throughout history, every movement began with a few individuals banding together with a shared vision – a vision to change the status quo.”

13. Some praised the impressive high fidelity, lossless audio quality, and the higher subscription fees which would result in higher royalties to the artists and songwriters, whilst others felt the high subscription fees and exclusive Tidal content from the artists involved could result in an increase of music piracy.

14. As of March 2015, the service itself claims to have over 580,000 paying users after being integrated with its sister service, WiMP, as well as 17,000 using the high fidelity service.

15. Tidal currently operates in 31 countries.

16. Aspiro first launched the Tidal brand in the UK, the US, and Canada on October 28, 2014. The launch was supported by Sonos and 15 other home audio manufacturers as integrations partners. In January 2015, Tidal launched in five more European countries: Ireland, Finland, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. Since then, they have joined hands with Denon, combining their streaming technology with speakers from HEOS by Denon. Aspiro was purchased by Project Panther Ltd. (owned by Jay Z) for SEK 466 million (USD $56.2 million) in January 2015. Before acquiring Aspiro, Jay Z stated in an interview with Billboard that he was willing to partner with other streaming services to carry out his vision. “We talked to every single service and we explored all the options,” stated Jay Z, “But at the end of the day, we figured if we’re going to shape this thing the way we see it, then we need to have independence. And that became a better proposition for us, not an easier one, mind you,” he concluded. On April 16, 2015 it came to public attention that Tidal was closing its original Aspiro offices in Stockholm, terminating the employment for all Swedish employees, including the current CEO Andy Chen. The company refused to comment on closing the offices, but confirmed that Andy Chen had been replaced as CEO by Peter Tonstad. In December 2015, Tidal appointed Jeff Toig as CEO of the company.

17. Tidal is currently owned by Jay Z, and a variety of other music artists spanning multiple genres within their field.

18. It is the first artist-owned streaming service in the world.

19. The slogan “Turn the tide” and “#TIDALforAll” was used by various artists on social media during the build up to the press conference relaunching the service.

20. The idea of an artist-owned streaming platform was stated as to “restore the value to music by launching a service owned by artists.”

21. During the previously-mentioned press conference, Jay Z himself, Beyoncé, Rihanna, Kanye West, Nicki Minaj, Daft Punk, Jack White, Madonna, Arcade Fire, Alicia Keys, Usher, Chris Martin, Calvin Harris, deadmau5, Jason Aldean and J. Cole were introduced to the stage as “The owners of TIDAL”.

22. A key selling point for Tidal in relation to competing with other streaming services such as Spotify and Pandora Radio is the exclusive content already available and expected for the future from the current artists who co-own the company, as well as others.

23. Exclusive content available on the relaunch of Tidal included Rihanna’s new single “Bitch Better Have My Money”, The White Stripes debut television appearance, Daft Punk’s Electroma (2006), playlists personally curated by Jay Z, Beyoncé, Arcade Fire and Coldplay, and a preview of Todd Rundgren’s new collaborative project with Anders Lindström and Emil Nikolaisen, and more.

24. Tidal stated on its official Twitter page that “lots of exclusive content [is] on the way”.

25. In April 2015, Tidal exclusives included Beyoncé releasing a video of her performing “Die for You”, a never heard before song of hers, dedicated to her and Jay Z’s wedding anniversary, Madonna releasing a teaser of her upcoming music video at the time for “Ghosttown” and Rihanna debuting her brand new song and music video “American Oxygen”. Jack White’s last concert before his semi-retirement, at the Fargo Theatre North Dakota, was also streamed live on Tidal.

26. In June 2015, Lil Wayne joined the service’s roster as an artist co-owner, kicking off the partnership by exclusively releasing a track on the service called “Glory.” He’s also planning his own TIDAL X concert series.

27. Shortly after Tidal’s launch and press conference, the mobile version of the service shot to the top 20 of the U.S. iPhone Apps chart. However, following criticism for its “out-of-touch marketing campaign”, two weeks later, the app had already fallen out of the top 700 ranking of the same list, while competing services like Spotify and Pandora were surging.

28. On March 30, 2015, a press conference was held at Skylight at Moynihan Station in New York City, to officially relaunch Tidal. The conference started with a brief introduction and explanation of Tidal from Vania Schlogel of Tidal. After introducing the aforementioned sixteen artist co-owners of Tidal onstage, recording artist Alicia Keys spoke on behalf of the artists and on Tidal. She stated, “So we come together before you on this day, March 30th, 2015, with one voice in unity in the hopes that today will be another one of those moments in time, a moment that will forever change the course of music history.” Keys also described the event as like a “graduation”. At the end of the press conference, all artists onstage signed a declaration, which stated Tidal’s mission and information on the company.

29. Following the press conference, some confusion was left within the public, as a lot of information was not covered, such as how much Tidal would compensate artists and songwriters compared to competitors such as Spotify, and if Tidal would provide any other features besides music and videos. Tidal claimed to have gained 100,000 new subscribers following the press conference revealing the artists involved in the service.

30. On February 23, 2016, T.I. joined the service’s roster as the latest co-owner, kicking off the partnership by releasing “Money Talk”, a single from his tenth album, exclusively on the service, as well as streaming his concert live from Greenbriar Mall in Atlanta.